In one of the most blatant abuses of power this session, Democrats in the Legislative Audit Committee voted against allowing the State Auditor another eight hours to examine the Governor’s Colorado Energy Office to appropriately account for $252 million in taxpayer funds. The initial audit of the office could not account for these funds, triggering outrage among Colorado’s taxpayers.
Here’s the hypocrisy. Today, Democrats voted no on this audit to discover what happened to over a quarter of a billion dollars via just eight man hours of the State Auditor’s time. Last month, Democrats pursued an audit of a $5,000 discretionary fund projected to cost $100,000 in taxpayer funds. Why? Simply to tie up Colorado’s Secretary of State Scott Gessler in litigation.
According to freshman Republican Senator Owen Hill, who sits on the Legislative Audit Committee, this vote was a miscarriage of the duties taxpayers have entrusted to the Audit Committee:
“The dismal audit report highlighted that the Colorado Energy Office could not account for budget or expense data on any of its programs. Our duty to taxpayers is to look into this further. Four Democrats voted against increased transparency today and showed that partisanship is more important to them than accountability to taxpayers.”
Of course, this is just a small piece of the extraordinary efforts that the left has undertaken to undermine Gessler. Using litigation and legal maneuvering is a core strategy out of the left’s playbook. Literally. A recent memo authored by BlueprintNC, an organization based off of the Democrats’ success by spending millions and millions of dollars in Colorado, that was leaked to the Charlotte Observer showed that a key part of their “evisceration” strategy was to “mitigate legislative attacks on progressive values and set up legal challenges.”
Further, the memo states:
“The most effective way to mitigate the worst legislation is to weaken our opponents’ ability to govern by crippling their leaders.”
Sound familiar? Of course, a politically motivated attack on Gessler is nothing new. As the Peak reported earlier today, the majority of the members and staff of the Independent Ethics Commission are card-carrying liberals with a clear political agenda. Is there a committee or commission in Colorado that Democrats’ corruption hasn’t touched?