December 07, 2009 05:31 AM UTC
Why Colorado's Secretary of State Race Matters
20 Comments- by: mikerobinsonpc
In 2006, the Democrats, Moveon.org and George Soros were pissed. Not only had George W. Bush survived his 2000 election, but he won reelection in 2004 handily. The most galling part of the 2004 election for the Dems was the state of Ohio. Ohio’s Republican Secretary of State had not only kept out questionable ballots that would have benefitted the Dems, but the Secretary allowed in ballots for Bush that seemed unkosher to the lefties. Bush carried Ohio and got 4 more years. What to do? What to do?
The next election cycle, in 2006, saw the Lefties’ creation of the Secretary of State Project or SoSP for short. The SoSP Project was co-founded in July 2006 by James Rucker, formerly director of grassroots mobilization for MoveOn.org Political Action and Moveon.org Civic Action. During a panel discussion at the Democratic Party’s convention last year, we learned that the Democracy Alliance, a financial clearinghouse created by Billionaire George Soros and Progressive insurance magnate Peter B. Lewis, approved the Secretary of State Project as a grantee. This means the SoSP Project is effectively funded by Soros and Lewis.
The SoSP web site is proud of their achievements to date as well as their Soros funding. ”
We’ve helped to elect 11 of 13 election reform candidates in key states like Minnesota and Ohio. Winning in these states has made a difference already, and now we’re gearing up for more wins in 2010. Potential donors should know that the SoS Project’s startup and overhead costs are already fully funded. So your contributions go to providing money directly to candidates in targeted races and independent expenditure campaigns in critical states, not to our operational costs
.”
The SoSP, in 2006, targeted its funding efforts on the Secretary of State races in seven swing states — Iowa, Minnesota, Nevada, New Mexico, Ohio, and financed our own Ken Gordon in Colorado, and Michigan. Democrats emerged victorious in five of those seven elections — all except Colorado and Michigan.
The 2006 SoSP Minnesota victory had national ramifications two years later when Minnesota’s 2008 U.S. Senate race was decided by the SoSP endorsed Secretary of State, Mark Ritchie. Since the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now or ACORN for short, had endorsed Ritchie and contributed to his campaign, ACORN had a certain level of immunity when it came to counting ballots. On Election Night, incumbent GOP Senator Norm Coleman had won the election by a razor thin 300 votes. After weeks of challenges and rulings by Dem Secretary of State Ritchie, Al Franken became Minnesota’s newest senator and the Dems 60th vote in the U.S. Senate. The 2,074 page Senate version of Obamacare passed a key cloture vote with 60 votes, the bare minimum. The Secretary of State Project had now paid off like a winning powerball ticket for the Democrats.
Now we have a new election coming up in 2010. In 2008, sitting Colorado Secretary of State Mike Coffman won election to the 6th Congressional District and this left a vacancy for Secretary of State. Governor Ritter appointed defeated Democratic State Senator Bernie Buescher to fill Coffman’s term. He is the first Democrat to fill this slot in over 40 years. Since the SoSP participated in Colorado’s last Secretary of State race in 2006, they are probably out for blood this time around.
This upcoming election cycle, the SoSP has so far only endorsed three Secretary of State incumbents. No new candidates yet. The current SoSP list includes Minnesota’s Mark Ritchie, Al Franken’s best friend. Since there is about a year to go before the 2010 election, there is no rush for the SoSP to endorse now. The SoSP uses another Soros’ backed entity, ActBlue.com, to handle contributions. As a private 527 corporation, the SoSP can accept unlimited financial contributions and doesn’t have to disclose them publicly until well after the election.
When you visit the ActBlue website, Secretary of State Buescher is well represented. Although not openly endorsed yet, his ActBlue account for Colorado’s Secretary of State race already includes 35 financial supporters. Not bad for a guy who isn’t even supposed to be on the SoSP radar screen.
A number of troubling events have occurred in Colorado since SoSP’s birth in 2006. ACORN has set up shop in Colorado with a foothold in Aurora. After his 2006 win, our sitting Democrat Governor, Bill Ritter, saw fit to sign an Executive Order allowing Labor Unions to penetrate the state government. Because of this, the AFSCME has started a Local Union of Colorado State Employees more formally called Colorado WINS/AFSCME Local 1876 part of the AFL-CIO. They share the same Denver address with the SEIU local union. Our Colorado tax dollars now flow to the AFL-CIO in Washington. The newness of this AFSCME Local has not prevented their parent from giving a couple of thousand dollars to Mr. Buescher in his quest to become an actual elected Secretary of State.
There are currently a million more registered voters in Colorado than there are actual voters. You can thank the lack of voter role purging and cleanup for that. That creates a lot of room for shenanigans by ACORN and its buddies.Since Mr. Buescher will be the acting Secretary of State when the 2010 ballots are counted, he must feel pretty good about the final vote outcome next November. Come to think of it, he will oversee Colorado’s U.S. Senate and Congress races as well. This must make acting Senator Bennett and Betsy Markey sleep well at night.
The Republicans have reacted to this entry of Chicago-style politics into our Rocky Mountain state by offering up Scott Gessler in opposition. Mr. Gessler may become a burr in the Chicago style saddle of the SoSP. Scott Gessler is a Lawyer who offices in Downtown Denver. His practice concentrates on Election Law. He has 16 years in as a U.S. Army Reservist. He has been a Federal Prosecutor. Gessler is not a lightweight.
The SoSP has a litmus test to get an endorsement. Their web site states the requirements for an endorsement which includes:
**-“Election officials should not place onerous requirements on or attempt to intimidate non-partisan voter registration groups. (such as ACORN)
**-Efforts to suppress the vote through onerous requirements, such as unconstitutional photo ID laws, must be opposed.
**-Efforts to raise voter participation of citizens who often face special barriers, such as students, military personnel, low-income people and minorities – including Election Day Registration – should be endorsed and actively supported.”
Amazingly, Mr. Buescher feels the same way as the SoSP. He doesn’t like a photo ID requirement to vote and likes it when a person shows up to vote and registers on the spot. ACORN joins in with their approval of these onerous methods to make Mr. Buescher, the SoSP and ACORN a loving threesome. Scott Gessler is in direct opposition to the SoSP way of voting.
One thing appears certain, if you vote for Bernie Buescher to become Colorado’s Secretary of State, a lot more votes ala Chicago, will be counted, including dead people, people who have left Colorado, non-people, etc. If you vote for Scott Gessler, a lot more legal votes will be counted and the votes will likely reflect the actual number of Coloradans who live here.
I live in Colorado. I vote Gessler.
”
You know, comrades,” says Stalin, ” that I think in regard to this: I consider it completely unimportant who in the party will vote, or how; but what is extraordinarily important is this – who will count the votes, and how.”
From Memoirs of a Secretary of Stalin’s by Boris Bazhanov.
Mike Robinson is Senior Partner at Robinson & Henry P.C., a Castle Rock, CO Law Firm.
That must mean this is a serious argument — otherwise, why invoke Stalin?
In negotiating the challenges of operating a democracy in a modern nation of roughly 300 million people (or a modern state of roughly 5 million people), you can err on the side of false positives or false negatives, but you can’t avoid error, intentional or otherwise, altogether.
When I lived in West Germany in the early 1980s, I was astounded to find that every citizen simply received their ballot in the mail, filled it out, and sent it in. I thought, “now, why can’t we do that?” More and more, we are doing that. It comes at a price in lost ritual, lost comradery at the polls, but at a benefit of convenience, and expanding participation.
You are arguing against policies that similarly expand democratic participation, generally to those segments of the population who have been, historically, most disfranchised. I suspect that you are right, that doing so inevitably means that we will also marginally expand the number of deceased people who choose to participate as well. We saw, in 2000, that, in fact, such invitations to malfeasance can be decisive in a national election, when the vote is close enough. I think on the whole, though, that our democratic system functions about as well as a modern democratic system can function.
Not utilizing these innovations to help get out the vote of those groups which, perhaps to some extent by self-selection, are underprepresented at the polls, on the other hand, maintains a bias in favor of the traditionally most privileged segments of our society in how we are represented at that polls. You can make all the arguments you want to dance around this fact, but fact it remains.
So, as I said, pick your poison. Do you want to risk a slight increase in the inevitable rate of slight corruption on the margins, or a heavily skewed representation that favors at the polls those who least need to be favored?
I’m scared now. Stalin too. And–OMG–Labor Unions!!!
Be afraid, be very afraid, of…
Bernie Buescher.
Unions may be the scourge of society, but the wealthy with criminal ‘financial errors’ not so much, apparently, if they can hire help to get their past swept clean:
the Dead White Male lives! It’s a proud day for 19th Century British Aristocrats eagerly carrying the White Man’s Burden…, or, you know, having someone else carry it for them….
Good to know that Mike is out there protecting the Robber Barrons from the disgruntled peasants! And what a surprise that keeping the franchise nice and narrow is one of his top priorities!
It’s all so clear now.
Stalin had a furry (arguably) mustache.
Squirrels are furry.
Squirrels like acorns.
ACORN is a left-wing group.
Bernie Buescher is (somewhat) left-wing.
Therefore, Bernie Buescher is Stalin!
My god how could I have missed it!
Hee hee.
of the witch trial in “Monty Python and The Holy Grael.” Logic: Ya gotta love it.
to see if he floats.
I think Michelle Bachmann could at least get on board with this. If we can’t investigate elected officials for anti-Americanism, we could at least make sure they aren’t witches!
passed the CO Bar. I’m not jumping to conclusions…but…
I didn’t want to go there, because, you know, I’m going there, but it does seem to cheapen that coveted honor….
Have you heard of any issues or problems about how the SoS office is handling elections? No? I haven’t either.
Buescher is doing a superb job and is doing so in a totally non-partisan manner.
of some willingness on the part of Bernie Buescher to play politics with his office is as absurd a contention as I have heard from the right wing bloviosphere.
I count Bernie as a friend and I will tell you uncategorically that he is one of the most honest and least partisan people I know. Bernie is doing a superb job as SOS and will make sure that Colorados’ elections are fair and honest.
Any contention to the contrary is political claptrap.
Do you think that Mr. Buescher is corrupt? Comparable to Josef Stalin? Are you scared of ACORN?
Just wondering…
I’m very proud of Secretary Buescher and I celebrate that a fellow Western Sloper is in statewide office – and no, I do not believe he is corrupt
I’m also proud to support Scott Gessler, as he would make a terrific Secretary of State, mainly because he is tough enough to champion the needed changes at SOS, as well as being a great fiscal conservative – nonetheless, this race pains me because I love my fellow Western Slopers….
gracious of you my friend (to whom I still owe a bucket of chicken, I know, I have been slacking…)
we saw very well what happens when a “rubber stamp Republican” if the form of Katherine Harris holds the position in Florida back in 2000 and what happened right here in Colorado when Mike Coffman purged the records of eligible voters just last year. Never again.
I live in Colorado (Arvada, to be specific). I vote Buescher.
I thought Katherine Harris said that
….but if the state GOP had any brains, they’d be running Nancy Doty for S.O.S.
Aside from the gender balance she provides (they’re looking at running five presumably straight, white, middle-aged men for the state constitutional offices), she has actually overseen elections as Arapahoe County Clerk.