O'Donnell's Smear Attack Proven Untrue and Violated Law Governing Campaigns

DENVER - The Colorado Democratic Party has requested that the Denver District Attorney take legal action against Rick O'Donnell's congressional campaign for violating Colorado State Law governing smear attacks and false accusations in political races.

According to State law, C.R.S. 1-13-109(2)(a) it is against the law for any person to, "...recklessly make, publish, broadcast, or circulate...any false statement designed to affect the vote on any candidate for election to public office." Recklessly is defined as acting, "in conscious disregard of the truth or falsity of the statement made, published, broadcasted, or circulated."

Democratic State Party Chair, Pat Waak, said, "The California Insurance Commissioner's Office and the Colorado press have confirmed that O'Donnell's attack was completely false and irresponsible, it was a smear tactic by a desperate candidate. O'Donnell has had every opportunity to apologize for this blatant smear and publicly retract his assertions, but despite being proven wrong, O'Donnell has refused to admit his error. In light of this, we feel it is necessary to hold him accountable to the law that was written to prevent his kind of dirty politics."

Today's Denver Post states, "Republican congressional candidate Rick O'Donnell was wrong when he claimed his opponent had represented an insurance firm at the expense of that firm's 'elderly and disabled policyholders,' officials confirmed." In addition, the Denver Post story confirmed that O'Donnell's campaign admitted, "it did not delve into the particulars of the case" before launching its smear attack earlier this week.

Waak stated, "O'Donnell's campaign has admitted that they consciously decided to not look at the facts of this case before recklessly launching this false attack – that is not only bad politics, but it's against the law. Colorado families in the 7th CD don't can't afford for O'Donnell to run this type of smear campaign for the next 60 days no matter how desperate he is. They deserve better. "