March 06, 2009 02:12 AM UTC

Even More GOP Seal Abuse

•  
• by: Colorado Pols

Many of you will recall the scandal two years ago that resulted from Senate Republicans’ misuse of the Seal of the State of Colorado (usage of which is only allowable by the Secretary of State for official purposes, violation is a felony) on their decidedly unofficial partisan brochure website. The Rocky Mountain News reported at the time:

[Senate Minority Leader Andy] McElhany said he removed the Colorado seal from coloradosenatenews.com after Secretary of State Mike Coffman reminded party caucuses April 2 they can’t use the seal in communications.

It’s a felony to use the state seal for anything but official documents. [Pols emphasis]

This isn’t the first time Republicans violated the state’s strict rule about misusing the seal.

Former Republican Senate President John Andrews was forced to pull the seal from a GOP political Web site called coloradosenate.com in 2003…

“What concerns me is that a political committee is funding the creation of a Web site that purports to be a news and information site (that was) bearing the Colorado state seal,” said Chantell Taylor, director of Colorado Citizens for Ethics in Government.

Lesson learned, right?

Unfortunately, time seems to…well, unlearn all lessons. Which is another way of saying, Josh Penry’s Senate GOP has discovered Twitter!

You know the drill–take it down, blame the stupid intern (or Brad Jones) when the reporters/Secretary of State start calling. It’s only technically a felony, right? Obviously this isn’t a huge deal, but it is a little ridiculous that Republicans keep screwing it up. And the law is the law, or something.

They’ll be calling soon, we’d get on it.

UPDATE: Pulled. Thanks for reading, guys.