I’ve been on the hunt for any article about water, written by GOP gubernatorial candidate Scott McInnis.

And guess what appeared in print when I was on vacation last week? A water article by Scott McInnis, titled, “Why I changed my position on the Southern Delivery System.” 

It was published May 31 in the Colorado Springs Gazette, in response to a column by Barry Noreen that raised questions about a McInnis vote on a water issue just prior to his leaving Congress.

Unfortunately, McInnis’ Gazette water piece was written too recently to be one of the articles in the series that McInnis wrote for the Hasan Family Foundation, which paid the former Congressman $150,000 from 2005 – 2007 to write a “series of in-depth articles on water.” (McInnis won’t talk about them to me, and reporters aren’t asking him about them. So I’m forced to keep searching for them myself. Hence this post.)

I thought there might be a remote chance I could find a clue or two in McInnis’ Gazette water article that might lead me to McInnis’ expanded writings on water issues, or at least to a reason for their disappearance.

In the Gazette piece, McInnis says that as a Congressman, he voted against the Preferred Storage Option Plan (PSOP), which would have provided funding for a study of, among other things, enlarging Pueblo Dam, a project possibly connected to the construction of the Southern Delivery System (SDS), which would move water from Pueblo Dam to Colorado Springs and areas around there.

In his column, McInnis writes that in Congress he didn’t support PSOP or the SDS.

Noreen’s column cites a Republican who said McInnis was originally in favor studying PSOP and SDS, as long as it didn’t take western slope water. But he allegedly changed his mind at the last minute, allegedly under pressure from McInnis future employer, Hogan and Hartson, and voted against the PSOP.

If that’s true, Congressman McInnis was for SDS before he voted against it. And now candidate McInnis has come out in favor of it again in his Gazette article. Why?

“Simply put, I believed then that the project needed significant improvements …- improvements that a ‘no’ vote could encourage,” McInnis writes in the Gazette.

Colorado Springs City Councilmember Sean Page, who tracked the issue when McInnis was in Congress and continues to follow it , told me he didn’t think the project has changed much between then and now.

“The plan is basically the same today as it was back then, which is to run a pipe from Pueblo reservoir into Colorado Springs and put it into a reservoir and so on and so forth,” Page told me. “The argument that somehow Scott McInnis improved the SDS by blocking the PSOP legislation is specious in my view and not supported by the facts.”

McInnis wrote in the Gazette that he changed his view on the project because there’s more collaboration around the project now.

“This collaboration, which was frankly lacking in 2004 and is alive today, is why the project has earned my support,” McInnis wrote in his column. “I’m also very pleased with the required safety and environmental projects on Fountain Creek. As with many folks in the region, while my support didn’t come easily, it’s enthusiastic for this reformed and vastly improved project.”

City Councilmember Page, who’s a Republican not backing McInnis or his primary opponent Dan Maes, thinks the collaboration (He calls it “extortion.”) would have happened as part of the normal regulatory process even if McInnis had not “torpedoed the PSOP.” 

Page believes McInnis changed his view on the water project because he’s looking for votes from El Paso County.

“Back then, he was representing his congressional district, and Bob Rawlings of the Pueblo Chieftain, had a lot of pull in his district,” said Page. “When you run for statewide office you have to take the bigger perspective, because all of a sudden the people in El Paso County and Colorado Springs matter to your election. I’m sure he has changed his view based on the fact that he’s running for statewide office. You know, parochialism and being parochial is common for politicians, to look for what suits them in the short run for their district. Maybe this is just a lesson that sometimes you have to project down the road a little bit. I wish that five, six years ago he [McInnis] had taken a more statesmanlike position and looked out for not just his district but for the good of the rest of the state, or I should say the Arkansas Valley.”

Whatever you think of McInnis’ different positions on SDS, it’s clear that his recent Gazette piece reflects a detailed understanding of at least one Colorado water issue. So, I’m thinking maybe McInnis excerpted a portion of a previously written Hasan water article for his Gazette piece. That’s mostly a joke, but I think McInnis knows a lot about Colorado water issues, and I have no reason to doubt that McInnis wrote water articles as a Hasan “senior fellow.” McInnis said so. Why in the world would he misconstrue this?

The simple reason for McInnis’ apparent refusal to produce his water opus might be the fact that these issues are so mind-bogglingly sensitive that he feels he has nothing to gain politically by exposing more of his thinking on the topic.

McInnis alleged temper tantrum (described in City Councilmember Page’s blog) in a private meeting in CO Springs, when a water issue was raised, is proof of the sensitivity of the issue. As is the Noreen’s recent column on the topic.

This is speculation, I know, but until McInnis explains what’s going on, or reporters dig into it, what more can we do?

I’ve been hoping that journalists, being writers and all, would take more interest in the fact that gubernatorial candidate Scott McInnis managed to cut a deal with the Hasan Family Foundation, paying him $150,000 to write a “series of in-depth articles on water” that could be used in a “series for education on water in Colorado.”

Denver Post columnist Ed Quillen, having toiled as an editor and writer in Colorado for more years than most living journalists in the state, knows the going rate for freelance writing better than your average congressman.

So I wasn’t surprised that the $150,000 received by McInnis for writing the water articles got Quillen’s attention. He wrote in a column yesterday:

“So $150,000 divided by zero disseminated words works out to something like infinity. Thus, Scooter must be the best-paid writer in our state. And if he doesn’t get elected governor, I want to engage him as my literary agent, since he knows how to cut some sweet deals.”

Since so many reporters hope to break out of the daily grind by publishing novels or something, I’d suggest they contact McInnis, too.

Meanwhile, one of them should ask McInnis to make his water articles available or, at least, to tell us why no one who knows anything about water in Colorado seems to have seen them. McInnis’ campaign won’t tell me.

Gubernatorial candiate Scott McInnis has said he’s knows “a little something” about Colorado water issues, which is partly why he says he got a $150,000 fellowship from the Hasan Foundation to write an “a series of in-depth series of articles” on Colorado water. McInnis’ campaign hasn’t commented on the articles or released them.

Yet, we’ve seen little digging by reporters into his views and record on water issues generally, much less the Hasan articles.

Barry Noreen, in a great column in today’s Colorado Springs Gazette, dug into one local water fight and highlighted an apparent flip flop by then Congressman McInnis on a water issue related to the so-called Southern Delivery System.

Noreen writes that some believe McInnis’ decision on the SDS issue was influenced by his future employer, Hogan and Hartson. A McInnis spokesman has said this is untrue, but there’s seems to be quite a bit of anger about this issue in Colorado Springs (See below.).  

Noreen wrote about “life-long Republican” and former Colorado Springs city councilman Dave Sarton who claims McInnis didn’t keep a promise to back federal funding for a project related to the Southern Delivery System:

Sarton and others have suggested that one such “concern” is that McInnis was on his way to a job as a lobbyist for Hogan and Hartson, a lobbying company (see my blog) that had been hired by Pueblo Chieftain publisher Bob Rawlings to fight the water project. Viewed from that angle, it looks like McInnis was beginning to represent his future employer when he was still supposed to be representing the people who elected him.

“That is an unfair and untrue accusation,” Duffy said.

McInnis campaign refused Noreen’s request to speak with the candidate, so reporters should ask him about it in person, next time McInnis passes through Colorado Springs, especially in light of today’s blog post by Sean Paige, a member of the Colorado Springs City Council and a former editorial page editor at the Colorado Springs Gazette. Paige wrote, in part:

My interest in the matter stems partly from what happened back then, which still sticks in my craw, but in part from a more recent event. About 5 or 6 months ago I attended a small meeting — a briefing for McInnis on details of the Southern Delivery System — where Sarton confronted the candidate on the issue. I saw a side of McInnis (who I had heard was something of a hothead) that wasn’t flattering. Sarton raised the issue respectfully and tactfully, from my perspective. McInnis nearly exploded. I thought for a second he was going to get up off his chair and get in Sarton’s face (I was sitting between them). Red-faced and enraged, he yelled at Sarton, saying that he never wanted to hear anyone ever again say that Scott McInnis screwed Colorado Springs.

I have a bit of the Irish myself (though I prefer to think of it as “passion” or “intensity,” rather than a temper), and I’ve worked around some tightly-wound politicians in my day. But I’ve never seen anything quite like the “intensity” I saw in McInnis — in a situation that might easily have been defused with a little diplomacy or humor. I considered rising to Sarton’s defense as the tirade subsided, but I was sitting (as mentioned) within swinging distance of McInnis. A donnybrook would have put a damper on an otherwise informative meeting.

McInnis eventually screwed his head back on his shoulders but he still refused to take any real ownership of past actions. Instead of getting a coherent explanation, or an apology for a misjudgment that might be understandable if put in context, Sarton was effectively ordered to shut up, stuff it and never say anything bad about Scott McInnis again.

Maybe the reason McInnis won’t release the water articles that he claimed to have written during his Hasan Family Foundation fellowship has something to do with this issue. It’s just idle speculation, I know, but what else can we do besides speculate, given that McInnis’ campaign won’t comment at all about the articles? That’s why a journalist should ask should him about them. Or the task might fall to a pseudo-journalist, like KHOW’s Craig Silverman, because McInnis is not making himself available to Noreen–and is in the habit lately of rejecting interviews with The Denver Post. But Dan Caplis said Monday that McInnis always makes himself available for the Caplis and Silverman show.

Yes, I know, a lot of you are thinking that conservatives always get a free ride on conservative talk radio.

But it’s not always so on KHOW’s Caplis and Silverman show, as you know if you listened in yesterday during the 5 p.m. hour (at 12 minutes 30 seconds on the podcast).

Craig grilled Scott McInnis about McInnis’ statement on the show that he was “thrilled” with the outcome of Republican State Assembly on Saturday. It made great radio, if you want to listen to the entire interview here, or you can read the partial tanscript below.

I liked Silverman’s follow-up question, after McInnis made his thrilled remark. “But Congressman,” Silverman said, “really, are you going to tell us that it’s a great day at the assembly to lose to an underfinanced person who has no history of running for anything in Colorado, a stranger to most people?”

You might say that the Caplis and Silverman show doesn’t really count as conservative talk radio, due to the presence of center-right Silverman, and you’re right to a degree. But if you add Silverman’s conservative positions, which are many, to Caplis’ all-rabid-righty all-the-time talk, you find that the show adds up to be mostly conservative talk, disguised as a right-left dialogue.

Still, the show is unpredictable, thanks mostly to Silverman, as you see in the exchange below.

Silverman: It had to be disappointing for you driving off and realizing that the assembly that told you to get to the church on time was also saying, in effect, Dan Maes you’re out choice to be the Republican nominee for governor.

McInnis: Well, Craig, that’s not what they said at all. And I think you’re a little mistaken there. The way you lose in a convention is if you get under 30 percent. What you want to do is be able to get over 30 percent, which means that the Republican Party that went to the convention validated your message and said, ok, you have enough support within our party to take your message statewide. So we actually were thrilled. I mean, look, you could be driving away from there under 30 percent-

Silverman: But Congressman, really, are you going to tell us that it’s a great day at the assembly to lose to an under-financed person who has no history of running for anything in Colorado, a stranger to most people? Here, you’re so well-known. You can’t even tell us you would have preferred that he’d didn’t get to 30 percent and you could be running alone focusing all your time and attention on John Hickenlooper? I mean, how do you expect us to buy your, hey-it-was-a-great-day-for-Scott-McInnis line?

McInnis: Well, first of all, I’m not selling Craig, so I’m not expecting you to buy. And the fact is, clearly, you lose if you’re below 30. If you’re above 30. I mean, if I were the other side, I’m sure as they walked into the locker room, they said, “Man, dog gone it, we got to fight him now.”

It’s good to see The Denver Post stand up for itself and not allow gubernatorial candidate Scott McInnis say inaccurate things about its reporting.

You may recall from my previous post today that McInnis said on the Jim Pfaff show that The Post had gone through his congressional votes and found that all of them were anti-abortion.

The Spot reported a little while ago that The Post never made a claim to have gone through his congressional votes.

In fact, the Post should have pointed out that in November, The Post reported that in Congress, McInnis “earned a reputation as a moderate and a maverick on the [abortion] issue.”

The November Post article continued:

He voted against some abortion measures, supported others and once chaired the national Republicans for Choice….

The Rocky Mountain News in 1996 called McInnis a maverick on abortion.

He long had opposed partial-birth abortions and backed parental notification. But he opted to allow for privately funded abortions at overseas U.S. military hospitals, to let federal employees choose health insurance plans to cover abortions and to preserve federal funding for family-planning programs.

In 1995, NARAL tracked 21 roll-call votes. McInnis sided with their issues seven times. In contrast, Democrat Pat Schroeder of Denver supported NARAL’s position all 21 times while Republican Joel Hefley of Colorado Springs voted against NARAL’s position every time, the Rocky reported.

On the Jim Pfaff radio show, McInnis claimed to have a zero rating by NARAL.

The Spot also reported in its piece today that McInnis was wrong when he stated on the Jim Pfaff show, cited in my piece today, that The Post asked for his high school transcripts. The Spot reported:

Untrue. The Post in February asked the candidate for his college and law school transcripts as part of our routine background research.

 

Some say I’m beating my head against a church wall when I ask social conservative talk-show hosts to act more like journalists and ask tough questions of conservative candidates whom they interview on their shows.

But here’s Jim Pfaff, pro-life activist and talk-show host, doing a little bit of what I’d hope others of his ilk would do May 17 on his Jim Pfaff show on KLZ radio, 560-AM. (The segment begins at 26 minutes, 45 seconds on the podcast here.)

But overall he lets his own cause and the public down.

He’s discussing a Denver Post editorial stating that Scott McInnis has “factually challenged explanations” to various details in his history, including the fact that his name was listed on the board of an organization called “Republicans for Choice.”

McInnis dismisses political flip flopping, saying, “The critical views are where are your views today, and where have your views been recently.” He adds later: “The critical issue is where have you been in the last few years…. Scott McInnis was at one time pro-choice. That’s right. In fact, there’s Republicans, you know, that used to be Democrats or vice versa, way back when.”

What I hear McInnis saying here is that he could care less about politicians who flip flop, as long as it hasn’t been in the last “few years.”  And what’s really important is what they say “today.” But Pfaff, the anti-abortion foe, didn’t ask the obvious question: does this mean that McInnis thinks it would be okay if he flipped and became pro-choice after a few years, perhaps during his second term as governor. And what if he flips on other issues after a few years? would this be ok?

Unfortunately Pfaff also did not ask McInnis, at the end of the interview, what the difference is between a candidate who advocates a “social agenda” and one that advocates a “conservative approach in regards to social issues.” McInnis did say that winning conservative candidates will have “not just conservative economic values but have conservative social values.”

Here’s the partial transcript:

Pfaff: How did your name end up on that letter, explain that first?Let’s start at the very beginning by saying I’m pro-life. I’ll be a pro-life governor. And when I become governor I will do lust exactly like Gov. Owens did and that is we will defund the funding that Ritter and Hickenlooper would keep in place in regards to Planned Parenthood. So there’s no question about that.

Second, in regards to my record, which is the beauty of what I have…my record is pro-life. When I was in Congress, I had a zero rating by NARAL….

1998, I think was the date stamp or something on some letter. I don’t know when the letter was dated. I think the letter pre-dated that.

Two things come up. Did I meet with this group called Republicans for Choice? And my policy was always as a Congressman was, you represent the people. Now you may not agree with them but if you can meet with them people have a right to come in and express their points of views….

Apparently, there’s a letter where they list me as an advisory. Yeah, there’s an advisory. Hank Brown is on that for example. And I haven’t visited with Hank about this. The Denver Post calls up and says, did you, I said, man, how many years ago was that? It was a lot of years ago. I don’t have recollection. I told them that. I mean, I was pro-choice when I was younger, of course, when I got out of college. I struggled with it….

Pfaff: You did take a very clear pro-life track while you were in Congress, but you did hold a different position at one time and pro-lifers are going to be very concerned about that and they are an important constituency. So explain how that changed. I think that’s the best way for them to understand what’s going on.

McInnis: You know I went into office in 1982. So almost 30 years ago. So, yeah, views I held almost 30 years ago, 20 years ago, yeah. The critical views are where are your views today, and where have your views been recently. And, you know, when the Denver Post, for exmaple, originally wanted to do an interview on this stuff, I think they even asked for my high school transcripts. And in my high school transcripts, it probably shows I wasn’t a great student in algebra, although I liked math, and things like that. So they are going to reach back….

The critical issue is where have you been in the last few years. And in this article, not in the thing today, but in the article the other day that came out and said we’ve discovered a piece of stationery, not Scott McInnis stationery. There’s a group out there, we’ve discovered this stationery. Scott McInnis was at one time pro-choice. That’s right. In fact, there’s Republicans, you know, that used to be Democrats or vice versa, way back when. The key issue is, where’s the proof in the pudding. And in this article in the last sentence they said they had gone through and done an extensive look through the Congressional Record and could not find one pro-choice vote. The reason is, because he’s pro-life. So the critical issue is today, yesterday, a year ago, ten years ago,five years ago, whatever, I was pro-life, and I will govern as a pro-life governor….

Pfaff: What legislatively could we do in this state to make this a more pro-life state? Obviously we have Roe v. Wade that we have to deal with, but what can we do right here in the state?

McInnis: Great questions. We gotta win seats. We have to put up candidates that can win these seats have those values and those principle values. Not just conservative economic values but have conservative social values. I am convinced that the social agenda, excuse me, the conservative agenda, let me correct that, the conservative aganda. I am absolutely convinced that the pro-job, don’t-raise-the-taxes, the conservative approach in regards to social issues, is the path for prosperity for the state of Colorado.

When someone gets $150,000 from the Hasan Family Foundation to write a series of in-depth articles, you’d think journalists, being writers themselves, would want to see what was written.

Especially if the writer is Colorado gubernatorial candidate Scott McInnis.

Yet, as far as I know, no Colorado journalist has asked McInnis to see the fruits of his writing labor.

I wrote previously that when Craig Silverman and Dan Caplis had McInnis on their KHOW talk-radio show, McInnis said he wrote a “series of in-depth articles on water” when he was a senior fellow at the Hasan Family Foundation. But the hosts didn’t ask to see the writing on this big CO issue. The foundation’s attorney told me that McInnis could release the articles if he wanted to, but McInnis’ spokesperson didn’t have time to get back to me last week.

So I’ve continued to try to fill in the journalistic gap and locate the articles.

First, I emailed Craig Silverman and asked if he’d make up for his interview lapse and ask McInnis, next time he’s a guest on Craig’s talk-radio show, if he’d make his water articles public.

Silverman emailed me back that he appreciated my suggestion, but he wouldn’t commit to asking McInnis about the water articles.

So I moved on.

My friend heard a rumor that Pueblo Chieftain publisher Bob Rawlings might have helped fund McInnis’ work on the articles…-or at least he might know where his writing is.

“I don’t know anything about that, Jason. I’m sorry,” he answered. “I’ve very involved in water issues but I haven’t funded any studies for Scott McInnis.”

Have you ever seen any articles he’s done on water?

“Well, I’ve never heard of them, but my memory isn’t as good as it used to be,” Rawlings said. “Our water guy here [at the Chieftain] is Chris Woodka, and I think probably he’s the best one to answer your question.”

So I called Woodka, who’s a well-known water wonk, but he’d never heard of articles by McInnis on the topic.

Woodka told me that John Orr is one of the few people  who reads more arcane stuff about Colorado water than he does.

I knew about Orr, because he’s the writer and editor of the highly regarded Coyote Gulch blog, a regular stop for most everyone who tracks water issues in Colorado.

“I don’t have any recollection of a water series by him so it may have been before 2003 when I started paying close attention to the issue,” Orr told me. (McInnis was a Hasan fellow from 2005  to 2007.) Neither had Orr seen any single article by McInnis.

Orr suggested I try Loretta Lohman, editor of Nonpoint Source Colorado.  She had never seen anything, either. Neither had the head archivist at Colorado State University’s Water Resources Archive.  Nor the Water Congress. Nor the editor of the High Country News.

I tried the Colorado River District, which has this slogan on its homepage: “Protecting Western Colorado Water since 1937.”

Perfect, I thought.

The receptionist put me in touch with Jim Pokrandt, Communication & Education Specialist. He’d never seen any articles by McInnis and neither had his colleague, Manager of External Affairs Chris Treese.

But Pokrandt told me that McInnis had been a keynote speaker at the CO River District’s annual seminar in Grand Junction in 2005. McInnis’ expenses had been covered by the Hasan Family Foundation, but, unfortunately, no written record of his speech was available, he said. However, he found the title of McInnis’ keynote address: “Washington in the rear-view mirror.”

Maybe this formed the basis for something in depth?

If so, it seems odd that none of the water experts mentioned above know about it. In talking to the various water experts I contacted, it became clear to me that it would be quite strange for McInnis or any serious researcher to write a stealth paper on Colorado water, not to mention a stealth series. It seems like Colorado water researchers and policy people consult each other on the technical details of this complicated topic.

I emailed the McInnis campaign, asking again for a response or to see the articles, and heard nothing back.

So I left hoping that Craig Silverman finds his inner journalist and queries McInnis about this, since Craig is the guy who’s apparently come closest to asking McInnis about it.

Or The Denver Post should push for an answer from McInnis, since a Post story first introduced McInnis’ $150,000 in Hasan income into the campaign debate. And, of course, The Post has taken the lead among news outlets in trying to get all of the gubernatorial candidates to disclose their income tax records for public review.

Despite Craig Silverman’s fog-horn voice and Dan Caplis’ adolescent intonations, I like the Caplis and Silverman on KHOW radio in Denver, especially when they’ve got good guests like Scott McInnis or John Hickenlooper.

But the show gets frustrating when the hosts fail to ask the follow-up questions that pile up in your own mind as you listen in.

For example, Colorado gubernatorial candidate Scott McInnis was on the show April 26, discussing his decision not to release his income tax returns.

The Denver Post had pieced together some of McInnis’ income over the years, and Silverman asked McInnis, “one lawyer to another” about $150,000 that he earned from the Hasan Family Foundation after he left Congress. “How does a lawyer get in on that,” Silverman asked him. (See transcript here.)

“I wrote a series of in-depth articles on water, Colorado water. And so, that’s what that was about. And so I was pretty excited to do it,” McInnis answered him, adding later: “When I got out [from Congress], we were having a conversation, and they said, we’d be interested in doing this if you’d be interested in helping put together some articles at some point, [that] could be used in a series for education on water in Colorado. So that’s what that was about. And I was thrilled to do it. I got paid to do it. That’s pretty sweet.”

As a sometime writer, not a lawyer, I later wondered how much writing McInnis had to do for the $150,000, but Silverman let me down and didn’t ask the question.

So I searched Nexis and found no articles on water by McInnis.

I also spent some time on Google, to no avail.

I then went to the Hasan Family Foundation website, and there’s a photo of McInnis next to a short description of his “senior fellowship” and a link to a presentation titled “Colorado Water Analysis” by Muhammad Ali Hasan. Congressman Scott McInnis’ name is listed below Hasan’s. Then on the next line, you see “The Hasan Family Foundation” and below this, you find “Water Project Wing …• Congressman Scott McInnis.”

I emailed Muhammad Ali Hasan to find out if other articles were available. He cordially responded that due to my inquiry, he had added a note to his “Colorado Water Analysis” clarifying that Scott McInnis was not an author. The note stated, in part, “Analysis written and conducted solely by Muhammad Ali Hasan, under the guidance of Professor James Sadd of Occidental College.”

So now I was back to square one. What did McInnis write during his fellowship? Hasan concluded his note to me by suggesting I contact the Hasan Family Foundation attorney, Glenn Merrick.

“I think you’ll have to get those from Mr. McInnis,” Merrick told me when I asked if McInnis’ water articles were available.

I asked if articles had been turned over to the foundation as part of the fellowship, and he said he believed so, but I’d have to get them from McInnis.

I told Merrick that when he was on the radio, McInnis mentioned articles that “could be used in a series for education on water in Colorado.” What about those articles?

“Well, I think it was intended to educate an audience who had a keen interest in this topic,” Merrick said. “It was intended to allow the foundation to distribute to that audience. But I don’t know precisely who the audience is. If McInnis wants to give it to you, and he authored it, then I think that’s acceptable.”

I was left with only one more place to go for the answer to my question and that was, of course, McInnis’ office. I was thinking that I should have simply called there first.

I was wrong about that, because I couldn’t get an answer.

I called late Monday afternoon and explained what I was looking for. But McInnis’ spokesman Sean Duffy could not provide a comment or response on the matter Monday or Tuesday.

So this story ends without an answer to the question Silverman should have asked McInnis on his radio show in the first place. Where are McInnis’ articles about Colorado water? And can we take a look at them?

Excerpt of an interview with gubernatorial candidate Scott McInnis on the KHOW’s Caplis and Silverman show, April 26, 2010. (hour one, located at 21 minutes, 15 seconds)

Silverman: Hey, listen, just one lawyer to another, now that you’re looking for another job, I see this Hasan Family Foundation fellowship 150 grand. How does a lawyer get in on that?

McInnis: No. No. No. No. What that was was a water. I wrote a series of in depth articles on water, Colorado water. And so, that’s what that was about. And so I was pretty excited to do it. It was the first time in my life I got paid to write about a subject that I, one, knew a little something about but, two, actually, I always like to tell, hey look at water look at history. So that’s what that was about.

Silverman: Sure

McInnis: It was like, what do you call it when you work for, what do you call it,

Silverman: A fellow. You’re a fellow.

McInnis: A fellow is a little more academic than I probably am.

Silverman: Well, no, you can’t hide it. You have a Juris Doctorate. And, ah, the Hasan Family is a prominent family in southern Colorado, but they also, as mentioned in the paper, I don’t know if you saw it.

McInnis: I didn’t.

Silverman: Part of their family foundation is, ah, better understanding between the Americans and the Muslim world. Were you involved in that at all?

McInnis: No. My, ah, assignment, what they retained me for was water write on water and The Hasan Family, to the best of my knowledge, and I was not a part of the foundation, they are really intent on Colorado, the history of Colorado. As you know they are probably the largest contributors to the Pueblo junior college, not the junior college but the CSU extension, the business college, the opera, and water’s a big issue. When I got out, we were having a conversation and they said we’d be interested in doing this if you’d be interested in helping put together some articles at some point, could be used in a series for education on water in Colorado. So that’s what that was about. And I was thrilled to do it. I got paid to do it. That’s pretty sweet. And it was a family that cares intensely about the state of Colorado.

It slipped by me somehow, but Wed. the Colorado Independent was the first news organization to ask Colorado gubernatorial candidate Scott McInnis’ campaign what McInnis meant when he said on Fox Radio April 15 that he’d take a “beating” if he released his income tax returns.

McInnis, you recall, said on the radio: “So I’m not going to invite myself to my own beating.  I mean, let em [garbled words]. I’m going to give what I think the people want, not what The Denver Post wants.”

The Independent reported Wed. that McInnis spokesman Sean Duffy said that McInnis’ statement was a reference to the “beating” the Republican candidate would take from his business partners for releasing their personal income information, which would allegedly be included on McInnis’ income-tax forms.

The Independent quoted James Vander Laan, a certified public accountant, who stated that the individual partnership income of all partners is not listed on K-1 forms, which are used to report partnership income, just the individual’s total. But the individual’s percentage of all the partnership’s income categories is listed. So the total income of  the firm could be calculated from the information provided on an individual partner’s K-1 form.

Presented with this information by the Independent, Duffy emailed the Independent that this was the reason the forms were not released to the public.

But the Independent didn’t ask the Vander Laan if McInnis could simply redact the information about the percentage of the partnership’s income that McInnis earned, thereby making it impossible to determine the total income of the firm from looking McInnis’ K-1 form.

“Absolutely,” Vander Laan said. “It would be pretty easy to take a black Marks-A-Lot and cover it up, wouldn’t it?”

Vander Laan added that McInnis could document his partnership income without releasing his K-1 form at all.

“Actually that information goes on a schedule in your 1040 that’s called Schedule E. By the time it hits Schedule E, you can no longer see ownership percentage. That doesn’t appear on Schedule E.”

News outlets should follow up, asking McInnis if he would be willing to take these steps and possibly others, if required, to protect the privacy of his business partners and avoid a “beating” by them, if he releases his income tax returns.