GOP group not “reckless”
Colorado Attorney General John Suthers’ office this week dismissed a complaint by Democratic Party leaders that a Republican campaign committee was “recklessly” spreading false statements about Democrats.
The Republican-backed Trailhead Group made computerized telephone calls stating that “never before have Colorado legislators taken payments from contributors or lobbyists whose names are supposed to be disclosed and worked so hard to keep them secret.”
Earlier this year, 10 House Democrats reported that their office accounts received $83,000 worth of in-kind assistance from a group called “Research and Democracy,” which has not disclosed its contributors.
The attorney general’s office concluded that Trailhead did not violate state law because it was stating an opinion that donor names are “supposed to be disclosed.”
“It is our opinion that in order to meet this standard of recklessness the statement in question must be one of fact only, not a statement which is the result of interpretation, opinion, or in today’s vernacular, ‘spin,”‘ Suthers said in a letter written by Jeanne M. Smith, deputy attorney general.
Suthers, a Republican, was appointed attorney general after Democrat Ken Salazar was elected to the U.S. Senate.
Amend. 37 supporters object
The backers of Amendment 37 say the Colorado Public Utilities Commission is failing to meet the spirit of the state alternative-energy mandate approved by voters in 2004.
The PUC is setting up rules for the clean-energy plan in such a way that will bring the state only to Amendment 37’s minimum requirements, they say. It requires the state’s largest utilities to obtain 10 percent of their power from renewable sources by 2015.
“We’re the framers of this statute,” former PUC chief Ron Lehr told the House Select Committee on Strategic Renewable Energy on Wednesday. “We know what we intended. They have substituted their judgment.”
Lehr and others complained that state energy regulators are considering alternative-energy proposals based on cost assessments. By not taking into consideration other factors, such as the jobs created by new wind farms, the state will fail to reach its potential, they said.
PUC spokesman Terry Bote disagreed.
“These folks participated in the rulemaking,” he said. “They were able to make all their arguments here, and the commissioners declined to adopt their positions. The commission has explicitly stated that all of these goals are going to be furthered by these rules.”
