A Questionable Candidate, Sanctuary Status for Leadville-Lake County, and a Land Grab by County Government Mobilize Citizens to Action
Part 1: A Questionable Candidate
In the last few weeks, Lake County citizens have rallied and shown up in droves to voice their concerns about the direction in which city and county leaders are steering the ship which is listing heavily to port. Lake County citizens desire balance and nowhere is that more obvious than in the numbers of people who sacrificed evenings at home with family and instead, made time to attend not 1 but 3 community meetings held on consecutive Mondays despite the demands of a busy holiday season. You all are to be applauded for your tenacity, courage and dedication in mobilizing to save our small mountain town and way of life.
On Monday, November 11, a community meeting was initially held to discuss what may have been an illegitimate seating of a candidate for county commissioner by the Democrat Party. A small group attended and were disturbed by what they heard. The following week, on Monday, November 18, a very much larger community meeting was held with the questionable candidate, herself, in attendance. When she was presented with the evidence, she did not negate, refute or rebuke the allegations, but rather, seemed concerned and upset that this allegation was, in fact, true, as hard dates, deadlines given by the Colorado Secretary of State and the statutes of the Colorado State Constitution cannot be questioned. Several community members have spent considerable time reviewing and studying state statutes, Democrat Party Bylaws and meeting minutes, and compared them with Colorado state statutes and Secretary of State governed timelines that major party (Democrat and Republican) candidates must abide by to run in the primary, and ultimately the general election. These individuals have been kind enough to share their very extensive research with LTC.
C.R.S. §1-4-101 (3) details the most universal and obvious way major party candidates can be placed on the primary ballot.
Illustrating the desire to forever have a pipeline of candidates from the Democrat party to maintain their control over Lake County, the candidate for County Commissioner was nominated through the vacancy committee process which appears to allow for a more generous timeline long after caucus and assembly take place. One may wonder how that is possible when there was no vacancy in the office for which she ran (Lake County District 3 County Commissioner).
While at first glance, C.R.S. §1-4-101 (3) (and others) of the Colorado Constitution appear to have been violated by the candidate and the county clerk who was formerly the chair of the Lake County Democrats, deeper digging reveals more state statutes that allow for vacancy committee nominations which ultimately defer to party rules (C.R.S. §1-4-1002 and C.R.S. §1-4-1003). That then begs the question: can party bylaws override statutes of the Colorado Constitution? If so, then what is the point in having laws in the Colorado State Constitution concerning nominations of candidates, campaigns and elections if there are ultimately loopholes that can be manipulated. It ought to be blatantly obvious how this process works against unaffiliated candidates and favors the two-party system.
It appears the Democrat party plays by a different set of rules than may be abided by the Republican party, and certainly by the petition process unaffiliated candidates must follow. While rules were seemingly stretched for the Democrat candidate’s name to appear on the ballot, several unaffiliated candidates were met with obstacles presented by the county clerk that either challenged and jeopardized their abilities to meet the deadline for unaffiliated candidates, or completely derailed their attempts to run for local political office altogether, for seemingly trivial reasons. A critically thinking person questions why. From the party that constantly touts the merits of diversity, in candidates running for political office, diversity in thought and approach is not a strength, but a weakness because it threatens their ability to maintain power and control.
Requests for District Attorney Heidi McCollum and the Colorado Secretary of State’s office to investigate have been filed by a large and growing number of Lake County citizens. Are there technical, but small or large violations that were made? If so, what are the penalties, if any at all? Or has the statute of limitations run out? Time will tell what they will uncover, if they choose to dig into this issue at all. LTC harbors no illusions about how far Deep State tactics reach in protecting the party and not upsetting the status quo.
Although the candidate should have done her due diligence herself and fully understood the laws concerning nominations and candidate placement, LTC believes that the weight of this issue lies at the feet of the county clerk who should be held to a higher standard because of the elected position she holds and the power that she wields.
In the meantime, citizens continue to question the legitimacy of one of their county commissioners who is slated to take office in just a few weeks, and further question why it appears that some unaffiliated candidates were disenfranchised, while rules were bent for the Democrat who won the race in a three-way split, not by majority vote.
Elections have consequences and questionable elections can have disastrous consequences. Perception is everything and even the mere thought or suggestion of impropriety should not be surrounding candidates or elections in Lake County.