September 03, 2010 06:59 PM UTC

FEC Complaint? What FEC Complaint?

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• by: Colorado Pols

The Colorado Independent’s John Tomasic a short while ago:

Charles “Rick” Grice, the man who translated long rumors into print by filing a campaign finance complaint with the Federal Elections Commission against U.S. Senate candidate Ken Buck, withdrew that complaint Monday. He sent a letter to the FEC and a copy of that letter to the Buck campaign saying he no longer wished to pursue the matter.

“It’s a dead issue to me now,” Grice told the Colorado Independent, speaking from his car on a highway in Wyoming, “I’d rather have Buck in office. He’s the Republican candidate now.”

Grice, who supported former Lt Gov. Jane Norton in her primary run against Buck, said he doubted the FEC would pursue the complaint now that he has begged off.

“They’re so slow. They didn’t want to do anything with it before and now without anyone pushing it, I think they’ll just drop it.”

An FEC official told the Colorado Independent that the office was not at liberty to talk about nor could it release documents on open cases. He said that, at this point, there was no way to tell whether the Grice complaint would go forward, that there were no written procedures to follow governing requests to withdraw complaints and that he suspected the FEC counsel’s office reviewing the file might recommend the six-member Commission to also review the case and vote on whether to advance it…

Grice, like Buck primary rival Norton, was an official in Republican Gov. Bill Owens’ administration. In the complaint to the FEC, Grice alleged Buck had coordinated with friend and former employer Jerry Morgensen, CEO of Hensel Phelps Construction, to skirt campaign donation limits, reassuring potential contributors that Morgensen would work to finance the Buck campaign mostly through independent so-called 527 groups.

What we understand of these complaints suggests that the Federal Election Commission is under no obligation to terminate their investigation just because the person who filed it asked them to–if you think about it, it’s almost certainly not the first time a vanquished primary opponent tried to, you know, take one of these back. But just like that angry lover’s quarrel late at night that wakes the neighbors, once the cops get called it’s at least partway out of your hands.

Which makes it seem kind of odd that Grice would bother trying to take it back–these complaints take forever to wend their way through the FEC’s creaky process, and if there’s really nothing to see here as Grice says now they would have gotten around to saying so eventually. Making this letter public actually does more to draw attention to the complaint, and the rather obviously suspect desire to make it go away now that Ken Buck has won the GOP primary.

In fact, it looks more like a perfectly legitimate complaint that’s overstayed its partisan welcome.