March 03, 2012 08:14 PM UTC

Gessler Goes "Rogue Attorney"--On Attorney General Suthers?

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• by: Colorado Pols

In the little over one year that Colorado Secretary of State Scott Gessler has been in office, we’ve heard a few times–strictly in anecdotes, or on background–about real tension between Gessler and other Republicans at high levels in state government. You might remember, for example, that Gessler abandoned his plans to “moonlight” at the Hackstaff Law Group (formerly Hackstaff Gessler) just after he received an opinion on the matter from Attorney General John Suthers. That opinion, as privileged advice, hasn’t been disclosed.

It’s not a secret that, following Gessler’s fairly unexpected win in 2010, there was some concern even among Republicans that Gessler would not be able to set aside his partisan election lawyer past, and might discredit the office (and the party) by going hog-wild in his official capacity stacking the election-law deck for the GOP a la 2006’s Secretary of State Gigi Dennis. If you recall, Dennis went so appallingly over the line in last-minute rulemaking against Democrats that it embarrassed the GOP, and blown out of the water in court–all on Scott Gessler’s advice.

So yes, folks, Gessler is a potential worry for more than Democrats. And check this out:

This is a notice filed by Gessler yesterday in his case against Colorado Common Cause and Colorado Ethics Watch, requesting that he be added as recipient of filings. This is the case over whether Gessler has the authority to raise the disclosure threshold for political issue committees from $200 to $5,000, presently on appeal after Gessler’s loss.

Now, your first logical question is going to be, “why is this necessary? Isn’t he the defendant?”

And of course, yes, Scott Gessler is already the defendant in this case. But Gessler is represented in this case, as with others, by the Colorado Attorney General’s office. Gessler has access to all the filings in these cases, but they are communicated to him through Attorney General John Suthers’ office. And that’s what makes this filing very curious to us.

There are several possibilities, and we want to be absolutely clear that some are benign–and some are not. Gessler may simply want to see the filings made in this case in real-time. But that could mean Gessler doesn’t think he’s getting information fast enough through Attorney General Suthers’ office. And if Gessler were to decide he doesn’t like how the AG is representing him? Well, he’s the GOP’s crack election lawyer, remember?

This is something you would logically do if you’re going to represent yourself, isn’t it?

There’s nothing we can say beyond presenting this range of possibilities explaining what everyone we’ve talked to agrees is an unusual move by Gessler–obviously, we’re not mind readers, and we’re not going to jump to any possible conclusions without evidence. But if this does become more significant, we’ll be reminding you that you heard it here first.