Doug Friednash is leaving his job as Gov. Hickenlooper’s chief of staff to rejoin Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck, and now comes word that Hickenlooper won’t renew his $200,000 a year contract with the lobbying group.
But the Denver Post assures this is all above-board, nothing to see here.
They concede the governor was right not to renew the contract, although they insist there was nothing wrong with the contract.
That’s because Friednash won’t have a role with state government, just in politics. That it coincides with the upcoming gubernatorial election is merely coincidental, we presume.
Here’s what the Post said:
Elected officials and public employees are stewards of taxpayer dollars and thus must avoid even the appearance of impropriety when it comes to awarding government contracts. It’s easy to imagine scenarios where a state employee or politician could play a role in awarding a multimillion-dollar contract to a company and be rewarded in short order with a high-paying job at the firm.
The good news is that Colorado laws are designed to prevent just such misdeeds, and we have no fears that Hickenlooper’s chief of staff has been involved in such quid-pro-quo dealings.
We agree that Hickenlooper was right to cancel the contract, but we also think that seeking a contract with his chief of staff’s former, and again future employee does stink.