’Tis the season for complaints against candidates, and they’re flying fast and furiously, particularly in high-profile races in this swing state.

Just this week, state Democrats and a conservative pressure group logged complaints aimed at the two major party Senate candidates, alleging violations of congressional rules, federal regulations and general decency.

Was it OK for Republican Cory Gardner — the Yuma congressman working to oust Colorado’s senior Senator, Eldorado Springs Democrat Mark Udall — to list his congressional website and provide a link to his “official twitter handle” in campaign press releases? State Democrats don’t think so, and have asked for a probe by the Office of Congressional Ethics and the House Committee on Ethics into the matter, charging it likely violates both House rules and federal law.

Democrats count at least 16 “known instances” when Gardner’s operation printed a link to federally funded congressional web addresses and the congressman’s Twitter feed, mentions the party says are clearly forbidden in the House ethics manual.

Chief Colorado Democrat Rick Palacio had some harsh words for the lawmaker in a statement issued along with notice of the calls for an investigation.

“Ethics rules play a critical role in ensuring taxpayer dollars aren’t inappropriately used to aid the self-serving political aims of Members of both parties,” Palacio said, adding that, “Gardner owes Coloradans an explanation for blatantly ignoring House ethics rules to aid his campaign. He showed us long ago that he’d do anything to get elected, but I never expected him to go this far.”

The Gardner camp rejected the charge, not to mention the hyperbole.

“The complaint filed by Democratic party operatives is nothing more than a political publicity stunt designed to distract voters from Senator Udall’s flawed record,” Gardner campaign spokesman Alex Siciliano told The Colorado Statesman.

What’s more, Republicans point out, when he first ran for the Senate seat, Udall himself had to pull down from his campaign website a video depicting the then-congressman addressing his colleagues about the troop surge in Iraq — this was in 2007 — because House rules bar political use of floor proceedings.

Udall’s campaign manager at the time, Mike Melanson, told The Rocky Mountain News that it was an “inadvertent mistake” and that the campaign was a bit surprised that it was against the rules, since it was video footage shot by C-SPAN, not from official congressional sources.

Also this week, the conservative group Compass Colorado took aim at both Udall and state Rep. Crisanta Duran, the Denver Democrat who heads the powerful Joint Budget Committee, for fundraising that occurred at her 33rd birthday party — a fundraiser — a few Saturdays ago.The pair of complaints allege that Udall violated Federal Election Commission rules by urging partygoers to chip in some funds for Duran’s campaign and that Duran broke state rules by letting corporations pay for some of refreshments at the festivities.

Balderdash, says the Udall camp and Democrats, who charge that Compass doesn’t understand the rules it claims were violated.

In a statement announcing the complaints, Compass director Kelly Maher scolded: “Rep. Duran is a leader in her party, she chairs the powerful Joint Budget Committee, and yet still declines to follow our constitution. It’s time that we all follow the rules, even those people who get to make them. Duran is rumored as a contender for House Majority Leader if Democrats retain the House next year, are they really going to have a leader who doesn’t take the state constitution seriously?”

However, what Compass doesn’t mention is that the fundraiser was a joint bash raising money for Duran and her PAC, the Duran for Colorado Leadership Fund, and the political committee is well within the rules to accept contributions from corporations (though not from foreigners), according to the state’s campaign finance manual. Additionally, the in-kind donations were itemized on the Duran PAC’s most recent filing, at the beginning of September.

Compass also slammed Udall in an FEC complaint filed this week alleging “the solicitation of non-federal dollars” when he asked the crowd to donate to Duran.

According to a Compass transcript of a video taken at the party, Udall said, “She’s a 30-something, and you multiply by three. That means that every one of you should have written at least a hundred-dollar check, is that right? ’Cuz we need to send her back to the state House and we need to keep the state House in the majority.”

“It’s ironic that the same Sen. Udall who is trying to pass new laws about campaign finance can’t seem to follow the law currently on the books,” Maher said in a statement announcing the complaints. “We should be able to count on the people who are making the rules to take them seriously.”

And the people who read the rules should make a serious attempt to understand them, Udall’s team responds.

Compass is misinterpreting the FEC’s use of the term “non-federal funds,” Udall campaign spokesman Chris Harris tells The Statesman, citing the federal law that explicitly allows what Udall did. It doesn’t forbid raising money for non-federal candidates, just raising funds from prohibited sources, such as foreign donors.

The statute says a federal candidate “may solicit, receive, direct, transfer, spend, or disburse funds in connection with any non-Federal election, only in amounts and from sources that are consistent with State law, and that do not exceed the Act’s contribution limits or come from prohibited sources under the Act.”

— Ernest@coloradostatesman.com