Bashed office-holder defends use of time on state job

It’s safe to say Secretary of State Mike Coffman and Colorado Ethics
Watch Director Chantell Taylor won’t be doing lunch anytime soon.
In its sixth press release bashing the Republican office holder since
last May, Taylor’s group recently accused Coffman of using work hours to raise money to fund his primary race against three other Republicans
for the GOP nod in the 6th Congressional District.

Colorado Ethics Watch, which attacks Republican politicians almost exclu-
sively, charged that Coffman has raised $36,000 by wining and dining
GOP cronies.
Coffman, apparently, has had enough.
Upon learning that The Statesman was looking into the charges, on
Wednesday Coffman issued a statement to the paper that goes after
Taylor personally.
In the missive, Coffman expressed
a frustration felt by many
Republicans about Ethics Watch — which claims to be nonpartisan —
and with the media’s coverage of the group.
“Taylor is a fraud and Ethics Watch is a front organization for the
Democrat Party,” Coffman stated. “Taylor’s goal is all about making
wild accusations so she can get one-day-hit pieces into the media to cre-
ate negative perceptions for Republicans. In turn, Taylor uses
these stories to raise the money from her partisan donor base, which she
refuses to disclose, to pay her salary and for overhead.” (See sidebar for
full letter.)
Coffman is running for the CD 6 seat vacated by Rep. Tom Tancredo.
Ethics Watch charges that Coffman has been raising funds for the race on
taxpayer time — time, the group said, that should instead be spent preparing
the state for the 2008 elections.
In response to Coffman’s stinging letter to The Statesman, Taylor
issued a response of her own.
“Secretary Coffman is clearly not above mudslinging to distract voters
from the serious issues facing his office,” she said. “I urge Secretary
Coffman to start focusing on his job as secretary of state rather than
spending even more taxpayer time to try and discredit me or my organization
for his own personal benefit.”
Coffman has faced persistent open-records requests — and criticism
— from the organization over the past year. Although Ethics Watch
refers to itself as a nonpartisan organization, the six press releases
concerning Coffman represent more attacks than the group has issued
against the entire Colorado Democratic Party.
Taylor contended in an interview that Coffman is doing a “terrible” job
of drawing boundaries between his job as secretary of state and his role
as a candidate for Congress.
However, the campaign manager for Sen. Steve Ward, R-Littleton,
Coffman’s rival for the CD 6 nomination, said the workweek meals pose
no conflict. Christine Burtt said her candidate faces a similar balancing
act as a state senator who’s runningfor Congress.
“These are elected positions, and their schedule is their own. We live
in a time when people have a lot to balance on any given day. The criteria
is getting your job done,” she said, adding that she believes
Coffman is doing his job as secretary of state.
“I think Colorado Ethics Watch is looking for a way to be in the media
this week,” Burtt said.
Coffman echoed the sentiment, noting that elected officials work
under different rules than other government employees, and are allowed
to use their time as they see fit.
“Taylor knows that elected officials don’t have ‘official office hours’
and that they are responsible for their duties 24/7,” Coffman said. “If
the law didn’t allow this, how could former Attorney General Ken
Salazar have campaigned for the U.S. Senate? How could Gov. Bill Ritter
run for re-election? Or how can Mayor John Hickenlooper help raise
money for the Democratic National Convention?
“Is Taylor going to ask for copies of Mayor Hickenlooper’s schedules? I
don’t think her Democrat donors would reward her for doing that.”
Colorado Ethics Watch initially filed an open-records request seeking
Coffman’s electronic work schedules, as well as those of his chief of staff,
Jacque Ponder. The Statesman subsequently examined the on-file records
at the Colorado Department of State. Coffman’s electronic calendar
from Oct. 1, 2007, to March 20, 2008, showed that he has had frequent
workweek breakfasts and lunches, as well as some dinners, and several
other daytime meetings with potential campaign donors. Among them
were Thayer Tutt, director of the El Pomar Foundation; cable pioneers
Glenn Jones and John Saeman; Tom Minnery of Focus on the Family;
Colorado Springs businessman Steve Schuck; civic activist Gary Yourtz;
Republican activist Mort Marks; banker Jay Davidson; chairman and
president of BP America Bob Malone; Bob Tointon, president of
Phelps-Tointon Inc.; bank president Mariner Kemper; Land Title
Guarantee president John Freyer; real estate development company
president Mark Falcone; Starz Encore Group CEO John Sie; and
Bill Miller, president of Anschutz Exploration.
It also, however, showed numerous lunches with county clerks and legislators
involved in elections policy.
The schedules, which provide only a superficial snapshot of Coffman’s
activities, show that he has spent most of his weekday hours working
on the certification of voting machines and the SCORE statewide
voter registration system. According to an independent
analysis by The Statesman, the fundraising dollars collected following
weekday meetings appear far lower than the $36,000 figure provided by
Ethics Watch. Upon request, Ethics Watch provided a breakdown of the
numbers.
Taylor explained that Ethics Watch added up all donations to
Coffman’s campaign that followed a weekday meeting with the secretary
of state. The $36,000 figure included meetings any time Monday through
Friday, including at night, between Oct. 1, 2007, and Jan. 31, 2008.
It also included donations from Vincent Schmitz and Diana Heinle.
Coffman never met with either Schmitz or Heinle during the period
under scrutiny, but he did meet with their close family members. Their
contributions came to $7,100 of the $36,000.
The Department of State disputed almost every facet of the Colorado
Ethics Watch analysis. For example, $6,600 cited by Ethics Watch as originating
from people with whom Coffman had met, actually was
donated before Coffman declared his candidacy for Congress on Nov. 5.

Colorado Ethics Watch is a local branch of the national Citizens for
Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, which asserts nonpartisanship,
but which has faced national criticism that it has a distinct liberal
bias. The national group filed a complaint this week with the Federal
Election Commission stating that a 501c4 organization based in Fairfax,
Va., violated federal election law by running an advertisement allegedly
advocating the election of Republican Senate candidate Bob Schaffer.
While many of the charges made by Colorado Ethics Watch against
Coffman have not borne results, a charge fired last May hit some paydirt.
Ethics Watch called for a state audit and a criminal investigation
after discovering that a former Department of State employee, Dan
Kopelman, had maintained a partisan Web site while working in the
state elections division. Coffman eventually demoted Kopelman, andthe office instituted a tougher policy restricting partisan political activity
by its employees. A legislative audit committee found that Kopelman had
violated several personnel rules, but had committed no crime.
Ethics Watch has frequently had its charges against Coffman and others
picked up by newspapers across the state. For instance, a blurb on
the Colorado Ethics Watch’s charges concerning Coffman’s schedules was
recently published in the Rocky Mountain News without a response
from Coffman.
In his letter to Taylor, Coffman issued one final parting shot at
Ethics Watch — and also a challenge to the media.
“There are no ethical boundaries that seem to restrict Taylor from
advancing her political agenda,”
Coffman said. “So as long as the media is willing to take her seriously,
without investigating her work, she will continue to be successful in
attacking Republicans and in meeting all of her fund-raising goals.”
Campaign donations from people who met with Coffman (or whose
family members met with Coffman), as cited by Colorado Ethics Watch,
include: $1,000 from Ellen and
Frederick Caruso; $1,000 from Young
Cho; $9,200 from Allan and Diana
Heinle; $2,000 from Mark Johnson;
$500 from George Mallon; $2,000
from David Mowatt; $2,300 from
James Possehl; $2,300 from Blair
Richardson; $4,600 from Richard
Robinson; $1,000 from Don Schlup;
$3,000 from Martin and Vincent
Schmitz; $500 from Rema Sinclair;
$2,000 from Ben Stein; and $4,600
from Terence Stevinson.