Was your civic conscience troubled when you learned that Colorado’s Republican Secretary of State, Scott Gessler, attended an election law conference in order to compare notes with other Republican election lawyers in 2012? Was it particularly irksome to discover this meeting was piggybacked on the Republican National Convention scheduled in nearby Tampa, Florida? Were you further outraged to find out that Gessler dipped into his discretionary expense account in order to cover his travel expenses for appearing as a speaker at this partisan confab? If so, you were likely delighted when Colorado’s Ethics Watch filed a complaint against his flagrant junketeering at taxpayer’s expense. Who would have thought an ambitious Republican would take advantage of his public office to network with similarly inclined Republican election officers?

Better yet, Colorado’s Independent Ethics Commission agreed with Ethics Watch and ruled the Secretary of State should be fined for his alleged ethical violations. Before Democrats break out the champagne, they should take a closer look at the precedent this travesty establishes. I’ve written elsewhere regarding the kangaroo court nature of the Commission’s proceedings, but it is worthwhile to revisit both the history and message transmitted to voters by the so-called Independent Ethics Commission. Created under Amendment 41 to the Colorado Constitution and promoted by Common Cause and then State School Board member Jared Polis, its implications were clear: Colorado public employees and elected officials are a uniquely corrupt and venal class that requires extra-judicial surveillance and humiliation. Hastily written and poorly drafted it has evolved into a tool for staining the political reputation of candidates and elected officials.

There is plenty of Colorado law available for punishing genuine corruption. You only need look at the Adams County paving case where District Attorney Don Quick provided five or six individuals with an opportunity to extend their public service working in prison industries. Colorado has been a remarkably clean political system during the past half century. The Ethics Commission is a solution in search of a problem, confined to squabbling over trivial charges that nonetheless undermine public confidence in our leaders and democracy itself. The expenses at dispute in the Gessler case were in the vicinity of $2,000, twelve hundred of which he voluntarily reimbursed the state – hardly a major raid on the public Treasury for his “personal benefit” as the Commission ruled. It is virtually certain that a court will eventually throw this finding out on appeal.

Now Colorado’s Democratic Governor finds himself embroiled in a virtually identical ethics complaint, lodged by Compass Colorado, for his participation in, horror of horrors, a Democratic Governors Association meeting held in Aspen. As host of the meeting, many of the meal and lodging expenses for the Governor and his staff were “comped” by the DGA. Coincidentally, I’m sure, this meeting was piggybacked on a major Democratic fundraiser with the billionaire boys club of Pitkin County. The Independent Ethics Commission has postponed a preliminary ruling on this complaint until April 14 while it attempts to develop a rationale for finding that a “host” can accept reasonable favors while a mere “speaker,” who receives similar benefits, is an ethical miscreant. You don’t need to be a jurist to comprehend that these complaints are ethically equivalent: a partisan officeholder meeting with partisan compatriots at least in part at public expense. That is to be expected – elections have consequences as Barack Obama has frequently noted. Attempting to parse a difference is comparable to the medieval Papal conclaves that debated how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.

Republican State Rep. Amy Stephens of Colorado Springs recently carried a bill that would have rationalized some of the processes at the Ethics Commission. Her bill was killed on a party line vote in State Affairs, the killing committee, despite the evident risk the Commission will continue to be hijacked in the years ahead to prosecute partisan agendas. One Democrat told me privately that committee members were instructed to vote no because Scott Gessler could be flogged with his Ethics Commission ruling during the Governor’s race. Talk about short-sighted! Might it be an ethical violation not to keep a gun in your home, to drive a Hummer rather than a hybrid, to fall behind on child support, to smoke legal marijuana or file for bankruptcy? Only your Independent Ethics Commission can say for sure.

The ethical thing to do is ask voters to take this rabid dog out behind the barn and put a bullet between its eyes.

Columnist Miller Hudson is a public affairs consultant and former state representative from north Denver in the late 1970s.