Reporters should now that earlier this month, former Rep. Jon Keyser said what some politicians will say, and promised to always answer questions.

The context of May 2 discussion on KOA 850-AM was social issues, but you wouldn’t expect Keyser to have one standard about answering questions on social issues and another standard for other topics, like possible illegal campaign activities.

Keyser’s promise with respect to answering questions was clear (Listen below.):

Keyser: These are all issues that we have to talk about, if it’s a social issue. If it’s a question, I always answer the question. [BigMedia emphasis]

But now, Keyser’s campaign is refusing to answer questions from 7News reporter Marshall Zelinger about signatures that were apparently forged on Keyser’s petition to put his name on the June 28 GOP primary ballot.

Zelinger reported: We reached out to the Keyser campaign with a phone call and text to the spokesman, but as of Tuesday night at 11:45 p.m., he had not returned our call, text or tweets.

It’s not as if Zelinger’s questions are out-of-bounds or anything. He’s found 10 signatures that are clearly forged from people who leave in Congressional District One, where Keyser’s campaign needed to gather 1,500 signatures to make the ballot. He got 1,520 signatures. If you subtract the 10 forged signatures, Keyser is down to 1,510, and all of his signatures from CD 1 haven’t been analyzed yet.

Bottom line, reporters should point out that Keyser has promised in the past to always answer questions. In the wake of this story, he’s not doing so.

In a Facebook post last month, Elbert County (Colorado) Commissioner Robert Rowland wrote that he would end up “in jail” if he saw a transgender person enter a bathroom that was also being used by his granddaughter.

Rowland was commenting on an article, posted April 14 on Facebook, which quoted former Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz as saying, “Men should not be going to the bathroom with little girls.”

In the comment section, Rowland wrote,  “If I catch one of the sick bastards following my granddaughter into the bathroom, I will be in jail.”

Rowland, whose Elbert County district is southeast of Denver, said Tuesday his Facebook comment was not a threat of violence.

“I’m a Christian man,” Rowland said. “I’m not a violent man. I would certainly do one of two things. I would retrieve my granddaughter quickly or ask the person to refrain until she’s finished.”

With respect to going to jail, Rowland said, “Maybe somebody would get angry if I tried to delay them going in, while my granddaughter had a chance to get out. But that’s about it.”

“I’m an ex-cop,” Rowland, a Republican, said. “I’ve put enough people in jail. I don’t want to be on the other side.”

“It is an emotional issue for everybody,” he said.

Asked for a response to Rowland’s comment, One Colorado Political Director Laura Reinsch pointed out that there’s no record of any criminal problems with transgender people using bathrooms in Colorado.

“Transgender Coloradans are not ‘sick,'” said Reinsch via email. “They only want to live their lives like every other Coloradan does, and that includes being able to use the bathroom without harassment. Since 2008, Colorado law has allowed transgender people to use the bathroom that reflects their gender identity, and there hasn’t been one instance of a transgender person assaulting anyone in a bathroom in our state. The language used by Commissioner Rowland is offensive and misrepresents the experiences of transgender people.

“Transgender Coloradans are our friends, neighbors, and family members, and they deserve to be treated fairly and with respect.”

Even in North Carolina, where state legislators passed a law requiring people to use the bathroom corresponding to the sex on their birth certificate, there is no record of assaults by transgender people in bathrooms.

This accusation has been called the anti-LGBT “bathroom-predator myth,” and on Monday the federal Justice Department sued North Carolina, arguing that its law is discriminatory.

Robert Rowland

Denver talk-radio host Craig Silverman challenged GOP U.S. Senate canidate Ryan Frazier’s assertion May 6 that the petition path to the primary ballot is a grassroots route, and Silverman asked, after Frazier was off air, whether donations to Frazier’s campaign would “go directly to Scott Gessler and his legal fees.”

The exchange started with Frazier, who’s waiting for the Colorado Supreme Court to decide whether he’ll qualify for the primary ballot, telling Silverman that the “system is broken and the process [of ballot access] is stuck in the last century.”

Silverman responded by asking if Frazier regretted not going “through the assembly process like Darryl Glenn.”

Frazier (at 1:45): No!  Look, we got over 18,000 people to sign our petitions. You can’t tell me that’s not a grassroots approach.  That’s why we chose to go the petition route, is that we felt it was a grassroots approach to getting out to talk to tenss of thousands of voters.  We’re very, very much committed to the process we took.  But quite frankly, guys, sometimes you don’t realize how flawed the system is until you’re in the middle of it.  And that’s what we’re realizing now.  But here’s what we know –nand it’s not in question, Craig – is that the voters – these are valid Republican voters.  There’s no question about that.  And we believe that they should be counted.  So that’s what we’re fighting for.  And we believe that – or at least, we hope – that a logic will prevail in this case.

Silverman responded by saying, “I don’t understand how that’s grassroots, to pay over $100,000 to get some stranger to hold the petition outside the various courthouses where I go.  ’ve seen the petitioners. It doesn’t feel like I’m meeting Ryan Frazier or really participating on a grassroots level, if I decided to sign that.”

Frazier said he and his team are out there, too, and it’s a grassroots process.

At the end of the show, after Frazier solicited donations from listeners and then departed, Silverman wondered out loud whether Frazier’s donations would go directly to the pocket of Frazier’s lawyer, Scott Gessler, who’s representing Frazier’s cause in the courts.

Frazier (6:36):  I just want to encourage your listeners to go to FrazierForColorado.com. We could use every donation, every contribution some can make — no matter how small – to help us as we fight to fix this broken system….

Silverman: Does that money go directly to Scott Gessler and his legal fees?

Dan Caplis: You know, it’s the nature of the business.

Silverman: I don’t begrudge it! I like lawyers to get paid

Caplis: Yeah. No, the nature. Of. The. Business.

El Paso Country Commissioner Darryl Glenn and former CSU athletic director Jack Graham easily made the Republican primary ballot, while businessman Robert Blaha and former State Rep. Jon Keyser both required a judge to add them to the ballot.

GOP operative Tyler Sandberg took a Twitter shot at State Sen.Tim Neville (R-Littleton) last month, just after Neville lost his bid to take on Michael Bennet in this fall’s Colorado Senate race.

Responding to an article quoting Neville as graciously saying “the people” had spoken, Sandberg snapped, “And the people support vaccinations.”

Sandberg is correct. Neville supported an unpopular bill in the state legislature last year (SB15-077) that would have made it even easier for parents to opt-out of getting their kids vaccinated in Colorado. Progressives have called Neville and others “anti-vaxxers” for supporting the efforts last year (and opposing sensible vaccination reporting this year) given that Colorado has some of the most lax vaccination policies in the country.

The funny part is, Neville is far from alone in the anti-vaxxer crusade. He’s joined by, among others, Republican State Sen. Laura Woods, whose Westminster race in November will likely determine whether Republicans retain control of the state senate and thus stop the Democrats, who have the governor’s office and state house, from taking control of state government.

So Sandberg’s shot at Neville inadvertently ricocheted into Woods. Or was the salvo intentional?

You don’t often see a muckety-muck flack like Sandberg, who’s been a mouthpiece for Rep. Mike Coffman, throwing shade at a candidate who’s got control of state government riding on her shoulders. And such an attack should have been spotlighted by reporters.

So I asked Sandberg on Twitter whether his anti-vaxxer aspersion applied to Woods and others as well:

.@wtylersandberg Just saw this, but wondering if you’re mocking not only @NevilleforCO but also @SenLauraWoods & others? #copolitics #coleg

How much damage does Sandberg think Woods’ anti-vaxxer stance will cause?

Politicians like to trick us by hiding behind their spokespeople and then, if necessary, contradicting whatever their spokesperson said.

Case in point: Mike Coffman.

Yesterday Coffman put out a wishy washy statement about whether he’d support Donald Trump. But back in February, when Coffman himself was dodging reporters’ questions about Trump, Coffman’s spokesperson was adamant that Coffman would back Trump if Trump became the Republican nominee, as quoted by The Colorado Statesman’s Ernest Luning.

Good reporters won’t let a politician, like Coffman, shove out a new position without, at a minimum, explaining why the new statement contradicts that of his spokesperson.

Case in point: Brandon Rittiman.

He quoted Coffman’s statement about Trump yesterday and noted that it completely contradicted the words of his mouthpiece back in February. From Rittiman’s story:

In a statement, Rep. Mike Coffman (R-Colorado) said he’s not sold on Trump yet, calling his party’s presumptive presidential nominee “divisive.”

“Trump has a long way to go to earn the support of many – me included,” Coffman wrote.

That statement contradicts what his campaign told the Colorado Statesman in February. The relevant portion of the article (which is behind a paywall) reads as follows:

“Will Mike Coffman support the Republican nominee over Bernie or Hillary?” said [Mike Coffman] campaign spokeswoman Kristin Strohm. “The answer is obviously yes. And he believes strongly it is going to be Marco Rubio.”

Other reporting on Coffman’s Trump statement ignored Strohm’s comment, but I’m sure there will be ample opportunities for reporters to ask Coffman to explain what’s going on here.

The local response to Trump’s big win last night should catch the attention of journalists now, with Colorado Republicans coming to grips with Trump as the presumptive GOP nominee.

On the pro-Trump side, as I’ve blogged many times, there’s apparently only one elected official in the state of Colorado who’s actually factually called Trump one of her favorite candidates, and that’s State Sen. Laura Woods of Westminster, whose race in November will likely decide whether Democrats take complete control of state government in Colorado. Yet, she’s never been asked about her fondness for Trump. (See video below.)

As I chronicled previously, other Colorado Republicans are divided on whether they’ll back Trump.

One Republican who’s refused to say whether he’d support Trump is Rep. Mike Coffman, who’s handling of Trump could affect the outcome of his contested congressional race in Aurora against Democratic State Sen. Morgan Carroll. (Rep. Ken Buck, who called Trump a “fraud,” has also been undecided about backing the mogul.)

In February, Coffman wouldn’t say if he’d get behind Trump, if Trump won the nomination. What say he now?

Then there’s Colorado Sen. Cory Gardner, who thinks Trump cannot win. Back on Februray 4, three months before Donald Trump became the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, Gardner hopped on a Denver radio station and told the world (or at least a cloistered conservative corner of it) that Donald Trump cannot win the general election.

Gardner: ‘The bottom line is this. There is only one way to prevent a third term of Barack Obama, and that is to elect a Republican nominee as president. I believe the only person who can win the November election and the Republican nomination is Marco Rubio.” (Listen to the Feb. 4 podcast here at 7:20 or below.)

Whoops. Or maybe not?

Gardner, who once called Trump a “buffoon” and won’t really say if he’d even support Trump,  is of course not the only Republican who said point-blank that Trump can never win in a general election. But what say he now that Trump is the Republican man of the year?

There’s some interesting GOP explaining to do now, and let’s hope we’ll see journalists making sure it happens.

Listen to State Sen. Laura Woods on KNUS 710-AM Jan. 16, 2016

Listen to Cory Gardner on KNUS 710-AM’s Dan Caplis Show Feb 4, 2016 (at 6 min 45 seconds)

U.S. Senate candidate John Keyser is blaming his campaign’s initial failure to qualify for the GOP primary ballot on a “bureaucrat” in the CO Secretary of State’s Office.

Keyser: “It was an interesting week. It wasn’t too dramatic for us. We had double and triple-checked our signature process and everything…. We had a secretary of state that said we had a problem. We were a few signatures short in one of the congressional districts. But we knew we were okay. We were very confident about that. It took a couple days, but I’m on the ballot now and ready to beat Michael Bennet.

Connell: What was the confusion…

Keyser: We had a guy who was working for us for months, collecting signatures. He did a great job, doing that. Now the secretary of state, not actually the secretary of state, but a bureaucrat that works in that office decided that he couldn’t quite tell who that person was, whether in fact he was a registered voter. He was of course. He had been registered as a Republican for years and everything. We know we didn’t have any issue there. Unfortunately, we had to go to court to take care of it, but were’ moving on.

Here’s what actually happened, per The Denver Post’s John Frank and Mark Matthews:

Keyser missed the mark in one congressional district because the address for one of the petition collectors did not match the registered voter file, as required by law. [BigMedia emphasis]

So the evil bureaucrat in the secretary of state’s office was just following the law!

A judge later determined that the Keyser campaign made the error, but she determined that Keyser came close enough to following the rules that she let his name appear on the ballot–in the interest of giving voters a choice. Close call for Keyser. If he had been following the rules, he wouldn’t have needed the judge’s decision.

So Keyser’s “double” and “triple” checking did not uncover the error, which was discovered by the secretary of state’s office. Despite this, Keyser tries to blame a government official who was just following the law.

Connell should make an on-air correction, stating that Keyser delivered misinformation on her show.

Listen to Jon Keyser on the Mandy Connel Show May 2, 2016

Thirty-three Republican members of the Colorado legislature joined last year with the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), a national anti-choice and anti-LGBT organization, in demanding the Colorado health department investigate Planned Parenthood, according to a letter released by ADF via Colorado State Sen. Kevin Lundberg’s office.

Considered to be one of the most powerful Christian right organizations in America, ADF is well-known at the Colorado legislature for pushing legislation and testifying in favor of the social-conservative agenda.

But it’s rare to see ADF form a direct alliance with so many legislators, as it did in advocating for a Planned Parenthood investigation.

“I’m not surprised to see ADF branching out into working alongside state legislators,” said Robert Boston, author of Taking Liberties: Why Religious Freedom Doesn’t Give You The Right To Tell Other People What To Do, via an email. “While I’m not aware of efforts on this scale in other states, I do know that ADF has of late been sending unsolicited ‘advice’ to state and local lawmakers concerning issues like the ability of government clerks to refuse service to same-sex couples. The influx of Tea Party-style Republicans in state governments since 2014 has given the group a host of natural allies in the state capitols, and it’s not surprising to see this relationship growing.”

While its work directly with legislators isn’t widely seen, ADF has a longstanding and multi-pronged history of attacking Planned Parenthood, including efforts to defund the health-care organization and to organize grassroots opposition among people and businesses. The organization’s anti-choice and anti-LGBTQ stances are widely documented.

In a 2015 handbook designed to help religious entities discriminate without facing legal repercussions, ADF equates bestiality and incest with being LGBTQ, participating in adultery, and using pornography.

“We believe that God wonderfully and immutably creates each person as male or female,” states the handbook. “These two distinct, complementary genders together reflect the image and nature of God. (Gen 1:26-27.) Rejection of one’s biological sex is a rejection of the image of God within that person.”

The handbook continues: “We believe that God intends sexual intimacy to occur only between a man and a woman who are married to each other. (1 Cor 6:18; 7:2-5; Heb 13:4.) We believe that God has commanded that no intimate sexual activity be engaged in outside of a marriage between a man and a woman. We believe that any form of sexual immorality (including adultery, fornication, homosexual behavior, bisexual conduct, bestiality, incest, and use of pornography) is sinful and offensive to God. (Matt 15:18-20; 1 Cor 6:9-10.)”

ADF, which did not return a call for comment, campaigned in support of a 2003 Texas lawsuit, arguing that it’s “clearly” true that “same-sex sodomy is a distinct public health problem.” ADF has backed efforts to criminalize homosexuality abroad, according to a report by Media Mattes for America.

ADF has gained attention more recently for providing legal defense for anti-LGBTQ business owners who refuse to serve same-sex patrons.

“ADF and its allies are attempting to reverse something like 50 years of social progress,” wrote Boston, who serves as communications director for Americans United for Separation of Church and State, a national progressive organization. “They are essentially at war with modernity. Some might argue that this is alarmist, and it won’t happen. But the fact is, reproductive rights have been under constant assault since Roe v. Wade was decided in 1973, and opponents of legal abortion have made a lot of progress.”

In the September 25 letter to the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE), GOP lawmakers requested the “standards or criteria that are required to initiate an investigation” of Planned Parenthood, and it asked how a heavily edited video that falsely purported to show illegal dealings in fetal tissue donation would not be investigated.

The video and others like it, part of an undercover series by the anti-choice front group the Center for Medical Progress (CMP), has been discredited and their creators indicted, but the videos have spawned local and national Republican-led hearings and investigations of Planned Parenthood. No evidence has shown Planned Parenthood to have broken any laws.

The ADF letter, which has not been previously reported on, came after CDPHE, in an August 31 letter, rejected a demand by many of the same state legislators to “initiate an investigation” of Planned Parenthood.

Among the GOP lawmakers listed on ADF’s letter calling for an investigation of Planned Parenthood are State Sen. Laura Woods (R-Westminster), whose fate in November’s election, some say, could determine whether Republicans maintain control of the Colorado Senate, and State Sen. Tim Neville (R-Littleton), who was rejected by Republicans to run against Democratic U.S. Senator Michael Bennet this fall.

State Rep. JoAnn Windholz (R-Commerce City), who’s been asked to resign after blaming Planned Parenthood for being the “true instigator” of November’s deadly shooting at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs, was also listed as a signer.

Multiple calls for comment on the letter and ADF’s legislative priorities were made to Rep. Dan Nordberg (R-Colorado Springs), whose name appears first among the lawmakers listed on the letter, were not returned.

Many of the Colorado legislators aligned with ADF were part of an unofficial “hearing” in November focused largely on the CMP smear videos, that turned into a day-long condemnation of Planned Parenthood. It took place just over two weeks before three people were murdered at the Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood clinic, which re-opened fully Sunday.

The ADF letter, which was included in an ADF briefing book distributed to legislators at the “hearing,” also requested public documents from CDPHE, including all correspondence with Planned Parenthood, pursuant to Colorado’s open records law.

It was signed by senior ADF Counsel Michael J. Norton, who left ADF in December to start the Colorado Freedom Institute, which will focus on conservative religious causes.

Norton, who drafted a 2006 amendment that voters added to the Colorado Constitution defining marriage as between a man and a woman, testified frequently at the state capitol and has been an outspoken advocate for anti-choice campaigns.

Norton did not return emails asking if the lawmakers who joined his former organization’s letter support ADF’s broader agenda of criminalizing homosexuality and defunding Planned Parenthood.

Westword’s Michael Roberts reported yesterday on The Denver Post’s announcement  that it plans to offer buyouts another 26 journalists:

If this reduction is realized, the Post’s newsroom will have lost more than a third of its workers in around a year.

As we reported in June 2015, there were approximately 165 newsroom members when the Post announced its previous buyout offer. By the end of that July, twenty people were gone — nineteen voluntarily, one via layoff.

The staff diminution has continued since then. The Denver Business Journal reports that there are about 130 people in the newsroom at present. Take 26 people away from that total and the Post’s newsroom will barely be over the century mark.

Can you imagine the sadness and frustration you’d feel if you worked at The Post right about now? It’s bad enough to watch from the outside.

Former Post Editor Greg Moore told me last month that the economic troubles expedited his own departure from the newspaper, and how can you blame him or any of the reporters who decide to take the buyout and depart now.

Still, today’s newspaper was full of admirable reporting on a wide range of topics. That pretty much says it all about what we have and what we’ll lose.

In its report on a Denver judge’s decision to allow U.S. Senate candidate Jon Keyser on the Republican primary ballot, after the Secretary of State had rejected his petitions, The Denver Post’s John Frank and Mark Matthews reported:

Once considered a favorite in the race, Keyser must now overcome other challenges that are injecting questions into this campaign — not least among them, the fact he needed a court ruling to keep his campaign alive. [BigMedia emphasis]

It’s unclear just how much of a liability Keyser’s signature-gathering fiasco will be, but the reporters were correct to write that it raises questions–as yet unexplored in detail by journalists–about whether Keyser’s short stint on the campaign trail and in public service has shown him to be competent not only to run a campaign but to be an effective U.S. Senator, to replace Democrat Michael Bennet.

Keyser’s Republican colleague in the Colorado State House, Rep. Justin Everett of Littleton, jumped on Facebook last week to write that Keyser “isn’t ready for prime time,” as evidenced by Keyer’s fundraing troubles, problematic petitions, and other bungles.

Everett: Not to say he won’t cure, suers gonna sue. But what’s interesting here is how close he was in Congressional District 1 (20 signatures), in heavily Republican CD5 (a mere 76 signatures), and CD 6 (75 signatures). If another candidate were to contest the validity of those Congressional Districts, he may be deemed insufficient in other areas. Not to mention his announcement claim that he had $3 million pledged to his campaign but only raised $200K, while contributing $100K of his own money. After serving with him for a mere year in the legislature, it is still pretty clear he isn’t ready for prime time…

“After serving with [Keyser] for a mere year in the legislature, it is still pretty clear he isn’t ready for prime time….”

If you couple that statement with the campaign lapses, you have a bunch of unanswered questions about Keyser’s basic competency that need to be addressed by reporters as the campiagn gears up.