September 27, 2010 06:06 PM UTC

Thanks for Playing, "Clear the Bench"

•  
• by: Colorado Pols

As the Grand Junction Sentinel’s Charles Ashby reports:

The campaign that is trying to get voters to oust several Colorado Supreme Court justices who are up for retention this year violated campaign finance rules, an administrative law judge ruled Friday.

The group, Clear the Bench, filed itself as an issue committee with the Colorado Secretary of State’s Office when it should have declared itself a political group, Administrative Law Judge Robert Spencer ruled.

Spencer said that for the purposes of a retention vote, justices are considered to be candidates…

While Matthew Arnold, director of the right-leaning group, said Spencer’s ruling is contrary to what he was told by state elections officials last year when he created the committee, Luis Toro, director of the left-leaning Colorado Ethics Watch that filed the complaint against him, said the distinction is important because it determines how much in donations such groups can accept.

The always-colorful Matt Arnold of Clear the Bench isn’t the wholesale loser here–the decision’s ethical weight is mitigated by the fact that he was advised by the Secretary of State’s office to file the committee the way he did. The Secretary of State’s office, in turn, wanted the clarity of a court ruling on the matter once it became contentious. And there’s your answer.

It’s more of a hypothetical question governing future cases in our view, however, as “Clear the Bench’s” campaign against state Supreme Court justices up for retention has basically fizzled between the retirement of their principal target Mary Mullarkey, and a Democrat more or less assured of election as Governor–thus able to appoint replacements for any justice not retained–robbing the “Clear the Bench” campaign of any efficacy it may have had (dubiously qualified).

So sorry, Matt, but them’s the breaks. As we’ve said before, a sane rejoinder would be nice.