If Colorado’s Republican secretary of state, Mike Coffman, is elected to Congress, Gov. Bill Ritter can appoint a Democrat to serve out the remaining two years of Coffman’s term as the state’s chief clerk and bottle washer.
Call it Ken Salazar’s Revenge.
Salazar, a Democrat, had two years remaining on his second term as attorney general when he won the U.S. Senate seat in 2004. Republican Gov. Bill Owens promptly named Republican John Suthers — who had lost the AG’s race to Salazar in 1998 — to the job. Suthers held off a surprisingly stiff challenge from the doughty but underfinanced Fern O’Brien to win in his own right in 2006.
Coffman, term-limited after twice winning the state treasurer’s job, was the only other Republican to win statewide office in last year’s Democratic tide, edging state Sen. Ken Gordon, D-Denver. Now, Coffman is considering leaving his modestly paid ($68,500 a year) and essentially administrative state job to run for outgoing U.S. Rep. Tom Tancredo’s 6th Congressional District seat, which carries a princely $165,200 salary. If he wins the job, Democrat Ritter could complete the parallel with Salazar’s case by naming Gordon, the man Coffman edged in 2006, to the secretary of state post.
Such an outcome, of course, presumes that Gordon, who will be termed out of the state Senate in 2008, still wants a political office — an imponderable ranking right up there with: “Is a four-pound robin fat?”
Democrats didn’t like giving up the AG’s seat in 2006 but rejoiced when Salazar’s pull at the top of the ticket helped them gain control of both chambers of the legislature for the first time since 1960. It’s not likely that any other Democrat, especially not Salazar’s main rival, little-known Mike Miles, could have beaten Republican Pete Coors that year.
In sharp contrast, GOP strategists believe any warm body with an “R” behind his or her name and no recent felonies can win the heavily Republican 6th CD in 2008. They thus want Coffman to continue baby-sitting the Secretary of State’s office and let some other Republican politician go to Washington.
The only thing is, Coffman, whose amiability belies the inner toughness you’d expect from a Marine Corps combat veteran, has been beaten with this “wait your turn for the good of the party” cudgel before.
The most notable example was in 2006, when Coffman wanted to run for governor. But the pachyderm panjandrums (doesn’t that phrase roll off the tongue much more pleasingly than “Republican bigshots”?) pressured him to step aside for their anointed candidate, U.S. Rep. Bob Beauprez, and run for the lesser SOS post. The squeeze play turned into a double disaster for the GOP because Beauprez not only lost the governorship to Ritter, his decision to abandon his 7th CD seat led to its capture by Democrat Ed Perlmutter.
So what do you think Coffman said to Colorado Republican Party chairman Dick Wadhams and Senate Minority Leader Andy McElhany this week when they asked him to again stand aside for the supposed greater Republican good?
I wasn’t there, but as an Army veteran myself, I’m guessing the Marine Corps veteran replied in language often heard around a barracks — and I don’t mean, “Ten-HUTT!”
Partisan pride aside, there is little reason for either party to sweat over who controls the Secretary of State’s office. The SOS has just one patronage appointment, which of necessity has to go to a skilled professional, not a political hack. It is true that there are election laws, such as requiring voters to show picture IDs (assumed to discourage Democratic turnout) or authorizing Election Day registration (believed to boost Democratic votes) that can have partisan impact. But the secretary of state can’t write those laws, only the legislature and governor can. As Gordon, now the Senate Majority leader, noted, “The secretary of state has to follow the law in determining who gets to vote. They should be more afraid of me in the legislature.”
For the record, Republicans have administered the Secretary of State’s office since Democrat George Baker left in 1963. Since then, the following Republicans have held the office:
Bob Ewegen (bewegen@ ) is deputy editorial page editor of The Denver Post. He has written on state and local government since 1963.
