An administrative law judge dismissed campaign-finance complaints against Gov. Bill Ritter for misusing inaugural money and took the rare step of ordering the Republican who filed them to pay the governor’s legal fees.
Ritter announced the finance violations himself in April and blamed his former campaign manager for using more than $217,000 from an inaugural account to repay the 2006 campaign debt. Ritter is raising funds to repay that debt.
Plaintiff and state Rep. Kent Lambert of Colorado Springs on Tuesday alleged political favoritism and said he plans to appeal the decision, which called his complaint “substantially groundless.”
“To me, it’s inexplicable they could come up with this ruling. He’s admitted it,” Lambert said. “Just because you say I’m sorry should not satisfy the legal requirements to pay a fine to the state when you violate a law.”
State law allows campaigns to be fined between double and five times the amount of the violation. Judge Michelle A. Norcross’ decision settles for now the civil complaints against Ritter, though an investigation into whether criminal statutes were violated continues.
Norcross found that Ritter violated laws that capped gubernatorial campaign contributions at $1,000 and prohibited corporations from giving to candidates. She also opined that Ritter’s nonprofit inaugural corporation should have registered as a political committee.
But by the time Ritter announced the violation and Lambert filed his complaint, the 180-day statute of limitations had run out, she wrote in a decision dated July 31.
Ritter spokesman Evan Dreyer said that as soon as an internal audit revealed the violations, the governor took out a second mortgage to repay the debt and made accounting records available to the public.
“We’ve been completely open and transparent about the problems with the inaugural,” Dreyer said. “It’s a good ruling. . . . We completely concede that those problems existed. We fixed those problems.”
Part of fixing those problems includes a $1,050-a-ticket soiree paid for by Ritter’s campaign and planned for Aug. 13, an invitation acquired by The Denver Post shows.
The money raised must be disclosed, according to a secretary of state spokesman. The cash will count as contributions for the 2010 cycle. The limit for campaign contributions has been upped to $1,050 since 2006, Dreyer said.
