Denver Direct: What’s up with Scott Gessler, Colorado’s Colorful Secretary of State?

Photo – Kathleen Lavine – Denver Business Journal

Do you follow the activities of our Colorado Secretary of State Scott Gessler? If so, you know he is quite a colorful guy. No, seriously, his face is said to turn various colors when he gets emotional, i.e. angry. Not that there is anything wrong with that. Just another form of body language.


Now, he’s slashing fees like a bush-whacker in the thicket. How can he do this when other agencies are raising fees, in some cases drastically, citing rising agency costs?

I’m not beyond imagining a few hypotheses: Is he trying to prove that he can do anything he wants in the SoS office? Is this for publicity? Did he really get such savings that he can cut fees by 99% and still run the his office (did he run projections or audits)? Will this create an amazing jobs-boosting bump?

I had heard that he wanted to spend $700,000 on a new elections software package. He says he’s putting more stuff online. I don’t know if these are related to the great fee-slashing or not, but maybe he can explain his magic to the other fee-raising departments.

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