Ethics watchdog enters race in 2019’s election
Former Colorado Ethics Watch attorney Peg Perl filed paperwork Wednesday to enter the race for Denver clerk and recorder in next year’s municipal election.
She is the first to establish her candidacy, but others are considering joining a potentially very competitive open race to succeed Clerk and Recorder Debra Johnson. Johnson has decided against seeking reelection after two terms.
“The modernization that has happened in a lot of parts of the office has been very impressive,” Perl said about Johnson’s tenure, promising further boosts to transparency and records access. “I think she’s done a good job in that there’s a very good foundation to build on.”
The election is in May 2019, when Denver voters also will elect the mayor, City Council members and the auditor.
Other names to watch for in the clerk’s race: City Councilman Paul López, who is serving the third and final term allowed by the city charter, and Denver Elections Director Amber McReynolds, who works under Johnson. Both confirmed they are considering running.
McReynolds also has been the subject of speculation about a potential bid in this year’s Colorado secretary of state race, but a hitch, politically, is that she is not affiliated with a political party — and says she doesn’t intend to register with one, raising the possibility of an independent run. City elections, in contrast, are nonpartisan.
“I have worked tirelessly to improve and innovate the voting experience for all voters,” McReynolds said. “Whatever I do in the future will encompass those principles.”
The clerk and recorder’s office runs elections, issues marriage and civil-union licenses and is responsible for storing official records. It also administers some real estate functions, including foreclosures and auctions, as the public trustee.
Perl, 42, filed notarized papers establishing a candidate committee Wednesday morning.
She has worked as a policy consultant since June, when she stepped down after five years as senior counsel to Colorado Ethics Watch. (That organization shut down at the end of 2017.)
“I have spent my whole career working for government to be open and accountable to all people, not just the well-connected,” Perl said in an interview. “And I really want to take the experience I’ve gained through federal policy work, and also work at the state level, and put that experience to work at the local level. We have a lot of opportunities here in Denver … to be a leader on open government and transparency issues, and that’s what I would like to do.”
Perl says she supports a campaign finance reform ballot initiative that is headed to voters in this November’s election. The “Democracy for the People” initiative aims to create a public financing system that would tap the city budget to match small-dollar donations to city candidates 9-to-1, and it also proposes to drastically lower contribution limits for city elections.
During five years at Colorado Ethics Watch, she was a fixture at meetings of the Colorado Independent Ethics Commission. She also advocated for campaign finance reform and stronger ethics laws, both in Denver and statewide.
She moved to Colorado in 2010 from Washington, D.C., where she had worked as an attorney in positions that included advising the U.S. House of Representatives’ Committee on Ethics and the Federal Election Commission.
Perl has discussed the likelihood of running for clerk since Johnson announced her retirement plans last summer. Her new filing makes it official.
Her priorities for the clerk’s office, she said, would include safeguarding voting rights and beefing up voters’ access to nonpartisan information about elections; making more city records easier to access, online or otherwise; and improving access to the clerk’s services in person and online.