As Nancy Mitchell reports, a new 527 political organization called CARE — Coloradans for Accountable Reform in Education — formed last month and has been sending out slick brochures in support of at least some of the candidates backed by the Denver and state teachers’ unions. Some of the funding comes from the Denver Classroom Teachers Association and the Colorado Education Association.
Other indirect assistance to the candidates may have been provided as well, but since CARE doesn’t have to file any disclosure reports until after the election, we won’t know the details for a while.
One brochure, promoting southwest Denver candidate Andrea Merida, smacks of GOP scare tactics around health reform. Only in this case, it’s about charter schools and how they will suck the life out of your neighborhood school.
Merida repudiates at least some of the brochure’s message. “I don’t consider myself to be anti-charter. In fact, I’m a big fan of Chris Gibbons and West Denver Prep … I’ve always been extremely complimentary about charter schools that work,” Merida told Mitchell.
Here is a copy of the brochure. Its distortions and half-truths are part of what passes for politics these days, but it’s a shame to see this kind of garbage in a school board election. If the unions persist in framing charters as the enemy of neighborhood schools — as this brochure so clearly does — then it will be hard to make any progress in urban education.
Next time the DCTA or CEA tries to protest that they are not against charter schools, just remember the brochure.
Popularity: 30% [?]
Alan–
Is the mail piece materially false or inaccurate?
Well, no….
I think you’re overstating the case. By leaps and bounds.
That this rather innocuous piece gets you so fired up, and hundred thousand dollar contributions from Republicans from OUTSIDE of Denver (so much for schools being matters of local control and concern) don’t speaks loudly.
Just as Nancy Mitchell doesn’t report that those same donors are tied to the anti-labor Colorado Concern, in horribly biased coverage that more and more smacks of bought and paid “journalism” (like the in-quotes lede “pro-reform” candidates)
There are no “distortions and half-truths” in the mail piece. Just one rhetorical question, and one clear statement of fact – and a handful of quoted newspaper pieces. You should just be glad that Welchert and Britz weren’t in a fouler mood when the piece was drafted…
Guerin,
How about some specific, documentable facts to back up your assertion about Colorado Concern? Your previous allegations about the Trailhead Group proved to be false, so forgive me if I’m reflexively skeptical about your claims. If you’ve got the facts, put them on the table.
Feel free to take all the shots at me you want. I write opinion, sometimes with an edge, not unlike a certain neighborhood newspaper publisher. I’m fair game. But to call Nancy’s reporting “horribly biased” and “paid ‘journalism’” is grossly unfair and I suspect you know it. Her integrity is unimpeachable. The points you try to make would have more credibility if you didn’t feel the need to descend into personal attack.
This took all of thirty seconds to research….
COLO CONCERN: MULTI GAMEL THOMAS DENVER, CO 06/27/1996 $200.00 No No
5. COLO CONCERN: MULTI GAMEL THOMAS DENVER, CO 08/30/1996 $565.00 No No
6. COLORADANS FOR RESPONSIBLE REF: AGST AMENDMENT 12, 15 AND SUPPORT GAMEL T W LAKEWOOD, CO 08/18/1994 $1,000.00 No No
7. COLORADO CONCERN (ISSUES): MAKE CONTRIBUTIONS TO ISSUE COMM FOR GAMEL THOMAS W DENVER, CO 08/31/1997 $230.00 No No
8. COLORADO CONCERN FOR CANDIDATE: MAKING CONTRIB TO CAND COMM, POL PARTY, GAMEL THOMAS DENVER, CO 12/17/1996 $50.00 No No
And here’s what I emailed you on October 16, 2009 at 6:30
“I would be curious how much these guys gave to Trailhead and similar vehicles…”
That’s not an allegation, now is it? That’s an expression of curiosity . If you are going to recklessly accuse me a false allegations, at least be accurate. Or apologize, maybe.
The reality is you guys don’t have full access to Trailhead and related vehicle giving– especially if you can’t find the Colorado Concern stuff… You don’t even know what you are looking at, apparently.
Give me a break. When you actually understand the mechanics of political and interest group finance, let me know. Until then, be prepared to have the high horse knocked from beneath your feet.
And I’ll have a full, blow-by-blow, review of Nancy coverage published as soon as I can get to drugstore to get my anti-nausea prescription filled.
That’s what I get for poking the hornets’ nest.
Thank you for researching Gamel’s contributions to Colorado Concern. It’s not that we don’t know how to find campaign contribution information. I was asking you, who made the allegations, to back them up. You did that. Bravo. And Gamel’s contributions don’t make him much of a player in Colorado Concern, according to the information you provided in your comment.
Fair enough. You didn’t make “allegations” about Trailhead. Though if you’re so adept at researching these things, I wonder why you didn’t just lay out the facts instead of asking an insinuating question. Especially if you have access to some “Trailhead and related vehicle-giving” that we lack.
Of course Gamel’s huge contributions to the DPS race subject him to questions about motive, and all other manner of scrutiny. No argument there. I wonder though, whether you have similar concerns about the role played by Stryker-Gill-Polis in recent ballot initiatives? I suspect you and I are actually on the same side in these issues. Did it bother you that three wealthy individuals could have such a disproportionate influence on the outcome of an election? I’ll tell you, I was pretty happy when they were able to help defeat the anti-bilingual education ballot issue. Why did they come in? To counter a major national push from the other side, funded by a wealthy Californian. Why did Gamel come in? You’d have to ask him, but I’d speculate that he may have been concerned about the potential for big bucks from the NEA and CEA influencing these races.
“Why did Gamel come in? You’d have to ask him, but I’d speculate that he may have been concerned about the potential for big bucks from the NEA and CEA influencing these races.”
Well, you know that I think that, because I told you that I thought that, and I told you that particular concern was a legitimate one, and one I would share if I was so situated. But the reporting on Gamel, and the Seawell quotes are pure BS. You don’t spend more than four times the average DPS family income on a school board race without having a real burr beneath your saddle.
I have all kinds of concerns about Stryker-Gill-Polis, including ones I have written about– mostly having to do with the decline of political parties and the rise of unaccountable pools of giant money. And I don’t confuse ballot issues that enshrine crap in the state constitution with candidate races. As a co-founder of Balance Colorado 16 years ago, built to counter Doug Bruce, I’ve been there, done that, have the scars. (yeah, check out a Steve Lipsher front page, Sunday Denver Post piece from 1994)
Look, people give money to campaigns for three reasons– vanity (ego), ideology or access (smart money). (I’m stealing the intellectual property of my friend Trey Rogers here).
Gamel’s past pattern indicates an ideological (anti-worker) frame. Can’t prove it, but that’s my educated guess.
The part Nancy reporting is most missing is the context — never before have a group of linked individuals put in such gigantic campaign contributions in a school board race. Union giving, 527, etc, is both old hat and peanuts compared to the Gamel, et al. That absence also fits the unfair, but not ad hominem, criticism (or if you prefer attack) and judgment I have made about reporting and opinion on EdNews. Just probing the edges of the dialectic, if you will..
And no, I’m not letting you peak at my 20 years worth of donor databases. I don’t share lists, and don’t unwittingly make campaign contributions or violate campaign finance laws.
Nancy reporting is generally pretty good stuff. Rely on it myself. But that doesn’t mean she: A) doesn’t have blind spots; and B) carries sensitivities and sympathies that don’t get completely edited out…
Gamel greenbacks are a seismic shift– a 527 carrying union water in a late hitting mail piece isn’t. No fully considered analysis could find differently.
You can get a more balanced perspective in the North Denver News, publishing Friday. We won’t be threatening Granny, either.
So the facts:
According to records filed with the Secretary of State’s Office, Thomas Gamel made a total of ten political contributions before getting involved in the DPS board in 2009. The most recent of those contributions pre-2009 was in 2005 to Republican Marc Holtzman’s gubernatorial committee.
Before 2005, Gamel’s most recent contributions are more than ten years old – the most recent being in1997 to Colorado Concern, a pro-business committee whose board members have included key business leaders such as Larry Mizel, Joe Blake and Daniel Ritchie. Gamel gave a total of $1,045 in four contributions – $50, $200, $230 and $565 – in 1996 and 1997 to Colorado Concern.
In addition, Gamel gave $2,500 to support a committee supporting Denver Republicans in 1995 and, in 1994, two $2,500 contributions to Republican Bruce Benson’s gubernatorial committee, $1,000 to Coloradans For Responsible Reform – which sided with labor in opposing Amendments 12 and 15 that year – and $250 to support Denver’s cultural tax.
At the federal level, according to FEC filings and http://www.opensecrets.org, Gamel gave $500 to Republican Orrin Hatch in 1998. He also gave $1,000 to Republican Sen. Wayne Allard in 1996.
In reporting and writing a story, I have to make decisions about what to include and what not to include. The story is lengthy and covers three subjects, one of them being Gamel. I chose the pre-DPS contributions to include based on space and relevancy: I included all of those within the past five years – Holtzman – and I included the gifts to Republicans Benson and Allard as they were among the biggest of the prior donations, their names are well-known and they show Gamel gives at the state and federal levels as well as the local. Four gifts totaling $1,045 to Colorado Concern 12 and 13 years ago did not, in my opinion, represent strong “anti-union” ties that warranted inclusion.
On the other hand, I did not include Gamel’s contributions to Colorado Uplift, the more than $100,000 he gave to the DPS Foundation in 2007-08 or the $20,000 he gave to DPS’ Montclair Academy a year ago. Again, I cannot include everything in a story, even on a web site. I have to make decisions and I am more than happy to share my reasoning behind them. That said, I’m sure I make mistakes and I welcome input from our many readers who know far more than I do.
Nancy–
Have you checked whether Gamel’s numerous companies — the
Rockmount Capital website has partial list of where Rockmount has ownership interests– are members (and thus much more financially vested in) Colorado Concern, or the various related groups, most of which don’t engage in direct electioneering and don’t report as political committees of CC or its ilk?
I’m guessing you haven’t (and I’ve only checked cursorily and with one well-placed source) and I don’t expect that you should or will. But you’re only seeing the tip of the iceberg here, and you ought to consider what the pattern means, and not fixate on the amount of contributions. Or, maybe not. But when others see familiar patterns, expect them to take note, and assign meaning to them. The point, of course, is why a small clique is making giant, game-changing, history-making campaign contributions? Altruism or ideology? And what, exactly, do they expect in exchange for such monstrous money? My direct experience is that max donors want a lot… and these are certainly “max” contributions.
Also, since you use the device “on the other hand,” do you somehow see contributions to Montclair Academy or the DPS foundation as somehow mitigating political involvement? I know I don’t have the checkbook to be a Benson crony, but I’m glad he doesn’t put the arm on me. Was DPS foundation check earmarked for a particular purpose? The cynical might say, when Benson calls, even if it was for the DPS foundation, which he then headed, Gamel grabs his pen…