Isn’t telling lies still considered unethical?
If Colorado Ethics Watch is going to lecture public officials for their supposed transgressions, shouldn’t it adhere to a minimum standard of upright behavior itself? Shouldn’t it, say, refrain from making stuff up in an effort to save face?
So how did Ethics Watch respond Tuesday to losing its first big case before the state’s Independent Ethics Commission? By twisting the truth. By continuing to smear 6th District Congressman Mike Coffman, whom the commission vindicated.
According to Ethics Watch, the commission “found that Coffman technically violated state law [when he was secretary of state] by allowing a senior employee to operate a partisan side business, but excused his conflict with a voting machine vendor based on apparent procedural safeguards.”
Every part of that sentence is false or misleading, beginning with the way it links two allegations that have nothing to do with each other. For that matter, the commission did not conclude that Coffman violated state law. At one point, its report says “there may have been a technical violation of state law” — may have been — but it is not even clear if it is referring to Coffman or to the employee he disciplined for running a business on the side.
Meanwhile, the commission also states that “as a general rule, only classified employees are subject to the state personnel rules and regulations. Therefore, Coffman may or may not be under the jurisdiction of the State Personnel Board . . . .”
It’s hard to break a rule if you’re not covered by it.
In every instance, the commission clearly found in Coffman’s favor. But, predictably, the eye-gougers at Ethics Watch refuse to admit defeat.
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Here’s a good rule of thumb for investing: If you ever hear state Sen. Chris Romer, D-Denver, say the economy is fit as a fiddle, gather your money and stuff it under a mattress. The floor is about to buckle.
As a leading proponent of Amendment 23 nine years ago, Romer and his allies forecast state budget surpluses as far as the eye could see. Why worry about putting K-12 education spending on an automatic escalator, they said, when the state is so flush with cash?
Even as they spoke, the high-tech boom was preparing to implode. When it did, state surpluses didn’t just dry up. Revenues actually cratered, while Amendment 23 endured as an example of budgetary folly.
Fast forward to last spring: The economy is already in recession; the only question is how bad it will get. The ebullient Romer steps to the microphone in the Senate and, after acknowledging the economic difficulties — “we are facing tough times. In fact, we’re facing a credit crunch that is really of historic proportions” — goes on to assure his colleagues that this state’s investments in green energy will shield it from the storm.
“You know what?” Romer says. “We’re going to have a better dip than many people nationally and we’re going to have a better dip because this governor has a balanced energy policy . . . . We’re actually creating an economy that is going to avoid the recession that everyone else is talking about nationally.”
Colorado will suffer “a little bump in the road,” he said, and nothing more.
That little bump in the road is now threatening to reduce state funding of higher education by half. If lawmakers hadn’t been so consistently dismissive of the business cycle — and Romer was hardly the only offender — they might have bothered to stash money in a rainy-day fund for just such a crisis.
E-mail Vincent Carroll at vcarroll@denverpost.com.
