Scott Gessler's Blame Games Debunked Yet Again

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by: Colorado Pols

Scott Gessler.

An excellent story in today's Durango Herald from reporter Joe Hanel demolishes recent claims from Secretary of State Scott Gessler that last year's election modernization bill, House Bill 1303, has pushed his office's budget into the red.

The truth? Gessler just doesn't manage money very well.

Gessler’s office was running a $7 million surplus – so large it violated the law – in June 2012. A year later, it had fallen to less than $2 million, and now legislators are worried his budget will need extra money to keep it afloat.

Most of the shortfall traces back to Gessler’s cuts to business filing fees, according to budget numbers the Herald obtained through the Colorado Open Records Act. He also spent money on website upgrades to make it easier to register a business in Colorado.

Gessler, a Republican, is running for governor, and he touts his cuts to business fees on the campaign trail. But under the Capitol dome, he places blame for his collapsing budget on House Bill 1303, a mail-voting bill that Democrats passed last spring. [Pols emphasis]

“The issue basically with the budget is 1303’s been a budget-buster. It’s blown our budget out of the water,” Gessler said at a Dec. 19 oversight hearing at the Legislature…

As Hanel explains and an astute reader of our blog laid out earlier this month, Secretary of State Gessler has repeatedly cut the fees paid by businesses other entities to register with the state, including "holidays" where the fees were basically eliminated for months at a time. This was done in part to reduce the Secretary of State's then very large budget surplus to the level allowed by law. Costs of modernizing the election system after House Bill 1303 were incurred, Hanel reports, but only after Gessler's office had lost millions of dollars in revenue from reduced fees on businesses.

As a Republican candidate for governor in 2014, Gessler has used these cuts–which he was partly obligated to make–as proof of his pro-business credentials. In hindsight, though, it looks like Gessler cut fees much too aggressively, leaving him with no cushion to pay for implementing an election modernization bill authored by county clerks from both parties. And what about all the money spent unsuccessfully defending Gessler from last year's ethics complaint?

It's not unreasonable to be, you know, less sympathetic to Gessler's budget problems with all this in mind.

10 thoughts on “Scott Gessler’s Blame Games Debunked Yet Again”

JeffcoBlue says:

January 17, 2014 at 11:18 am

Blows his budget pandering to business, then points the finger.

I don't want this guy ANYWHERE NEAR the state budget, and I think that's a fiscally conservative thing to say.

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1. BlueCat says:
  
  January 17, 2014 at 2:53 pm
  
  Isn't Gessler the one who didn't think he could figure out how to live on an SOS's salary only after he won the job?
  
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Diogenesdemar says:

January 17, 2014 at 11:51 am

As all of today's good businessmen, like Gessler, know . . .

. . . there's really only one thing to do in such a situation . . .

. . . file bankruptcy and walk away !!!

Bye bye, Scotty!

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1. BlueCat says:
  
  January 17, 2014 at 2:57 pm
  
  Or he could just decide, like Sarah Palin did, that actually governing was too much work. Although I don't think he's going to be able to turn his political career into a lucrative celebrity parasite gig with an easy schedule like Palin and Gingrich have done
  
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  1. dustpuppy says:
    
    January 17, 2014 at 4:03 pm
    
    It's called a street bum. I'd like to see Gessler out pandhandling for a couple of quarters per hour for a change.
    
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    1. mamajama55 says:
      
      January 17, 2014 at 4:21 pm
      
      Maybe like this…?
      
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DawnPatrol says:

January 17, 2014 at 1:26 pm

Lies atop lies atop lies — it's the career-long M.O. of amoral jackals and grifters like Gessler and his right-wing cronies. Cheat, steal, lie, fabricate, obfuscate, stonewall.

Layer upon layer of sedimentary political filth. Time to flush 'em.

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Cogito says:

January 18, 2014 at 9:57 am

I regularly use the website for business registration. The concept of a fee "holiday" was used by Gessler's predecessors when the surplus got too large. But the site is not easier to use. In fact, I find it harder to navigate for business registrations and searches. I never understood why the S of S felt it necessary to change it.

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Duke Cox says:

January 18, 2014 at 10:13 am

I never understood why the S of S felt it necessary to change it.

Whatever the reason, I would bet there are political overtones. People like Gessler are obsessive, the GOP is a perfect place to identify, train, and exploit overzealous idealogues like Gessler. Powerful businessmen have long understood how to use willing toadies like Gessler to further their political goals.

Big business doesn't really support small business, now does it? One of the Republican parties' greatest coups was claiming and winning the title of "champion of small business". Tain't true, McGee. Start-ups get eaten up…pretty simple. Just ask the wolves of Wall St.

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1. Duke Cox says:
  
  January 18, 2014 at 10:16 am
  
  Actually…just look at the cartoon mama posted…your answer lies somewhere in there.
  😛
  
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