District Attorney Bill Thiebaut says he won't file charges against political groups targeting House District 47 race.

DENVER - Pueblo County District Attorney Bill Thiebaut will not file charges against any of the political groups that have been attacking the two candidates for House District 47.

In three lengthy letters to Rep. Buffie McFadyen, D-Pueblo West, her Republican opponent, Jeff Shaw, and a Denver-based political organization filing a complaint against a GOP 527 group, Thiebaut said there was not enough evidence to prove that negative attacks against against the two candidates were criminal in nature.

While Thiebaut admonished the 527 groups specifically and the adversarial nature of today's political races in general for engaging in negative campaigning, he doesn't think a court would see it as anything other than a "time-honored tradition of advocacy and dissent."

"The ads demonstrate the fiercely partisan competition for control of the Colorado House of Representatives revealing the bad political blood that is shed to acquire power, and confirming the adage that political truth can be much stranger than fiction," Thiebaut wrote. "Inflaming the tenor of political debate certainly makes for high drama, but Jeffersonian faith in the people compels us to debate the major issues of our time openly, honestly and thoroughly."

Thiebaut goes on to say that there is no evidence showing that the 527s - called that because of the IRS tax code they operate under - knowingly or recklessly made false statements.

McFadyen and the Denver-based Coloradans for Ethics in Government had filed complaints with Thiebaut charging that the GOP-backed The Trailhead Group falsely attacked her for voting to raise taxes, increase fees and engaged in questionable business practices.

At about the same time, Shaw had filed a similar complaint against a Democratic Party-backed group called Main Street Colorado. That group said Shaw and a handful of other GOP candidates elsewhere in the state opposed cancer screening mandates on insurance companies.

Under Colorado law, it is illegal to knowingly or recklessly make false statements about political candidates. To date, however, no district attorney in the state has ever filed charges against any group or candidate for doing so.

And these complaints are no exception, Thiebaut said.

"There has been no showing that the political groups knew the statements made in the ads were false or that the statements made were in conscious disregard of the truth," he said. "Accordingly, there is not a reasonable likelihood or probability that the 'false statements relating to candidates' statute has been violated in this instance."