The office that oversees the conduct of Colorado attorneys wants U.S. Rep. Ken Buck, the chairman of the Colorado Republican Party, to answer questions about a complaint submitted last month alleging Buck pressured a local GOP official to file a false form with the state.

A spokesman for the state GOP blasted the complaint – filed by the political director of liberal advocacy group ProgressNow Colorado – as “a political hit job by a far-left organization” but told Colorado Politics that Buck intends to comply with the request issued last week by the Colorado Supreme Court’s Office of Attorney Regulation Counsel.

“This is the definition of a frivolous complaint,” said Joe Jackson, communications director for the state Republicans. “It’s only seeking to score political points.”

The complaint, which asks the regulatory body to suspend Buck’s license to practice law, stems from a dispute over a Republican nominating assembly for an El Paso County legislative seat held remotely via email in March as the state and political parties were grappling with the COVID-19 pandemic sweeping into Colorado.

After a candidate for the Senate District 10 seat complained he was treated unfairly at the district’s assembly and should have made the primary ballot, a state party committee voted to require that Eli Bremer, the GOP chairman for the district, sign and submit a sworn form adding the candidate to the ballot, even though he only received 24% of delegate votes, short of the 30% needed to qualify for the primary.

In a recording first released by Colorado Politics, Buck can be heard asking Bremer if he will comply with the decision, over Bremer’s objections that it would be illegal to do what Buck was telling him to do.

A Denver District Court judge agreed with Bremer in a ruling quickly affirmed by the Colorado Supreme Court, which declined to hear the state GOP’s appeal.

An assistant counsel with the oversight office asks Buck in a June 3 letter to explain the conversation he had with Bremer and say whether he violated any rules governing attorney behavior, including one that forbids lawyers from engaging in “conduct involving dishonesty, fraud, deceit or misrepresentation.”

Buck, a former district attorney, told Colorado Politics in a May 9 interview that he wasn’t ordering Bremer to do anything illegal, but that the entire controversy revolved around a “legitimate disagreement” within the party over where the final authority lies when it comes to designating candidates to the ballot.

“There was a legitimate disagreement in the Republican Party, and it was resolved by the district court,” he said. “What I have a problem with is when people start throwing around words ‘suborning perjury,’ that somehow, I had this intent to break the law – and nothing could be further from the truth. I was representing the central committee and trying to make sure that the will of the central committee was followed.”

Before last month’s ruling in the case involving Bremer – and another ruling in the same court involving a Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate who felt he was unfairly kept from the ballot – both the state’s Republicans and Democrats believed their state party central committees had ultimate authority to resolve party disputes, an expert in party legal matters said.

In a May 13 letter signed by Buck and Bremer and obtained by Colorado Politics, the two GOP chairmen put their disagreements behind them, saying they “came to an understanding of what happened” after discussing the situation.

“Chairman Buck did not intend to order Chairman Bremer to break Colorado law and believed the State GOP had the authority to err on the side of ballot access as had been laid out,” the letter reads.

“Chairman Bremer, who was consulting with the State GOP throughout the process, displayed professionalism and integrity with the effort his team put forth to run the election.”

In addition, the letter states that any issues involved in the assembly resulted from the pandemic and emergency rules put in place by the state and the Republican Party.

“The State Party did not intend to besmirch Chairman Bremer’s reputation by inadvertently implying that he had conducted the election fraudulently,” the letter says.

Alan Franklin, the ProgressNow Colorado employee who filed the complaint against Buck, cheered news that the regulatory office appeared to be pursuing an investigation.

“The Republican volunteer whom Buck demanded commit this crime knew what he was being asked to do was wrong, and as a licensed attorney and a former prosecutor Buck has a higher obligation to not engage in such deception,” Franklin said in a statement issued Thursday.

“Knowingly submitting a false affidavit to the state to qualify a candidate for election is not just a crime, it’s a breach of integrity that disqualifies Buck from further service: to Colorado Republicans as chairman, or the people of Colorado in Congress.”