July 23, 2010 08:41 PM UTC

Don't Lie About the Fact-Checker's Facts

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• by: Colorado Pols

A brief exchange at the end of yesterday’s debate between GOP candidates Jane Norton and Ken Buck, moderated by 9NEWS’ Adam Schrager, bears further examination.

In the clip above, Norton repeats her claim that she cut “budgets under her control” in state government–both as Lieutenant Governor and as head of the state Department of Public Health and Environment, while Buck’s budgets at the Weld County DA’s office increased “by 40 percent.” Norton then cites Schrager’s 9NEWS Truth Test of her ad to back this claim up.

Buck responds quite calmly that the Truth Test actually shows the attack on him is misleading, and her claim of budget cutting is false–the truth is that Norton has been called out on numerous occasions by major media for this false representation of her budget record, including the Truth Test she brazenly mischaracterizes in front of its author:

QUOTE: Here’s the truth. In state government, I cut budgets.

TRUTH: This isn’t true and here’s why. [Pols emphasis]

The reality of how Colorado’s government is set up is that the only individual who can literally “cut budgets” is the governor and the only way the state’s chief executive can do that is through a gubernatorial veto or through line-item veto power. Spending overall is determined by state lawmakers at the state legislature. They are the ones who approve budgets, according to Colorado State University Political Science Professor John Straayer, who has written the definitive book on Colorado’s state government, “The Colorado General Assembly.” (University Press, 1990, 2000)

Now, the process can and often does start with department heads. Norton is referring to the time when she ran the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE) from 1999-2003. The department’s budget is comprised of three separate pools of money (general fund, cash funds, and federal funds) that lead to a total dollar amount…

…Her critics, including the online grassroots organization ProgressNow, say she is using fuzzy math.

“Norton’s budget at the Dept. of Health actually grew while she was the director,” wrote Bobby Clark, the executive director of ProgressNow Colorado, in an e-mail to 9NEWS. “Her general fund money may have gone down some, but that was only a small part of her budget. And, in any case, her ‘spending’ did not go down even if some of her funding did. She’s being disingenuous at the least about whether she was shrinking her government department.”

…QUOTE: Ken Buck’s office. His spending skyrocketed by 40 percent.

TRUTH: Technically this appears to be false…

And there’s another problem. If you head to Norton’s campaign website, you’ll find this in her bio:

In other words, Norton is asserting she only “had control” over the General Fund in order to claim plausibly that she “cut her budget”–which opens the door to her attack on Buck–while she’s simultaneously bragging how she managed the larger total budget where that boosts her resume. This total budget, as 9NEWS’ Schrager and every other reporter who has examined the issue has found, in truth went up under her leadership along with the total actual spending for the department. Even better, the $280 million figure she cites represents the largest budget of Norton’s tenure as CDPHE director in 2001-02. It’s one of the most audacious cases of “trying to have it both ways” since “Both Ways Bob” Beauprez made the expression ubiquitous.

If anything, we think that Buck was far too dispassionate in refuting Norton’s bogus claims. Norton’s campaign has proven better at getting these kinds of misleading statements out into discussion than Buck has been at disproving them. This was a golden opportunity for Buck to smash Norton’s credibility in an incontrovertible way–we would have driven it home with more feeling.

Of course, Buck’s in the lead, so maybe he thinks a calm debunking is all that’s needed?