May 01, 2007 05:40 PM UTC

Suthers Denies Politics of Memo, Claims Ignorance

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• by: Colorado Pols

As the Grand Junction Sentinel reports this morning:

[Colorado Attorney General John] Suthers said his office has a duty to disclose possible constitutional issues with bills moving through the Legislature, including Ritter’s proposed mill-levy freeze.

The attorney general’s role of advising the governor and lawmakers of possible constitutional conflicts, he said, was galvanized in a 2003 Colorado Supreme Court decision that said Attorney General Ken Salazar was right to challenge the Republican-controlled Legislature’s 2003 redistricting plan.

“I think they protest too much in suggesting it was politically motivated,” Suthers said of critics who have accused his office of colluding with Colorado Republican Party Chairman Dick Wadhams.

Suthers said Wadhams had no role “ghost writing” his office’s opinion.

“Dick Wadhams is not smart enough to write that, let me assure you,” Suthers said. [Pols emphasis]

According to Colorado Confidential, a left-leaning political Web site, Rep. Terrance Carroll, D-Denver, told a group of Democrats over the weekend he wants to investigate possible coordination between Suthers’ office and the Colorado Republican Party.

ProgressNowAction, a liberal Colorado political group, initiated Monday an online petition to call for an investigation of Suthers’ office.

Suthers cautioned that he was not calling Ritter’s policy apolitical. He said only his office’s involvement in the matter was divorced from politics…

You can argue whether or not Suthers’ opinion on the matter was politically-motivated, but we find this a little hard to believe:

Suthers said his office’s opinion came out so late in the legislative process – the day the House gave its final approval of the bill – because the first he knew of the mill-levy proposal was its introduction April 23.

Does Suthers really want to go on record as saying he didn’t know anything about this until April 23? The opinion his office issued cites press releases from weeks earlier than that. And as Colorado Confidential reported last week, Suthers had a conversation about the proposal with Ritter “6-8 weeks ago.”