Dems ask if state resources used to expose 'place in hell' e-mail

April M. Washington And Alan Gathright, Rocky Mountain News

Published April 5, 2007 at midnight

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For the second time in less than a week, a political blog has ignited a firestorm at the state Capitol.

This time, Democrats are demanding to know if state resources were used in exposing an e-mail that forced Rep. Mike Merrifield to resign his House education chairmanship.

The liberal political blog colo radoconfidential.com reported Wednesday that Brad Jones, a 23-year-old Republican political operative and Web designer, built coloradosenatenews.com in December, the official press site for Senate Republican minority.

At the same time, Jones created his for-profit Republican political blog, facethestate.com, where last week he posted an explosive e-mail sent by House Education Committee Chairman Mike Merrifield to his Senate counterpart, Sue Windels, D-Arvada.

Merrifield wrote there is a "special place in hell" for charter school supporters, causing an uproar on both sides of the aisle. Jones obtained the e-mail through a Colorado open records request.

"This whole thing is a very tangled web," Senate President Joan Fitz-Gerald, D-Coal Creek Canyon, said Wednesday.

She wants to know if state employees violated a strict ban on using legislative resources, including equipment, supplies and staff, "for political or campaign purposes."

But both Jones and Senate Minority Leader Andy McElhany said that Jones simply built the minority party Web site and "hosts" it on his Web server; he has no involvement in its editorial content or operation.

"We had nothing to do with the (release of the Merrifield) e-mail," McElhany said. "We didn't even know about the mail until it hit."

But McElhany acknowledged that the controversy made him quickly drop "Hosted by Brad Jones LLC" from the bottom of coloradosenatenews.com. McElhany also replaced Jones as the registered administrator of the site.

"It turned out that he's doing some blatantly partisan things," McElhany said of Jones' personal Web site. "And we didn't feel it was appropriate to have his advertising at our site. We didn't want to rub salt in their (Democrats) wounds."

The Republicans paid Jones a one-time fee of less than $5,000 to build the Senate Web site. But it was not known Wednesday whether party funds or state money was used.

Jones said that Senate Republicans were unfairly caught in a battle of the political blogs.

"If the liberal blogs want to spin their wheels looking for conspiracies that don't exist, they're free to do so," said Jones, who has worked for a variety of Republican campaigns, including gubernatorial bids by Marc Holtzman and Bob Beauprez.

But ColoradoConfidential blogger Jason Bane said that the Senate Republicans appeared to be piggybacking on facethestate. com's Merrifield expose.

He noted that a Senate Republican press aide used his state e-mail account to distribute a press release bearing the state seal titled "Incendiary e-mails backfire on charter school foes." The Republican release linked readers to the Merrifield e-mail bearing the "Face the State" logo.

Fitz-Gerald was alarmed to hear that a state employee was using the Colorado seal while distributing a partisan attack.

"That's really where you're crossing the line," she said.

Jones said he stamped the Merrifield e-mail with his logo for "free advertising."

The Democratic majorities and Republican minorities in both the Senate and House have a total of four press offices staffed by state-paid workers. But the Senate Republican minority is the only party entity with its own Web site, while others distribute paper or e-mailed press releases.

McElhany said that the Republican site is run by the minority state staff to issue press releases and is protected by free-speech rights.

"I don't want to be censored and I don't want to censor (Democrats)," he said. "Instead of a blizzard of paper press releases, we see a blizzard of electronic releases in a new technological world."

Some Democrats - particularly charter school supporters - supported the publication of Merrifield's e-mail on the Web site.

"The fact is there was an e-mail that demonstrated how (Merrifield) felt about charter schools," said Sen. Bob Hagedorn, D-Aurora. "I think it's regrettable that we're embroiled in full-contact politics, but that's the way it is in this day and age. It's not for the weak at heart."

But Fitz-Gerald said there is a reason that state employees are barred from "participating in partisan politics while they're on the clock at the Capitol . . . because you're paid by all the people of the state. They're not paid by the Republican party."

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