Candidate Blog

Gessler party affiliation

In the last week, we've noted several contradictory statements by council candidate Scott Gessler regarding his political affiliations. On one hand, he has denied any political affiliations with the GOP; he is representing the GOP-dominated General Assembly in the Colorado congressional redistricting court case. On the other hand, he has mailed out a letter to all registered Republicans stating that he is 'a rising star in the Republican party'.

From Scott Gessler's letter last week to the Colorado Daily:

Sadly, Will Toor sees vast right wing conspiracies wherever he looks - the city council races, districting, the state legislature - you name it. According to him, this conspiracy threatens Boulder's very identity.

But intelligent voters should brush these stereotypes aside and look instead at the underlying facts. As one example, the first open space tax was passed by a city council dominated by conservatives, and support for open space in Boulder has been widespread, without regard to silly labels like "liberal" or "conservative."

Also, an article in Colorado Daily:

A simple search on the Web-based "Google" search engine brings up Gessler's name as a member of the Republican National Lawyers' Association (RNLA). Gessler told the Daily his only association with RNLA was to "give them money, and that's all I've ever done for them."

"People have essentially taken one aspect of my legal practice and blown it out of proportion," said Gessler. "I represent Democrats, Republicans and people that I don't know what the heck they are. We represented a guy named Jeff Vigil, a Hispanic Democrat activist from Adams County who ran in House District 35. I believed that the county clerk put her thumb on the scales and made it far more difficult for Hispanics to get their absentee ballots. Four or five other firms refused to take the case because it was too hot to handle, and we took it," said Gessler.

It sounds safe to say that Gessler is not particularly affiliated with the GOP!

Next, he mailed out a letter from campaign manager Sandy Hume to all registered Republican voters in the city, stating that Gessler is a 'rising star' in the Republican Party.

From the Daily Camera:

A campaign flier for City Council candidate Scott Gessler has raised some eyebrows because it calls him a "rising star" for the county's Republican Party and urges GOP voters to elect him to the council.

Some observers of the election — including Mayor Will Toor, a Democrat — have criticized the flier for injecting party politics into the traditionally nonpartisan election.

Gessler's flier, in the form of a letter from his campaign manager Sandy Hume, a Republican and former county treasurer and commisioner, was mailed to registered Republicans in the city.

Gessler's party affiliation — mentioned in a Daily Camera profile last month — had been seized on by critics, he said.

"It was forced on the campaign," Gessler said. "I decided to try to use it to my advantage."

A public policy attorney for the Denver-based Hale, Hackstaff and Friesen, Gessler serves on the legal team representing the General Assembly in a lawsuit over Congressional redistricting.

Within one week:

• Gessler writes a letter minimizing the importance of "silly labels like liberal and conservative"

• Gessler described as "a rising star in the Republican Party" in campaign literature mailed out to all registered Republicans in Boulder
  

In which instance was Gessler misleading the public?