October 05, 2009 10:43 PM UTC

Records Request Filed Against Senate Minority Office Over Penry Spam

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• by: Colorado Pols

Watchdog group Colorado Ethics Watch today filed a Colorado Open Records Act (CORA) request on the Senate Minority Office, asking for email records in connection with alleged misuse of the state-funded office’s update list on behalf of Senate Minority Leader Josh Penry’s gubernatorial campaign. The request asks for “any e-mail contact list for the Senate Minority Office, any correspondence reflecting the transmission of any e-mail contact list for the Senate Minority Office to any person not employed by the Senate Minority Office in 2009, and all documents referring to any person’s candidacy for governor in the 2010 election.”

Brief statement and a link to the request document after the jump–says Ethics Watch, “A Denver Post report raised suspicions that the Penry for Governor campaign may have received an e-mail list from the SMO, whose budget is paid for with government funds.  Colorado law prohibits state resources from being used to promote candidates for public office.”

ETHICS WATCH SEEKS RECORDS REGARDING POSSIBLE GOVERNMENT CONTRIBUTION TO PENRY CAMPAIGN

October 5, 2009

Today, Ethics Watch filed a Colorado Open Records Act (CORA) request with the Colorado Senate Minority Office (SMO), seeking records regarding the office’s e-mail contact list.  A Denver Post report raised suspicions that the Penry for Governor campaign may have received an e-mail list from the SMO, whose budget is paid for with government funds.  Colorado law prohibits state resources from being used to promote candidates for public office.

The Denver Post reported that nonpartisan state legislative employees received e-mails at their state government accounts from the Penry campaign.  The Post report raised questions how these employees ended up on a campaign e-mail list.  While sending e-mails to such accounts is not illegal, Section 1-45-117 of the Colorado Revised Statutes prohibits state agencies from making contributions to campaigns.  Ethics Watch’s CORA is intended to determine whether the SMO was the source of the e-mail list.

Ethics Watch will post the response from the SMO when it is received.

Related Documents

CORA to Senate Minority Office – 47.76 KB

October 5, 2009