Today is primary election day in Colorado. Voters will choose candidates for US congressional races, the state House of Representatives, state Senate, and other city and county offices. This year, there’s quite a bit of dark money floating around the state primaries. At least, that’s what Boulder Weekly Editor-in-Chief, Shay Castle, says. In an article for the Weekly, Castle reports that more than one million dollars are being funneled to local candidates from groups with undisclosed donors.
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MorningMagazine_2024-06-25 Philip Armour
Transcript:
Jackie Sedley: Today is primary election day in Colorado. Voters will choose candidates for U.S. congressional races, the state House of Representatives, state Senate, and other city and county offices, And what’s a statewide election without some drama?
This year, there’s quite a bit of dark money floating around the state primaries. At least, that’s what Boulder Weekly editor in chief, Shay Castle, says. In an article for the Weekly, Castle reports that more than one million dollars are being funneled to local candidates from groups with undisclosed donors.
Shay’s with us in the studio this morning to shine a light on this funding. Good morning, Shay.
Shay Castle: Good morning.
Sedley: So, when you say dark money, explain what that means exactly.
Castle: Dark money is not a technical term, it’s a layman’s term, and it generally refers to spending by groups like PACs or SuperPACs. Um, on the federal level, that’s what they’re called.
Again, that’s a colloquial term. What they actually are is Independent Expenditure Committees. And these are groups that can raise an unlimited amount of money, and they can accept money from other groups. other groups, that is other political organizations, other corporations, things of that nature. And they do have to disclose the groups that give them money.
But unlike, say, a candidate committee, which is limited to a certain expenditure from individuals and can only accept money from individuals or small donor committees, and they also have to list out every individual that gives them money, independent expenditure committees or PACs, Only have to list the groups that give them money.
And the groups that give them money don’t have to list out their individual donors. So you have, in this race, for instance, um, a political group that’s tied to charter schools giving a lot of money. Um, and then you have, you know, um, political and local arms of national political parties giving money, things like that. And that’s where the term dark money comes from, is that you don’t, at the end of the day get to an individual name. This person gave this amount of money.
Sedley: Hmm. So you mentioned the charter schools. Talk a little more about that and other places that this corporate PAC money has notably shown up in these primaries.
Castle: Well, the spendiest race on Boulder County ballots is the race for the State Board of Education, the District 2 seat. That’s, um, Marisol Rodriguez and Kathy Gebhardt are going for that in the Democratic primary. And, um, The, the dark money that has gone into that race has largely been in support of Marisol Rodriguez. I do want to clarify these independent expenditure committees.
They do not work with the candidates. They’re legally barred from working with the candidates In fact, when I called Judy Amabile who’s running for Senate District 18 She also received some of these, some of this dark money. She wasn’t even aware that she had received it. Didn’t know who the group was, didn’t know anything about it.
So, you-they are technically not allowed to coordinate, uh, now on the local level, which has similar rules we have seen sometimes that they do, but that’s the law, they don’t coordinate, the candidates, it’s not like their money is going directly to Marisol, but they are spending, for instance, on like newspaper ads, Um, internet ads, direct mailers that you might have received, that, those groups are spending on behalf of Marisol to either oppose Kathy or to support Marisol.
Lots of the mailers have been touting the fact that she’s endorsed by Governor Jared Polis, for instance, or attacking her opponent, Kathy Gebhardt. Um, and the, the group that’s given the most money is tied to the Colorado League of Charter Schools. And, um, there’s been some wonderful reporting on this from the Colorado Sun of, of why they might be spending in this race is that the state board of education can overrule school districts when they either approve or deny a charter school to form.
And I, I, the speculation is that, um, even though Kathy and Marisol say they are quite even, uh, And have similar views on charter schools. It seems to be the belief that Marisol Blight might be more friendly to charter schools than Kathy. And so this would be a decisive seat, um, depending on who gets elected.
And, you know, as the Colorado Sun wrote, and others have speculated, kind of like, quote unquote, “the future of charter schools might depend on this, who wins this election.”
Sedley: Does it seem like, based on the reporting about this dark money and the potential public awareness of it, that that would impact the election outcomes? Or are the advertisements and advocacy that the dark money is promoting, does that have the potential to overrule those opinions.
Castle: I think there’s good potential either way. And I do want to say I’m slightly out of my depth. This is my first state election versus local. So there are certainly people who could speak to this better.
But I think there are voters whose values are I’m not going to vote for a candidate who has been the beneficiary of dark money, which by the way, Kathy has as well, just not nearly as much, um, as Marisol. Um, so that, if that’s a value of yours, 100%, I understand that, but there are other things that other voters might consider. Um, Kathy has an incredibly long career in education, as does Marisol. Marisol is pitching herself as, you know, she would be the only member on the Board of Education with kids in school, which seems. To her at least, and maybe to some others to be pretty important. Um, there are, you know, many factors that, that voters consider.
Uh, so I don’t really like to speak to the motivation of voters ’cause I can never know their minds. But I imagine that it will play a role both ways. People seeing these mailers, seeing like, oh, she’s endorsed by Governor Polis, he’s endorsed by the woman who had the district two C already. Um, she does have kids in school. That’s important. She’s very progressive and, um, very outspoken against, you know, the conservative kind of takeover of school boards and, and people also weigh in Kathy’s experience. And, um, so how people make up their minds, that’s a personal, personal decision.
Sedley: And speaking of people making up their minds, I saw that Boulder Weekly isn’t doing endorsements this year. And I wanted to ask you what led to that decision?
Castle: Well, this is the first time we’ve ever done primary coverage. And the reason we did that is because. in these heavily Democratic districts, um, where, you know, I went back on Boulder County ballots at least and no Republican has won any of these seats that have existed because we just did a, you know, redistricting for at least the last 15 years. So whoever wins the Democratic primary in a lot of these cases is going to be the winner of, of the seat. And so it’s where the action’s happening. But my staff and I, I’ve never cared to do endorsements. I hate telling people how to vote and my staff agreed that we would rather just give people the information they need to make a choice based on their own values.
Sedley: And with just a couple of minutes left here, what is that information that people can use to make their decisions, uh, getting a bit into some of the candidates and races on the ballot this year that stick out to you?
Castle: Absolutely. Well, we have a, um, CU Regent seat at-large that’s up. That board has been Democrat majority for a few years and, um, may remain so. It’s unclear, but I think that’s an interesting one just because of the, you know, cost of tuition and the cost of living. And one of, as one of the candidates said to me, you know, CU is is like the third largest employer in the state. I might be getting these numbers wrong, but basically it’s a huge employer. It’s a huge recipient of, of public funds. And most people don’t even know what a region is or what it does. Um, there’s the district 10 race for the Colorado house, which is Junie Joseph facing her first primary challenge. Um, there was, uh, we did Um, profiles of, like, questionnaires from candidates, every candidate who responded to us, who was on the ballot, which was most of them, and then we did sit down or phone interviews with all of the candidates in contested races, um, we traced the money, so that’s all available at boulderweekly.com. A couple things stuck out to me.
The first, um, is that there are more landlords running than there are renters. There’s exactly one renter on the Boulder County ballot, and that’s Junie Joseph, and I think that just continues to be a really underrepresented group, especially given that half of Boulder are renters. Um, so that was interesting, but, but mostly, I think, you know, you know, we just have a lot of very qualified and interesting candidates, and some slightly more progressive, some more moderate, some with lots of experience, some with less so, and um, yeah, I don’t think there are necessarily any bad choices.
Sedley: Boulder Weekly Editor in Chief Shay Castle talking about today’s primary elections in Colorado. Thanks for joining us, Shay. Appreciate you.
Castle: Thank you.
Sedley: And once again, all ballots must be returned by 7 p. m. tonight. You can drop off your mail in ballots at polling places all over the state. It’s too late to mail them in. Polls opened at 7 this morning and will remain open once again until 7 p. m. tonight.
