Ha ha ha! HA HA HA HA HA!
Suck it, Mike Coffman:
The Colorado Independent on Tuesday asked the state’s top ethics panel to turn over recordings of more than a dozen secret meetings held this year — including closed sessions where a member of the panel reported deliberating on an ethics complaint filed against former Secretary of State Mike Coffman, who won election to Congress last fall — charging the panel with violating the state’s Open Meetings Law.
Oh, man. They're just all falling down, one at a time, aren't they? This is precious, truly. I freaking hate Mike Coffman.
For those of you outside of Colorado, or who don't know who former CO Secretary of State, and now US House Representative, Mike Coffman is, let me introduce you:
Coffman was the Republican nominee for the open seat of retiring Congressman Tom Tancredo from Colorado's 6th congressional district. He ran against and defeated Hank Eng, the Democratic nominee. The seat is considered to be the most Republican-dominated district of the Denver-area seats and is also one of the wealthiest in the nation.
(snip)
The American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado, Common Cause of Colorado, the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law and the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund have accused the Secretary of State's office of improperly marking 6,400 voter registration forms as incomplete, because they failed to check a box on the form. Incomplete registrations require voters to either re-register or provide extra identification when they go to vote. Soon after the accusations were made, Common Cause filed suit against Coffman, in his official capacity as Secretary of State. The Secretary of State's office denied wrongdoing, and Coffman said he believes his office was correctly applying the law. On October 30, 2008, the parties reached a settlement and the suit was withdrawn.
So that's why I don't like Mike Coffman. He caused a HUGE ruckus here in Colorado last fall, and was generally a dick about the entire situation. Coffman only caved because the pressure on him was tremendous; it had absolutely nothing to do with having every ballot counted. The only thing I respect about Coffman is that he has served honorably in the US military. That being said, he also oversaw 2 elections in Iraq. You know! The elections in Iraq that were filled with intimidation, lies, graft, corruption, and didn't mean shit? Yeah. Those.
Anyway. Of course, the bigger story here (and a national news issue, since I was linked to this story by HuffPo) is the fact that Colorado's ethics committee has been fairly unethical. Not a huge surprise in this day and age, given that they appear to have no qualms about covering something up for Coffman, but it's a freaking ethics committee! Oh, the irony!
Back to the Colorado Independent article:
In all, the ethics panel — established by voters in 2006 by the adoption of Amendment 41, touted as a measure to increase government accountability and transparency — has spent nearly 85 percent of its time meeting in secret this year to discuss complaints filed with the commission and requests for rulings on the conduct of public officials and government employees.
The commission didn’t hold a single discussion about the Coffman complaint in open, public meetings but met numerous times in secret and on telephone conference calls before issuing an 18-page ruling that cleared the Aurora Republican of wrongdoing.
"To deliberate behind closed doors and issue [an 18-page] ruling — that’s an obvious, plain and unambiguous violation of the Open Meetings Law," (Denver First Amendment attorney Steve) Zansberg said. "Even if it’s properly convened, they cannot reach a decision, they cannot adopt a position in executive session."
Uhm. That's sort of the opposite of Amendment 41. Maybe Miss California can clue us in to what "opposite" actually means in this instance. Because now I have to check out this ethics panel, and call them all to bitch and complain. I was planning to do other things tomorrow, damnit! I have a life here, ya know! Why do I have to oversee the Colorado ethics committee for being unethical? Democracy is a fickle mistress. Or something.
Also, I'm not sure what the complaint against Coffman even is, but I'll bet you money that it has something to do with suppressing the vote. Let's find out, shall we? I heart Teh Google. Again from the Independent, one of the few outfits in our square state actually doin' their jobs:
The newly-empaneled Colorado Independent Ethics Commission is probing watchdog allegations that Coffman allowed GOP operative Dan Kopelman, then an employee of the department and a former Coffman campaign staffer, to operate a side business selling partisan voter data in violation of state ethics guidelines. The second charge stems from Coffman’s approval of a voting machine contract to Premier Election Systems (formerly Diebold) while the firm was also represented by Phase Line Strategies — Coffman’s political consultant in his congressional race.
Well, whaddya know?! That is SUCH a huge surprise! I am SHOCKED! Shocked, I tell you! Simply speechless! Also, pigs fly, but only when they're not contaminating humans with the friggin' swine flu. Little bastards.
Mike Coffman can suck it. At least The Colorado Independent is on the case!
P.S. I erased a large portion of this diary earlier, because there are so many layers to this story and it would take me about a week to put all of the pieces together. Relating to the Colorado IEC, I deleted this little gem (h/t to bumblebums in the comments): Colorado Ethics Watch has filed a complaint today with the IEC. :)
The IEC can suck it, too.