November 6, 2008 10:43 AM
Who should be Colorado's next Secretary of State?
Now that Mike Coffman has rolled into Congress from the Sixth District, Gov. Bill Ritter must find a new Secretary of State.
Ritter will be replacing a Republican statewide office-holder, presumably with a Democrat, which is sure to fire up the political indigestion some Republican officials suffered Coffman decided - against many of their wishes - to give up a statewide office to run for Congress in a heavily Republican district where the main fight was in the primary.
Laura Frank reports Ritter will appoint a seven-person panel to narrow the field of potential candidates to three, from which he will pick Coffman's successor.
The new secretary will step into an office that has been swirling in controversy lately. Days before the election, a federal judge ordered Coffman to stop purging names from the voter registration rolls.Among the possibilities:
* Ken Gordon, a Democratic state senator from Denver who lost to Coffman two years ago. Gordon sponsored legislation after the 2006 election that created the Colorado Election Reform Commission to recommend changes to the state's voting system. He now leads the commission.
* Andrew Romanoff, Colorado speaker of the House, a young Democratic star in the state who is leaving his post at the end of the year because of term limits.
* Rosemary Rodriguez, former Denver clerk and recorder and former president of the Denver City Council, who has a long history of voter advocacy. Last month, she was appointed to her second term at the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, which she chairs.
* Alice Madden, majority leader of the Colorado House of Representatives. Madden said she'd been approached by several people suggesting she should consider the job.
Who should Ritter pick?
November 6, 2008
11:28 AM
Truth writes:
He should appoint whoever headed up his Amendment 58 campaign, because after all, that one worked so darn well.