State trains judges about financial disclosure requirements weeks after dozens found not complying with law
State Court Administrator Steven Vasconcellos on Nov. 3 emailed judges statewide reminding them of their requirement to file the disclosures and of a pair of trainings the Secretary of State’s office was conducting on how that should be done.
The trainings on Nov. 16-17 in part were also to educate jurists of changes to the new disclosure law: The documents will be available online for the first time and must be filed electronically.
“The (secretary of state) collaborated with the SCAO on two training sessions … covering the topic of personal financial disclosure statements,” Secretary of State spokesman Jack Todd said in an email. “Members of our campaign finance team ran the trainings; it was organized by the SCAO.”
Posting the filings online is a way of confirming a judge had met the annual deadline. The Denver Gazette found several instances where judges said they had faxed or emailed a document only to learn from the newspaper it had not been received.
The state court administrator also wrote that he has asked Attorney General Phil Weiser to give an opinion on whether the law requires senior judges to file with the Secretary of State, acknowledging the lack of clarity in the statute.
Colorado law requires an array of elected and appointed officials — ranging from the governor to members of the public utilities commission as well as judges — to annually disclose their financial holdings at the secretary of state’s office to identify potential conflicts of interest. That includes whether there are any material changes to that information from one year to the next or not.
The filings are public and available on request, but the new law would make them available on a state website within two weeks of their filing.
READ MORE:
COLORADO OFFICIAL RIPS JUDGE'S TRUMP RULING: 'GET-OUT-OF-JAIL-FREE CARD'
COLORADO JUDGE IN TRUMP CASE REFUSES TO RECUSE AMID CRITICISM
COLORADO JUDGES CONVENE FOR ANNUAL CONFERENCE BEHIND CLOSED DOORS
The Denver Gazette learned recently that senior judges were often left to decide for themselves whether the disclosure laws applied to them. Some did; some didn’t. And no one was tracking whether all the judges in the state had made the required filings.
Weiser’s office, through a spokesman, would not say whether its opinion regarding senior judges had been issued, saying only there was “no public legal opinion” to share.