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During the recently-concluded election season, we spoke a few times about a new right-leaning “nonpartisan government watchdog” operating out of the offices of the arch-conservative Independence Institute. The Open Government Institute of Colorado made news this spring after filing a complaint regarding now Rep.-elect Dianne Primavera over a fundraiser invitation that mistakenly included the name of former Rep. Anne McGihon, alleging “Ms. Primavera solicited unlawful contributions from lobbyists.”

Not long after this complaint was filed, we were leaked hidden-camera video of OGI director Jessica Peck speaking at a luncheon of the Colorado Republican Business Coalition in honor of Rep. Mike Coffman. In this video, Peck makes absolutely no secret about OGI’s partisan goals and origins, and even claims to be working on projects to “benefit you,” meaning Rep. Coffman, “in your endeavors in November.” The video is now the subject of an IRS complaint alleging a violation of OGI’s 501(c)(3) “nonpartisan nonprofit charity” tax status.

Now, it won’t surprise our readers to learn that IRS investigations take a very long time to proceed, and as of this writing we don’t know the status of that complaint. But this week, a judgment was handed down in the case filed by OGI. And it’s a judgment that Ms. Peck surely isn’t happy about. Excerpted, read it all here:

This matter is a complaint pursuant to Colo. Const. art. XXVIII, sec. 9(2)(a) and the Fair Campaign Practices Act (“FCPA”), Section 1-45-101, C.R.S. et seq. Jessica K. Peck, Esq., appeared on behalf of the Complainant and Mark G. Grueskin, Esq., appeared on behalf of the Respondent…

Western United Realty, supra, at 1066 approves of the discussion of attorney fees in International Technical Instruments, Inc. v. Engineering Measurements Co., 678 P.2d 558 (Colo. App. 1983) and notes specifically the fact that the party against whom attorney fees were assessed in that case “conducted no discovery whatsoever” and “nominally attempted to establish its … claim at trial.” This description equally applies to the Complainant’s efforts in this case. [Pols emphasis]

The ALJ therefore concludes that claim 1 also lacked substantial justification in that it was substantially frivolous, substantially groundless, and substantially vexatious…

The case for attorney fees in relation to claim 2 is clear cut; no effort was made to present evidence in support of this claim.  “[A] claim … is groundless if the allegations in the complaint … are not supported by any credible evidence at trial.” Western United Realty, Inc. v. Isaacs, 679 P.2d 1063, 1069 (Colo. 1984). In Colorado Citizens for Ethics in Government v. Commission for the American Dream, 187 P.3d 1207, 1219-1220 (Colo. App. 2008) the Court upheld an ALJ’s imposition of attorney 8 fees on a party in a campaign finance case where the party dismissed a claim at hearing. At 1220 the Court cited Engel v. Engel, 902 P.2d 442, 446 (Colo. App. 1995) and Bilawsky v. Faseehudin, 916 P.2d 586, 590 (Colo. App. 1995) for the proposition that an action may be substantially groundless even though dismissed on the morning of trial.

In this case, the Complainant only acquiesced, through counsel, to the Respondent’s motion to dismiss claim 2 after the presentation of his evidence. Claim 2 lacked substantial justification in that it was substantially frivolous, substantially groundless, and substantially vexatious. The Complainant never voluntarily dismissed the claim (a basis not to assess attorney fees per Section 13-17-102 (5)). Section 13- 17-102 (6) is inapplicable as the Complainant was represented…

It is therefore the Agency Decision of the Secretary of State that no violation of Section 1-45-105.5(1)(a)(I) has been proven. It is furthermore the Agency Decision that the Complainant and the Complainant’s counsel are jointly and severally liable per Section 1-45-111.5(2) for the $17,712.38 amount. [Pols emphasis] Complainant’s counsel only is responsible for the $400 of attorney fees related to the additional expense on December 11, 2012.

In short, the OGI’s case against Rep.-elect Primavera was so bad that the judge has awarded about $18,000 in attorney’s fees to McGihon and her lawyer Mark Grueskin. Short of frog-marching somebody, we really don’t know how much more of a repudiation can be legally delivered in a case like this. After every right-wing mouthpiece in the state took up the cause, berating reporters into covering it, today you know the case against Primavera was so “frivolous, groundless, and vexatious” that OGI has been ordered to pay for wasting everyone’s time.

We’ve heard rumors that OGI Colorado has already, for all practical purposes, shut down operations. So hopefully there’s still $18,000 in the bank to collect–we’d hate to see the private citizen who nominally filed the OGI’s complaint get stuck with the tab.

For our part, the thoroughly delicious irony is entertainment enough: thousands in donations to OGI, meant to “help Mike Coffman,” instead going to Mark Grueskin. And it’s a lesson to Republicans, licking their wounds after yet another losing election cycle in Colorado, envious of the “Colorado Model” of Democratic-aligned activist and message groups that OGI was meant to help replicate for the GOP. OGI may have been set up as the right’s Colorado Ethics Watch, but it filled the role more like Bizarro Superman. Suffice to say, this is not the path to victory.

UPDATE: Whatever a lopsided majority may say in polls, they apparently don’t live in Rep. Cory Gardner’s district. From the conservative website Newsmax.com:

Over-regulation and too much spending is plaguing the economy, Gardner said in an exclusive interview with Newsmax TV.

“I’m frustrated, [and] my constituents are frustrated, because they see Washington doing the same exact thing,” he said. “This was the most predictable crisis anybody could ever imagine. So, months ago we knew this was going to happen. It got closer, closer, closer and here we are now days away instead of months away and we’re talking about kicking the can down the road, and the American public, the constituents I represent, they’re tired of it. They want to see tax rates that are lower, not higher…” [Pols emphasis]

It’s a very safe seat, after all.

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Politico reports on the latest development in ongoing negotiations to avoid the so-called “fiscal cliff” at the end of this year. It should be noted that Republican Speaker of the House John Boehner made a new offer Friday, which includes a big at-least rhetorical concession:

“The President and the Speaker are meeting at the White House to continue their discussions about the fiscal cliff and balanced deficit reduction,” according to an identical statement issued by aides to Boehner and Obama [Monday].

Boehner jump-started the talks with a proposal Friday to boost marginal tax rates on income over $1 million, in what was a significant departure from his party’s no-new-taxes plank.

Democrats described the movement on rates as “progress,” but cautioned that a deal is not imminent because of the high income threshold and proposed cuts to Medicare, including raising the eligibility age from 65 to 67. Obama wants tax rates to rise on family income above $250,000 a year, and he has not publicly embraced cuts to Medicare beneficiaries in the latest round of talks.

As we and most media coverage has noted throughout these negotiations, public opinion polls show overwhelming support for allowing the 2001 and 2003 Bush tax cuts to expire on income greater than $250,000 per household. At the same time, polling is tepid at best on any move to cut Medicare, Social Security, or other so-called “entitlements” valued by the middle class.

So what we have is Boehner agreeing, belatedly and only partly, to one piece of the public’s desired solution, using that as leverage to demand things the public doesn’t want.

Boehner needs robust changes to the hugely popular seniors health program to sell any kind of tax-rate increase to his conservative-dominated Republican Conference. [Pols emphasis]

The public’s failure to embrace cuts to popular institutions like Medicare and Social Security isn’t due to a lack of trying. The Fix The Debt campaign, Alan Simpson dancing “Gangnam Style,” and the millions spent trying to make Hugh Jidette a household name have all dismally failed to turn Americans into voters willing to accept Ryan Plan-style austerity. They know better.

This means Boehner and the Republicans are in a desperate political conundrum. The real constituency supporting sweeping entitlement cuts is exposed as embarrassingly small and ideologically motivated. Boehner must hold out for cuts to popular programs that the public doesn’t want–cuts only supported by a small minority for uningratiating reasons.

No doubt this latest smallish concession from Boehner seems rudely shocking and offensive to Grover Norquist, and other “starve the beast” ideological opponents of anything that doesn’t “shrink the size of government.” The lesson in this, however, may not be Boehner’s concession, but how far the Republican Party has drifted from the mainstream of public opinion.

In  a post Thursday, I discussed a conversation between two local talk-radio hosts and Colorado Springs Gazette Editorial Page Editor, Wayne Laugesen.

Unfortunately, the good folks at KLZ’s Grassroots Radio Colorado thought I unfairly presented their show as attacking every garden-variety environmentalist under the sun, not just the radical fringe.

I disagree, but I’ve posted more of the exchange between Laugesen and the KLZ hosts below, including more insight into Laugesen’s thinking on whom he’s referring to when he talks about “radical” environmentalists. Warning: he’s pretty vague, as some suspected on ColoradoPols and elsewhere.

I’d love to meet the soccer-mom environmentalist from Jefferson County who feels good about the Republican Party after hearing this conversation on conservative talk radio.

If the KLZ radio hosts, and Laugesen for that matter, really cared about the toxic effect of talk radio on the Republican Party, here’s a suggestion on how they could begin to do something about it.

Have an actual debate! Bring a mainstream environmentalist on the show, for example, when you talk about radical environmentalists or environmentalism as religion. Refuse to be a guest unless more than shades of conservative gray are present. I’m not saying this never happens, but do it more often, please.

Chances are, when the echo chamber starts echoing on talk radio, it’s turning off most of the electorate. That’s when you need to bring in an opposing view.

Colorado’s Democratic governor throws the conservation community a curveball on the issue of human-caused climate change, versus the controversial practice of hydraulic fracture drilling for natural gas–as the Durango Herald reports:

Hickenlooper often talked about climate issues when he was mayor of Denver, but he has been quieter on the topic since he became governor. He spent 30 minutes Tuesday morning at a conference of the Colorado Climate Network, a group of local governments that studies ways to adjust to climate change.

Acknowledging that “it drives some of my friends crazy,” the Democratic governor said embracing natural gas is the only realistic way to cut American emissions of greenhouse gases.

Hickenlooper also urged people to ramp up pressure on Congress to extend the wind-production tax credit. But he saved his strongest endorsement for a fuel that has stirred controversy in recent years.

The United States never signed the Kyoto treaty to cut greenhouse emissions, but the country is on its way to meeting the target anyway thanks to natural gas, Hickenlooper said.

“We are more than halfway toward compliance because we have these innovations in horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing,” he said.

Without wading too far into the contentious underlying issue, we will say that this represents a more intelligent argument from Gov. John Hickenlooper than he’s made in the past. Last year, Hickenlooper enraged environmentalists when he claimed in an energy industry-funded ad that fracking has never resulted in groundwater contamination–a claim that has been repeatedly disproven. Later, Hickenlooper claimed that “you can drink” fracking fluid, an extremely dubious claim based on one experimental “fracking” product that is not even required to be used. In yet another gaffe, Hickenlooper absurdly claimed that fracking has “literally no risk.”

These incidents cannot help but impact Hickenlooper’s credibility on the issue.

It’s clear that the public health issues presented by “fracking” in and around Colorado communities involve more immediate challenges than those presented by global climate change, though it’s true in the abstract that natural gas contributes less to that particular problem. In this latest offering, Hickenlooper presents natural gas as a “bridge” to future energy technology, and challenges opponents to find a workable alternative.

Bottom line: we’ll give Hickenlooper credit for a more intelligent case than he has made in the past, but it’s an equivocal case at best. And the question of whether “fracking’s” incremental climate change advantage offsets public health concerns? He definitely did not settle it.

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar may or may not be coming home to Colorado, depending on the source and the day. But Salazar answered media questions about his future plans after an event in Washington D.C. last night, and he sounded like a man…

…Well, you decide. From Environment and Energy Daily (subscription required):

“We’re thinking hard about it,” he told reporters. “My family and I are having lots of great conversations.”…

…His remarks, while brief, were some of his first since the November elections and will do nothing to tamp down speculation over whether he will continue to lead an agency that oversees energy development, recreation and conservation on hundreds of millions of acres of federal lands.

Salazar said he does not know when he will make a decision.

Salazar’s remarks come just a few days after The Center for Biological Diversity and other environmental groups sent out an odd press release promoting Arizona Rep. Raul Grijalva for Interior Secretary “when that position opens” (full release after the jump).

With Governor John Hickenlooper rumored to be a candidate for Commerce Secretary, Colorado could again find itself in a strange position of top elected officials moving back and forth to the nation’s capitol while others figure out what to do in the meantime (acting-Governor Joe Garcia, anyone?) A Hickenlooper move would obviously open up the Governor’s race for Salazar in 2014, which is an office Salazar has long coveted.

This could all get very confusing, but very interesting as well. It’s like crack for political junkies.

Excerpted from Rep. Scott Tipton’s newsletter to constituents yesterday:

House Republicans remain insistent on budget cuts before looking to increase taxes, while Obama is calling for an extension of the current tax structure for all but the nation’s highest earners, households with more than $250,000 in income and individuals with more than $200,000. Those taxpayers would see their marginal income tax rates increase from 35 percent to 39.6 percent, as well as see increased rates on capital gains and inheritance taxes. U.S. Rep. Scott Tipton, R-Colo., wants to know where and how additional revenue from higher taxation would be spent, and how it would reduce spending, his office said…

It seems obvious to us that asking how “additional revenue” will “reduce spending” is kind of oxymoronic, but it at least re-emphasizes the point that Tipton is against spending.

Sort of, based on the very next point in his newsletter:

U.S. Rep. Scott Tipton, R-Colo., asked federal agricultural officials Monday to ease restrictive insurance guidelines on farmers in the San Luis Valley given the lingering drought. Tipton expressed his concern in a letter to USDA’s Risk Management Agency, stating that agency guidelines would limit farmers in the Multiple Peril Crop Insurance Program from filing claims because of less water being available.

We did some checking on this: for fiscal year 2004, for which we found a report, the Federal Crop Insurance Corporation collected $928 million in premiums, subsidized (meaning taxpayers covered) $2 billion in premiums, and incurred $3.2 billion in losses. The program’s total budget in FY 2004 was $3.4 billion. Here’s a little more historical detail from the Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics:

Government outlays for the federal crop insurance program exceeded $9.2 billion between 1980 and 1990. Over this period, indemnity outlays totaled over $7.1 billion while premiums collected from producers were only $3.8 billion. This corresponds to net losses (excluding administrative costs) that exceed $3.3 billion and implies that, on average, farmers received $1.88 in indemnities for each $1 of premiums paid (i.e., a loss ratio of 1.88).

It’s not like we’re going to deny relief to San Luis Valley farmers, but isn’t somebody going to ask how easing payouts from already generous farm subsidy “insurance” will “cut spending?” This is a lot like Tipton’s praise for the new solar power plant in Alamosa funded by the same loan guarantee program that funded Solyndra, a company Tipton routinely vilifies.

And why doesn’t Tipton feel as strongly about your grandmother’s health care, again? It would be one thing if Tipton was consistent about “cutting spending,” something only a few members of the “Tea Party” class of 2010 can say they have been. Tipton’s problem is not wrongheaded principle, but a sense that there’s no principle at work at all.

Politico’s Darren Samuelsohn reported this weekend:

Interviews with more than a dozen House and Senate lawmakers, many of whom are primed to start whipping votes, underscored the reality that the lame-duck session could still end in tax hikes and across-the-board spending cuts.

“I wouldn’t want to put a percentage on it, but it certainly could happen,” said Rep. Jeff Flake, the Arizona Republican who next month will be sworn in as a senator.

“It’s absolutely possible. We’ve seen it happen before,” added Colorado Rep. Diana DeGette, a chief deputy whip for House Democrats.

For Boehner to be successful, DeGette said the speaker needs to remember during his negotiations with Obama that a sizeable number of Republicans are expected to jump ship on any tax agreement with the White House – whether it’s a short-term deal or something much bigger.

“The Republican leadership is going to have to realize they have to work with us,” she told POLITICO.

The delicacy of this situation for Speaker John Boehner really can’t be overstated. Given the likelihood that many conservative Republican House members will balk at any deal that violates their no-new-revenue ideological principles, Boehner will have to turn to Democrats to win House passage of any reasonable budget compromise. The problem with that, of course, is that Boehner could endanger his speakership if he arranges the passage of legislation that would be palatable to Democrats. Who he would in this scenario need to pass anything.

And remember, if nothing passes, Republicans take the blame for the resulting automatic budget cuts and tax hikes on everybody. Also, they say Democrats create a “culture of dependency?” Wait until Doug Lamborn realizes those cuts to military spending are an actual possibility.

We can’t tell you exactly how Boehner intends to thread this needle, but he has more to lose.