For all House Majority Leader Alice Madden's caterwauling about open-records requests ("If you're doing this for grins, we have a problem with it," she said), it appears at least one liberal journalist didn't get the memo about Madden-approved CORA etiquette.
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David Sirota, a liberal reporter and Denver Post contributor, fired off a series of open-records requests last fall asking for communications between Republican lawmakers and just about everyone he could think of on the political right in Colorado. One such request (PDF), aimed at Sen. Shawn Mitchell, R-Broomfield, names GOP chief Dick Wadhams, Face The State, "Amy Rathburn" (he meant 2006 Republican candidate in House District 1, Aimee Rathburn, but close enough for Sirota), James Dobson and Colorado Springs' Focus on the Family, and the entire Independence Institute staff, copied straight from the think tank's website.
Sirota does not provide a time frame limiting his request, which we can only construe to mean he desired those records for Mitchell's entire term in office, both in the State House and Senate.
Far be it for us to deny Sirota's right to request documents under CORA. But his request goes far beyond any made by Face The State, in both scope and time frame covered. That's neither "good" nor "bad," but it's certainly not the sort of thing Madden wants to see on her watch.
The left should get on the same page about CORA. With two Democrat-backed bills floated in the last two weeks to hide large swaths of public documents, it seems Sirota is on the wrong side of his party for thinking he's entitled to ask for everything but the kitchen sink. Would Madden object to Sirota's CORA requests in the same way she's spewed vitriol at us, for asking for far less?
David: We'll get you another copy of that memo.