By Greg Campbell, FACE THE STATE

Speaker of the House Terrance Carroll will have more on his plate early next year than just the new legislative session—he will also be busy in court defending a consortium of legal groups accused of violating state campaign laws.

The complaint was leveled by Clear the Bench Colorado, a political committee fronted by Matt Arnold and set up to advocate for the ouster of a slate of Supreme Court justices. He contended that the defendants—nonprofit groups The League of Women Voters, the Colorado Bar Association, the Colorado Judicial Institute, and the Institute for the Advancement of the American Legal System—illegally campaigned for the justices’ retention by not filing with the state as a political committee.

At the heart of the complaint was a website funded by the groups called Know Your Judge, which led visitors to information explicitly recommending retention. They also paid for radio and television advertisements.

As detailed earlier by Face the State, if the complaint is upheld, a judge can levy fines of $50 per day for late reporting, plus a fine of between $170,000 and $425,000.

Attorney Doug Friednash joins Carroll for the defense; both work for the politically connected Denver law firm Greenberg Traurig.

Although most hearings on campaign violations take place within 30 days of the complaint, the Clear the Bench hearing has been postponed, most recently until the end of January. However, that date will likely change again after a status conference today; Arnold will be out of state for military training at the time.

Therefore, while the election is yesterday’s news (all three of the justices targeted by Clear the Bench were retained, in case you’d forgotten), the loose strings won’t be tied up for many more weeks.

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