Gessler responds to campaign finance complaint

Denver, July 29, 2011 – Following the complaint filed by CEW, Secretary of State Scott Gessler released the following statement:

"The fact is, there are two competing provisions in the law,” Gessler said. “One law says that campaigns have reports due once every three months and a glitch in a new law says reports are due once every two weeks. We now have a rule that is a common sense approach to give guidance to continue filing the quarterly reports in the off-year.

"Unfortunately, CEW is continuing its political attacks on Republicans, while supporting an absurd result that will only lead to increased fines for Coloradans engaged in the political process. We should be encouraging participation in campaigns, not creating unreasonable filing requirements.

"Filing reports every two weeks for the next 12 months is a tremendous burden that will result in $50 per day penalties for late filings. Considering CEW only files once per year and refuses to disclose any of its donors just shows how out of touch it is."