The five-member panel when he used $1,278.90 from his office discretionary fund to attend a Republican lawyer’s event in Florida. He extended the trip to attend the Republican National Convention.
Gessler paid for his lodging and meals at the RNC with campaign funds. The ethics commission also cited him for keeping $117.99 left in his discretionary fund that year, rather than submit receipts that he said accounted for hundreds of dollars more for unreimbursed mileage for state business.
The Supreme Court will look at whether the ethics commission exceeded the jurisdiction it was granted under Amendment 41 to ban gifts of more than $53 a year to public officials and bar them from becoming lobbyists for two years after leaving office.
Gessler alleges neither of those things apply to the complaint against him. He also argues that Amendment 41’s oversight of “standards of conduct” is so vague it gives the commission overly broad authority.
“The commission currently operates with an expansive theory of jurisdiction that must be reviewed to protect the tens of thousands of government employees whose every action may now be subject to scrutiny of the IEC,” said Suzanne Staiert, the current deputy secretary of state who held the same job under Gessler.
Gessler said Tuesday the ethics commission lacked fairness and political balance with two Republicans, two Democrats and one unaffiliated voter. At the time he was found to have violated ethics standards, Gessler was for governor. He lost in the GOP primary in 2014.
In April 2014, the that Gov. John Hickenlooper violated rules by using staff to prepare for a Democratic Governors Association meeting, which paid for him and two staff members to attend.
Nine days after voting to absolve Hickenlooper, the lone unaffiliated member of the commission, Bill Pinkham, for the governor’s re-election campaign.
“The ethics commission has been a political hit man, and the state of Colorado has gotten no value from it,” Gessler said Tuesday.
Gessler isn’t challenging the factual findings that led to the ethics commission’s ruling, but jurisdiction and procedures, noted Luis Toro, director of Colorado Ethics Watch, which filed the complaint and prosecuted the case against Gessler.
“So we consider it an established judicial fact that he misappropriated state funds for his trip to the Republican National Convention and Republican National Lawyers Association conference,” Toro said Tuesday.