Your Money Or Your Vote: Citywide voting patterns in the May 2007 Denver municipal election

Did you vote for the mayor? If you've got a nice income and live in a wealthy neighborhood, odds are that you did.

Truth be told, the odds are that you voted for the mayor no matter where you live. It's just that folks in wealthy neighborhoods tended to support him more heavily than folks in poorer neighborhoods.
That dynamic wasn't true of all incumbents. Auditor Dennis Gallagher, for instance, seemed to do best with the middle class.
And then there were challengers like Carol Campbell, candidate for City Council At Large. She did considerably better among the poorer neighborhoods.
Talk of an uninterested electorate this year thus speaks more to the interests of the wealthy than of the poor. Poorer neighborhoods naturally were far more interested in change. Thankfully for incumbents, the rich vote more often and thus get the final word.

Note: for this study, year 2000 census figures were used. The average income in 16 neighborhoods was less than $40,000 per year in income; 15 averaged between $40,000 and $49,999; 13 averaged between $50,000 and $69,999; and 11 were above $70,000.

What your city officials USED to say

The exercise with Mr Werther got me to wondering what our city officials' websites looked like way back, even before they were elected. And by extension, how do they compare to their official actions?

Using a wonderful resources called the Wayback Machine, I perused the old websites. One limitation is that certain graphics may not load and links may be broken, but you can still navigate (guessing at what the missing images may have shown) and see what they had to say about themselves.

I invite you to peruse Denver's election facades as they looked in April 2003.

John Hickenlooper
Dennis Gallagher
Rick Garcia
Jeanne Faatz
Rosemary Rodriguez
Peggy Lehmann
Marcia Johnson
Kathleen MacKenzie
Elbra Wedgeworth
Judy Montero
Jeanne Robb
Michael Hancock
Carol Boigon

Did you notice anything different or strange? Comments, ideas, and critiques of "how they were then" appreciated.

Gallagher's spaghetti remarks

Denver Direct has videotaped the Denver Democrats spaghetti dinner, and offers the following vignette of Dennis Gallagher on the campaign trail, complete with glad-handling, puffery, and jokes in Latin.

O'Malley's daddy

Does anyone find it strange that virtually all of the campaign financing in support of an elected Clerk & Recorder position was provided by "Wellington Webb International"?

Having Webb's daughter (Stephanie O'Malley) appointed to the position by Mayor Hickenlooper seems rather... convenient, doesn't it?

Does it make it better that Dad waited two months to fund the campaign, or more suspicious?

Questions should be directed to Hick, O'Malley, Webb, and the group's treasurer, Dennis Gallagher.

Denver's five nonvoting political candidates

We care to know that political candidates show political leaders, so it is discouraging when they fail to fulfill even the most basic democratic responsibility to vote. Daniel Chacon of the Rocky Mountain News has investigated the voting records of the current candidates for municipal office, and found that five didn't vote at all in the January 2007 election.

They want your vote, but five candidates running for office in Denver in May didn't cast ballots in the last election.

Their reasons for not voting in January - when voters were asked whether to replace the troubled Denver Election Commission with an elected clerk and recorder - are as varied as the candidates.

Dennis Smith didn't remember receiving his ballot.

Bill Wells lost his ballot.

Greg Rasheed forgot to mail it.

Mitchell Poindexter said he didn't understand the question.

Waldo Benavidez thought it was a waste of money.

View the entire article online at "Five city candidates didn't vote in January election."

Rocky endorses frontrunners

The Rocky Mountain News today issued official endorsements for the May 2007 municipal election. With due caution, they endorsed the frontrunner in every race... except for Council District 8, in which they offered kudos for both Sharon Bailey and Carla Madison:

Mayor: John Hickenlooper
Auditor: Dennis Gallagher
Clerk & Recorder: Stephanie O’Malley
District 3: Paul Lopez
District 4: Peggy Lehmann
District 5: Marcia Johnson
District 7: Chris Nevitt
District 8: Sharon Bailey or Carla Madison
District 9: Judy Montero
At-large: Doug Linkhart and Carol Boigon

Apparent end to the "Anybody But Hickenlooper" campaign

John Wren has apparently abandoned his write-in campaign for mayor. The plan was to get dozens of minor candidates with their own group of supporters to write in various names. The idea was to deny the Mayor a majority (the "50%+1" rule), and thus force a runoff, during which Republicans and disaffected others could coalesce behind the "Anyone But Hickenlooper" alternative.

But yesterday, he threw in the towel:

We Will Re-elect Mayor Hickenlooper. He is absolutely unbeatable. It would be a complete and total waste of energy to continue to promote a write-in campaign against him.

What a brilliant insight, right?Everyone else could see this months ago, but not me. It finally sunk into my thick skull when last night I attended the first of a series of meet the Mayor events that are being held around the city.The next one’s in South Denver tonight, but I think I’ll pass. If you want to go, see http://hickenlooperformayor.com.

Wren goes on to endorse Dennis Gallagher and Stephanie O'Malley. He also mentioned Ike Kelly in District 4 who "seems to be attracting support in his tough race to beat a popular incumbent."

Dennis Gallagher on the hot seat

Sometimes the most important news about an election is never mentioned, because the newspaper dailies are too busy figuring their advertising revenues to figure out what's happening.

And then... something strange appears.

Such is the case with Dear Denver's revelations regarding the Denver Auditor's office:

In January 2007, Denver voters received a strange phone call:

"This is Thomas Jefferson. I'm told that 20,000 people lost their right to vote in Denver last November. That is appalling. And it is not what I had in mind when I wrote the Declaration of Independence and we fought the Revolutionary War. It can't happen again. Please vote yes in the January 30th election to create an elected Clerk and Recorder in Denver. It works in the rest of Colorado. It will work here. Protect your right to vote. Reform the system. Vote yes for an elected Clerk." (Listen to the mp3.)

Dear Denver describes several reasons why this solicitation was suspicious. Was Gallagher responsible for illegal (or at least illicit) phone calls in the 2006-07 election campaign?

The mystery lingers: Who paid for the weird "Thomas Jefferson" robocalls during the January special election? It's not a mystery, really. Auditor Dennis Gallagher's campaign was responsible. Even so, questions remain.

I do not classify myself as a credulous supporter. I have mentioned before my personal affiliation with Denver Auditor Dennis Gallagher. We are not personal friends, but as a fellow Jesuit graduate, politico, and Irishman, I could hardly oppose my compatriot.

Even still, these are serious allegations requiring serious answer. I hope the public process can help illuminate the situation.

The full article is entitled "No one audits the auditor."

The battle for Denver Auditor - full profiles and issues

Some of the most informative pieces regarding Denver politics are not available on the Web. The Colorado Statesman has been around for more than 100 years, providing in-depth coverage of policy issues, elections, and political personalities at both the state and local level. Yet it's small, with monthly editions available only in the State Capitol Building and through online subscription.

In February 2007, reporter John Schroyer offered the following article entitled "Denver auditor faces 'candidate of destiny' in May election." Reprinted in its entirety with permission from the author, this article provides extensive profiles of each candidate along with the issues animating the campaign.

If you don't think this is the most thorough and engaging story of the 2007 Denver auditor's race, I'll eat my hat.

For Bill Wells, the job of Denver City Auditor isn’t just a job. It’s a calling.

“It’s just something I’ve got to do,” Wells explained. “It’s a dream.”

Wells, a retired automobile parts manufacturer who’s been filling his spare time working as an airport inspections officer for TSA, has already run for the auditor’s job, in 1979 and then again in 2003, when current Denver Auditor Dennis Gallagher won his first term. But Wells isn’t letting his past failures distract him from his goal.

“I started campaigning shortly before the November election. It’s been a very behind-the-scenes thing so far, but I’m not going to lose,” Wells said. “I knew, election night four years ago, that I was going to run again. It didn’t make any difference who else was running.”

Though he came in dead last of the five candidates listed on the ballot in the 2003 election, with only 5 percent of the vote, the 60-year-old Wells says this time will be different (Gallagher took first in the 2003 general election with 31 percent and then won a run-off a month later against second-place finisher Ed Thomas).

With a campaign slogan of “An auditor for auditor — what a novel idea,” Wells has been quietly shoring up support and canvassing neighborhoods. He’s been talking about the different ways he wants to cut out inefficiency from Denver’s daily operations, which he learned about firsthand between 1973 and 1980, when he served as Denver’s Budget and Management Analyst.

“I was bewildered to see the amount of government waste and the bureaucracy that prevented any improvements. I know what some of the problems are, and I know what some of the solutions are,” Wells said.

He said one of the biggest problems he noted at the time was the inefficient upkeep of municipal vehicles.

“I uncovered the city spending $10,000 to $15,000 thousand a year on vehicles that were only worth $5,000. The same amount of dollars could have purchased a new vehicle that would have lasted longer,” Wells recalled.

“That’s kind of a no-brainer,” he said with a chuckle.

Wells also cites his ingenuity and foresight in devising a method for calculating licenses and permit fees, a fifty-point plan that was adopted by the Denver City Council while he was working with the Budget Office. In 1999, Wells said, the Financial Accounting Standards Board adopted a similar plan and required it be implemented nationwide.

“I started that twenty years before it became the standard,” Wells said.
More than his qualifications, though, Wells says Denver voters are tired of Gallagher’s style.

“Dennis wasn’t cut out to be an auditor,” Wells said. “Dennis just doesn’t have the makeup to be an auditor. He’s a very good politician, no one will disagree with that. He’s probably one of the best. Meeting and greeting people and name recognition, he’s very good at that, but when it comes to running an office of professionals in a non-political way, I don’t think he knows how to do that.”

Wells said though Gallagher has made a number of mistakes over the years, one that stuck out for him was the “$9 billion mistake,” at the very beginning of his term, when Gallagher calculated the amount of debt Denver has. His office somehow misplaced a decimal point, and instead of the true amount of debt, Gallagher wound up proclaiming that Denver was $9 billion less in the hole than it actually was.

Wells has held office before — he ran for and won a seat on the city council of Smethport, Pennsylvania, a town of roughly 1,700 people, where he lived from 1983 to 2001. Wells said he moved to Smethport when his father, who was ailing, asked him to run the family business, Smethport Auto Parts, a now-defunct parts manufacturer. Simply moving from one state to another didn’t relieve Wells’ desire to serve in public office, though, and he wound up serving on Smethport’s city council, from 1988 to 1996, and was elected council president both terms.

So far, he’s hired no official campaign staff, and though he said his campaign will be “the typical deal,” he also said it would be much smaller and less of “a high-profile type thing.” His strategy was to keep his candidacy quiet until the last minute in the hopes that “no one else would jump on the bandwagon.”


Gallagher, by contrast, has been proudly extolling his campaign to voters for months, and was even able to kill two birds with one stone, thanks to the special election in January when Denver voters approved a measure to disband the Denver Election Commission in favor of an elected clerk and recorder. Gallagher, a longtime proponent of the switch, campaigned hard for the measure, and was delighted when it passed.

“The campaign is going very well,” Gallagher said. “I got a little bit of an early start because I was supporting the amendment for the elected clerk. That was a sort of prelude to the campaign. By supporting that, I reminded everybody that I’m up again in May.”

The 67-year-old Democrat has held public office without a break since 1970, when he was first elected to the state House of Representatives. He stayed there until 1974, when he moved over to the State Senate. Once term limits for public officials were approved by voters, though, Gallagher found himself term-limited after the 1994 election, and quit the senate for a Denver City Council campaign a year later. He served there until 2003, when he was again term-limited, and then was elected to city auditor. For this election cycle, he’s already turned in his petitions, weeks ahead of the deadline, and with 500 signatures as opposed to the requisite 300.

After this term, though, he says he’ll be done with politics, and plans to retire and write short stories “like James Joyce,” he said with a grin.

For now, however, he’s taking reelection quite seriously.

Gallagher laughed at Wells’ slogan, and retorted, “That’s a great motto. Mine is ‘audit the hell out of them, no matter what.’”

He also rejected Wells’ suggestion that he was unqualified for the post.

“I was sixteen years on the state audit committee. Do you think that’s long enough?” Gallagher asked rhetorically. He served on the state senate audit committee from 1978 to 1994.

He also scoffed at the insinuation that the so-called $9 billion mistake was a crucial slip-up, and said he even heard from his 7th grade math teacher about that snafu.

“She said, Dennis, I’m praying for you, and with a mistake like that, you should be working for the federal government,” he laughed.

His mission, he said, is bringing ever more accountability and efficiency to Denver city departments. Gallagher cited one example where his office had discovered an agency using 411 every time they needed to find a phone number, instead of simply using either the Internet or a phone book, at an estimated annual cost of $25,000. After they brought the matter to light, Gallagher said, the cost was reduced to just a few thousand.

“I’m looking forward to continuing to improve city government and making it more accountable to the taxpayers,” Gallagher said.

Another issue Gallagher says resonates with voters is performance audits, which his office was authorized to begin after Denver voters passed 1B last November.

“That is going to be our new thrust,” Gallagher said. “It’s through performance audits that you find out almost everything that’s going on.”

Gallagher said that tool is going to increase Denver’s bureaucratic effectiveness by allowing his office to “get in deep” and find out how to help city offices figure out the best and most effective ways to do their jobs.

Another aspect of 1B Gallagher’s pleased with is that from now on, the city audit committee will be comprised of financial experts from outside the city’s infrastructure, which he believes will increase the committee’s objectivity and integrity.

“If you remember Enron, that’s how they got in trouble,” Gallagher said, referring to the past structure, which allowed for two members of the committee to be appointed by the mayor. “I’ve always supported getting outside members on the audit committee. All along, in my years in office, we’ve been pushing for a totally independent audit committee, and I’m pleased to report that we’ll have that now.”

Gallagher said he will also be campaigning on his role with the prevailing wage law, which protects construction workers and other contract employees from being undercut by companies with which Denver contracts for projects. The law requires employers to pay a competitive wage, and Gallagher says his office has concentrated on enforcing those protections.

“We’ve made it very clear from the beginning with construction companies and companies that do business with the city what prevailing wage is,” Gallagher stated.

Gallagher’s also being supported by an enormous contingent of Colorado Democrats, including Denver lawmakers Sen. Paula Sandoval and Rep. Jerry Frangas, former legislators Regis Groff, Paul Sandoval, Rob Hernandez, Frank DiFillipo, Bill Thiebaut, Gloria Tanner, Wilma Webb, and Frana Mace. Gallagher has also been endorsed by the Colorado Building and Construction Trades Council, the Laborer’s local 720, the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees local 821, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers local 68, the Teamsters local 2004, the United Food and Commercial Workers local 7, the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades local 930, the Plumbers Union local 3, the Plumbers and Pipefitters local 208, and the Colorado State Electrical Workers. Gallagher has also been endorsed by U.S. Rep. Ed Perlmutter, D-CD 7.

As of Feb. 5, Gallagher had $29,672 on hand. Wells has not filed campaign finance reports with the Denver Election Commission yet.

Measuring performance in the Auditor's office

Denver Post reporter George Merritt offers an window into the Denver Auditor's race, reviewing charges from challenger Bill Wells against incumbent Dennis Gallagher. The article is entitled "Auditor hopeful takes jab at Gallagher."

Bill Wells said a survey done by a government auditing organization showed [Auditor Dennis] Gallagher's office performed below best practices in 15 of 17 auditing categories.

"Were I auditor," Wells said, "this is where I would start. I would use this as our measure of professionalism."

But the Association of Local Government Auditors said the information Wells used was not intended to assess performance.

...[Dennis Gallagher] noted that his office received the "highest standard of evaluation" during a peer review by the same organization.

Profile: Dennis Gallagher (Auditor)

Dennis Gallagher successfully faced off against Bill Wells and others in 2003. Below is an excerpt from The Colorado Statesman written in March 2003 by Ken Freed. The full title is "Auditor Candidates Seeing Red at Neighborhood Forum."

...Dennis J. Gallagher was the last candidate to speak. The former state legislator with a Colorado budget amendment named after him is the term-limited Denver City Council representative for District 1, northwest Denver. He's also a speech communication professor at Regis University.

"I've directed performance audits of state agencies while a state senator," he said, "and I'd like to see the same done for all Denver agencies." He'd also "like to see what can be done" for Denver's neighborhoods and small businesses in city services.

"I remember hearing how the new city office building would feature a 'one-stop shop' for all permits and licenses, but it's not there. As Auditor I could ask why and do something about all the money being wasted."

If elected Auditor, he promised that he would his own car instead of a city vehicle, and he questioned if so many in the city government staff even need vehicles. "Are they racing to some crime scene or a fire in the middle of the night?"

And on top of all that, he said, he's the only member of term-limited city council members in the Auditor's race who will give back to the city 30 percent of his budget.

Denver City Council members have traditionally rolled forward unused funds from year to year, and the tallies for some council members have grown over time.

"I'd have to face any ethical challenges about spending a million dollars before I left office," he concluded. "So just remember the name of Gallagher."

Candidates Fail To Report Donor Details

RMN political reporter Daniel Chacón today exposed widespread violations of the city's campaign finance laws.

According to the law, candidates must report both the occupation and employer of all donors who give more than $200.

However, they are failing to do so. Mayor Hickenlooper and Auditor Gallagher are among the violators, while Julie Connor's campaign seems to have been cleared. Other candidates were not mentioned in this story.

The only reason violators haven't been caught is that the Clerk & Recorder's office isn't doing their job and auditing any of these statements. Stephanie O'Malley is looking into the matter.

The full story can be found online: "Campaign Finance Laws Being Violated."

Denver City Council voted against Iraq war

As a historian, I frequently harken back to previous actions of elected officials. One such occasion four years ago seems especially prescient.

In February 2003, Denver City Council voted 7-3 in favor of a resolution against the Iraq war, as reported by the Denver Post. No current Council members voted for the war.

The resolution passed on a 7-3 vote with Joyce Foster and Charlie Brown abstaining and Ramona Martinez absent.

In favor were Susan Barnes-Gelt, Dennis Gallagher, Happy Haynes, Kathleen MacKenzie, Debbie Ortega, Elbra Wedgeworth and Cathy Reynolds. Opposed were Polly Flobeck, Ted Hackworth and Ed Thomas.

An amendment proposed by Hackworth supporting the Bush administration failed by the same vote.

...The measure also resolved: "That United States forces may be deployed as a last resort if it is determined that military action is necessary to disarm Iraq of weapons of mass destruction with full support for our military personnel."