Clear the Bench's Matt Arnold takes on Colorado Ethics Watch over "delayed" legal-fee payment

Matt Arnold.

Today's entertainingly pissy political pissing match pits Clear the Bench Colorado's Matt Arnold, who wants to throw the bums off the state's supreme court, against Colorado Ethics Watch, which filed a campaign-finance complaint against Clear the Bench in May.

The issue? Legal bills Arnold says he's owed -- ones that CEW director Luis Toro isn't sure actually exist.

Here's the simplest explanation we can offer about an extremely convoluted issue...

Clear the Bench is registered as an issues committee -- meaning that donations to it have no limit, although they aren't tax deductible. But CEW believes Clear the Bench should be designated as a political committee subject to donation limits because "judges are defined as candidates in Amendment 27," Toro said in May. "And the only reasonable interpretation of that language is that elections for judges should be treated as candidate elections."

Arnold countered that he chose the issues-committee designation on the advice of the folks at the Secretary of State's office. In May, he called the complaint "a pathetic political ploy by Colorado Ethics Watch to scare off donors and intimidate us. But we're not going to run away from the legal hucksterism they're trying to do."

More disagreements follow. According to Arnold, this matter came before Administrative Law Judge Robert Spencer in July, who "threw out the complaint, finding in frivolous, groundless and vexatious, and awarded us attorneys fees." These charges, which Arnold says come to "tens of thousands of dollars," were delayed because CEW filed what Arnold calls "a supplemental complaint" that Spencer heard on September 15.

After the conclusion of that hearing, at which Arnold believes CEW was roundly spanked, he argues that the clock on the original attorneys fees started ticking. However, CEW's attorneys contacted Arnold's legal rep and asked for a delay until October 15, which he sees as excessive and politically motivated: "They're trying to draw it out not as a matter of principle, but more like, 'Ha, ha, we've got your money. We know you've got a cash crunch. We're going to hang onto it as long as we can to screw you.'" As such, Arnold's lawyers rejected the extension request and have asked that Spencer order CEW to pay up soon, not several weeks from now.

Does Toro agree with this characterization? Fat chance.