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July 12, 2009 08:01 PM UTC

No-Bid Stimulus Lawyers: What Matters, What Doesn't

  • 28 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols

Catching up with Governor Bill Ritter’s latest earned media problem, which we’re sorry to say took a little turn for the worse yesterday–as the Denver Post’s Karen “The Shiv” Crummy reports:

Gov. Bill Ritter turned down a $75-an-hour offer from the Colorado attorney general’s office to handle legal matters regarding the disbursement of federal stimulus funds, instead hiring his former law partners for up to six times that cost.

The governor’s lawyers told the attorney general’s office in February that they planned to hire outside counsel to help with the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act money. Deputy Attorney General Geoff Blue told them his office was willing to do it, but his offer was rejected.

“They thought we didn’t have the expertise or manpower,” said Blue, who handles legal policy and government affairs. “We would’ve gotten the job done. But we told them, ‘That’s your call,’ and we had nothing more to do with it.”

A few weeks later, Ritter hired Hogan & Hartson through a no-bid contract. So far, the firm has been paid $40,000 from federal funds…

Myung Oak Kim, spokeswoman for the governor’s economic-recovery team, said Hogan & Hartson was the right firm for the job.

“We disagreed with the AG’s position that its staff could provide the help we required,” she said. “We needed deep legal expertise on the most complex federal legislation passed in decades, and we needed it quickly.”

But Jenny Flanagan, executive director of the watchdog group Colorado Common Cause, said that even if Hogan & Hartson was the most qualified firm to do the work, the fact that it’s Ritter’s former employer should have “signaled the need for greater transparency.”

The article goes on to explain the legal backing for the contract, an obscure provision in state law that allows some regular contract bidding procedures to be bypassed. Fair enough.

Ritter loyalists had some cover on Friday in responding to Crummy’s first story on the hiring of his former law firm to assist in distributing stimulus money, by claiming that GOP Attorney General John Suthers’ office had “approved” the deal (we heard this informally on Friday, in addition to similar assertions made in comments). Clearly, Suthers was not interested in helping a Democrat out with a little helpfully interpretive corroboration, and his office’s role in this story was essentially to throw Ritter under the wheels. Which as you can see (duh), they did not hesitate to do.

So what have we got here?  

Basically, it’s another situation that will, in all likelihood, not result in any real-word fallout or sanctions against Ritter–since it was legal for this contract to be awarded in the manner it was. But the problem for Ritter is how, legalities aside, this story is politically another absolute goddamn nightmare. Look, we’re willing to accept that the complexities of the stimulus funding and all that compliance paperwork is a huge challenge, for which the best legal minds are called for. We’ll even agree that the highest concentration of such minds in the state of Colorado is quite arguably at the law firm of Hogan & Hartson, and that the work they are doing on the stimulus is in all probability worth every penny being paid to them.

But in a situation where a conflict of interest charge is this easy to level, credibly or not, for God’s sake! Why the hell wouldn’t you go through the perfunctory motions of a bidding process? Hogan & Hartson would have won on the merits over the already-overburdened AG’s office (Suthers is posturing for full partisan effect, just as Ritter should have expected), and above all, doing it this way would have averted another completely unnecessary round of negative press for Ritter.

Everybody’s got their own take on why these things matter, but for us, this is the problem, and it has been the problem for some time–who is watching the Governor’s back politically right now? So much of the damage that has been done to Ritter’s standing, both with his Democratic base and among independent voters with a keen sense for weakness, has been the result of his own political mishandling of situations he is confronted with. Ritter didn’t have to enrage labor and key legislators with the union bills he vetoed, all of it could have been prevented with better advance communication as we’ve said repeatedly. He didn’t have to wait until the last day of the session to casually tell the press he would veto the death penalty repeal, after so many legislators had put their credibility on the line for it. Just like this contract for perfectly justifiable legal services could have been awarded to the same people who have it now, controversy-free, with a slightly less politically ham-fisted approach.

This is what has got to get fixed, and soon–the toxic combination of badly-executed ‘triangulation’ politics against his own base of support with this persistent bureaucratic tone-deafness to the political considerations that actually matter is Ritter’s greatest threat right now, not his Republican challenger(s).

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28 thoughts on “No-Bid Stimulus Lawyers: What Matters, What Doesn’t”

  1. Ritter is a DA/ lawyer.  He is comfortable with lawyers.  He has surrounded himself with lawyers.  

    The problem is lawyer do not run things (just law firms).  A leader (business, political, or elected) says where they want to go and lawyers provide advice on getting there legally just as an operations expert helps decide how to get there efficently.  

    Look at Ritters leadership team:

    Harris Sherman – Attorney, Ex Dir DNR

    Mike King, – Attorney, Deputy Dir DNR

    David Neslin – Attorney, COGCC

    Jim Martin, Attorney, Ex Dir CDPHE, serves on COGCC Board

    Russell George, Attornry, Ex Dir CDOT

    Where have we ended up – largest industry in the state hates DNR and #1 priority of transportation is absolutely no where in terms of $ or public awareness.  

    Hogan and Hartson is only the symtom.

  2. What have we got, you ask? What do you think we’ve got?

    As “johnpauljones” states, what we have is a Governor of our state who is a former DA who has surrounded himself with more lawyers. Ok. That’s not a crime and maybe to be expected.

    But what’s not expected (or maybe should be, you tell me) is that we now have a “Democratic” Governor of our state, deciding our laws and methods, who is quite obviously on the take and trading favors for financing, placing back-room deals over the welfare of those who live here and pay his inflated salary, and union busting every chance he gets.

    Good for Ms. Crummy. She found in Ritter a gift that keeps on giving. The more you follow Ritter’s money trail, the more corruption and favoritism you will find. Ritter is his own worst enemy, because he’s been given the faith of his state and he is literally taking it to the bank. This guy’s so lustful after power that his moves are inept and transparent, and he doesn’t give a horse’s fundament whether you see him taking the money or not because he knows he is running unopposed and he can’t flip us the bird fast enough.

    I salute you Ms. Crummy. You’re doing the work most other reporters don’t have the guts to do, and you’re in the process exposing unbridled arrogance and blind ambition that’s leaving a trail of illegalities and miserable ethics. Keep it up and keep following the money. There are multiple trails to follow and they all lead down darker scenarios than what you’ve already found.  

    1. I will agree that Ritter has been tone deaf on this. And like every other human being, he has his blind spots. But no one credible has ever accused Ritter of being corrupt or on the take in any way.

      I think that is actually one of Ritter’s problems. As he is not on the take, he figures his decisions by definition are correct because they are free of political taint.

      1. That’s one of the more profound things I’ve seen you say, Dave. I think you’ve summed up a significant part of Ritter’s problem, which is not as simple as either side thinks.

      2. Ritter isn’t corrupt, no corrupt politician would be this incredibly clumsy.  The band is playing a waltz and Ritter is performing a two-step.  But it still won’t look good in a campaign ad next fall.

        1. All you have to do is look at Blago or Uncle Ted Stevens to see a pretty clear link between corruption and clumsiness. Because the more corrupt they get, the more confident they are that they’ll always get away with it.

          I don’t think Ritter is corrupt in the least. I also don’t think he’s that great of a governor, but that being said I don’t think even the greatest governor would find himself beloved in this budget situation.

      3. Ritter should be a State Supreme Court Justice or even a Federal Judge NOT a Governor.  You Dems need to find someone else to run for 2010.  Obama needs to move Ritter to where he is more effective…as a Federal Judge.

        Perhaps Ritter could appoint himself to the State Supreme Court where Full of Malarky retires.

        1. Look, Ritter, like every other human being on the planet, is imperfect. And there’s some things he does that honk me off. But the bottom line is he’s doing a good job. And we’re one of the few states that does not have a state budget that is either way overdrawn or is cutting everything.

          And keep in mind that if he was replaced, no matter by who, within 2 days we’ld all be complaining about that candidate. We’re Democrats – that’s what we do.

    2. No, not at all. Nothing suggests that. But he is definitely guilty of being completely tone-deaf to the political problems this would create (which we’ll all no doubt see again in political ads next fall).

  3. …but this doesn’t seem like a big deal.  It’s not that much money  (especially when compared to all the stimulus money in the pipe).

    Call me crazy, but it seems more along the lines of the incorrect mountain thing (stupid, progresscoloradonowexceptoopswedon’thaveanymoneylefttoboreeveryonetotearsoverimaginaryscandalsdaily) than it does anything below board.

    1. I think this one does for a couple of reasons.

      1) While we all agree that Ritter did this for the best of reasons, it sets an example from the top that it’s ok to just pick a vendor with no competition and no clear justification. And the one you pick can be your best friends.

      2) It’s symptomatic of the Ritter administration’s unwillingness to look to new companies for any work the state does.

      3) It’s politically tone-deaf. Now you may want to encourage that but those of us on the Dem side would like to see Ritter at least have a shot come election time.

      1. isn’t that much — in the tens of thousands of dollars, not a billion here or a billion there.

        Sure, every penny matters, but LB’s point is sound. This is small potatoes, especially because the stimulus compliance would have cost some money no matter who got it.

        This is not to minimize the optics of Ritter’s no-bid contracting with his former firm.

            1. It’s a huge deal and Ritter should be impeached.  Are you happy now?

              I was being my moderate self and minimizing the shrieking about this, just like we should about some intern idiotically posting the wrong image on a candidate’s website.

              Hey – since when are you guys worried about money?  Just print more!

              🙂

              1. And can sell the voters on the worth of spending legislative time on that rather than trying to cut the budget, go for it.

                Personally, I think the rhetoric you just tried to feed me was a little over the top.

                I know you were trying to split the baby.  But dammit, this contract should have had a specification assigned to it and should have been put out for bids.

                It was a good example of Ritter tone-deafness.  Not illegality, but insensitivity to how things look.

                1. is a great point:

                  It was a good example of Ritter tone-deafness.  Not illegality, but insensitivity to how things look.

                  $40k to that law firm is a fart in the wind.  He seems to unnecessarily damages himself with the left and the right simultaneously.

                  But even though I would like to see him defeated, I wouldn’t think of calling him corrupt or shady.  He’s a good man.

                  1. Because I don’t like the alternatives.

                    But he’s hard to support, because I think he’s his own worst enemy.

                    If he thinks he can win with people like me staying home, then his polls are better than my gut.

  4. How is this any different from the other pay to play scandals engulfing elected officials?  Ritter takes their campaign cash and then awards a no-bid contract?  Sounds awfully corrupt to me.

  5. I wanted to jump on and provide some information on this, which I hope helps.

    When the President signed the 1200 page bill in Denver, Gov. Ritter and all of us who work on these issues knew we needed help understanding all of our obligations and opportunities under the act.  That included deadlines, which if we didn’t meet, would mean we’d lose federal dollars. This bill was rushed through (there was great controversy about whether Members of Congress had actually ready it before voting on it).

    This contract was done in March.  We did not feel that the AG’s office had the necessary federal expertise to provide the best possible advice and help.  Hogan and Hartson has a DC office, and a Stimulus Task Force, a history with the bill and experience that simply could not be replicated in the Governor’s office or the Attorney General’s office.

    Also, a competitive bid process takes weeks; that would have meant we would miss deadlines and lose dollars for Colorado.

    So, we entered into an agreement with Hogan and Hartson who are enormously qualified to do this work.  There are few people around who know Colorado issues as well as Cole Finegan and Ted Trimpa.  Plus their DC expertise.  Should they be disqualified simply because the Governor once worked there?  It’s not like we didn’t think about the political implications of this.  But not everything we do in Bill Ritter’s office is dictated by political considerations.  Some people actually think that’s a virtue!

    Finally, for those seeking information about the ARRA and Colorado, I encourage you to visit http://www.colorado.gov/recovery.

    Anyway, I understand and appreciate the concerns expressed here; I welcome and appreciate the good feedback.

    Jim Carpenter

    Chief of Staff (and not a lawyer!)

    Gov. Bill Ritter

    1. No, but a hurried no-bid contract should have to pass the smell test simply because the governor quite recently worked there and the firm was his fundraising base.

      Question: You say, I’m sure quite accurately, that a bid process would have taken weeks, which would have meant missed deadlines and lost money for the state. How does Colorado’s experience compare with the other 49 states’? Did every state have to spring into action and hire connected firms outside the normal bidding process, or were some able to make the initial deadlines using government lawyers and later hire firms using normal procedures?

      Another question: If this cost $40,000 March-June, which isn’t that much, is it a reasonable question why the state doesn’t just have a government-affairs firm on retainer — resulting from competitive bidding — to handle something like the initial blizzard of complicated work? If so, was that used and to what extent? If not, why not?

      1. if he’s going to post here (which is a questionable decision), he’d better be credible and responsive, else he’s making things worse.  OH, JIM…….

        1. Message control involves saying what you want to say, not what people actually want to know.

          Don’t look for any actual questions to be answered.  That’s bad form in politics.

    2. >a competitive bid process takes weeks;

      Yes, but it exists to protect against cronyism, among other things.

      > Should they be disqualified simply because the Governor once worked there?

      More important should everyone ELSE be disqualified simply because the Governor DIDN’T work for them?  Because that’s what you did here.

      When you put stuff out for bids, you don’t have to answer questions like that.

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