Colorado Secretary of State’s Office Permanently Adopts New Rules Regarding Campaign Finance Complaint Hearing Procedures

Denver, May 26, 2023 - Today, the Colorado Secretary of State’s Office has adopted permanent rule revisions to ensure the uniform and proper administration and enforcement of Colorado’s campaign and political finance laws.

These new rules include:

• Amendments to Rule 23.2 to ensure the proper implementation of New Rule 24.
• New Rule 24 to establish procedural rules for administrative hearings in compliance with section 1-45-111.7, C.R.S., and section 24-4-105, C.R.S.

The adopted rules establish procedures for third-party hearing officer review of campaign and political finance cases prosecuted by the Election Division’s civil service career staff based on citizen complaints and Division-initiated complaints filed with the Secretary of State’s Office. This new procedure is modeled on and is similar to the procedure used by the Office of Administrative Courts at the Department of Personnel & Administration in addressing these campaign finance cases. At the time of publication, former Director and Chief Administrative Law Judge for the State of Colorado’s Office of Administrative Courts, Judge Matthew Azer, will be serving as the hearing officer in these cases.

A public rulemaking hearing was held on May 16, 2023, at 11 a.m. to receive testimony concerning the preliminary draft of permanent rules. This hearing was conducted in-person and via webinar.

To read the Notice of Adoption, click here. For more information on this rulemaking process, please click here. For an audio recording of the public rulemaking hearing, please click here.

These rules will become permanently effective twenty days after publication in the Colorado Register.

Members of the public with questions about rulemaking should contact SoS.Rulemaking@coloradosos.gov. Members of the press with questions relating to the rulemaking should contact communications@coloradosos.gov.