Oliver let Allard staffer discuss Weld County issues without noting he's a candidate for county office

Summary: On her 1310 KFKA broadcast, host and Independence Institute Operations Director Amy Oliver discussed with her guest, Sean Conway, "some great news for us in northern Colorado" about federal law enforcement funding related to the "leadership of the Weld County commissioners." But Oliver omitted that Conway, chief of staff for U.S. Senator Wayne Allard (R) and a frequent guest on her program, is a candidate for Weld County Commissioner.

On her June 19 1310 KFKA broadcast, Amy Oliver, director of operations for the "free-market" Independence Institute, and Sean Conway, the chief of staff for Republican U.S. Sen. Wayne Allard, discussed a law enforcement funding development related to "the leadership of the Weld County commissioners" without disclosing that Conway is a candidate for Weld County Commissioner. While Oliver had noted Conway's candidacy nearly three weeks earlier, on her May 30 program, she did not do so on June 19.

Oliver's omission was similar to those she made in other broadcasts documented by Colorado Media Matters (here and here), during which she promoted or criticized local ballot initiatives or local government candidates without disclosing that either she or the Independence Institute had direct involvement in those campaigns.

In discussing with Conway what she characterized as "some great news for us in northern Colorado," Oliver did not disclose that Conway is running for at-large Weld County Commissioner, facing Mike Freeman in the Republican primary. She did, however, in keeping with her "policy of full disclosure," state that she is married to Weld County Sheriff John Cooke.

From the June 19 broadcast of 1310 KFKA's The Amy Oliver Show:

OLIVER: Well, I'm so pleased to be joined by Sean Conway, who is U.S. Senator Wayne Allard's chief of staff, who's got some great news for us in northern Colorado. But Sean, I have to throw somethin' out to you real quick. Yesterday, Rasmussen polls came out. You must be very proud of Congress. Their approval ratings are 11 percent.

CONWAY: Well, and that's down from 13 percent last week.

OLIVER [laughs]: Yeah. All-time low, 11 percent of the population believe that Congress -- the Democratically controlled Congress -- is doing a good job.

CONWAY: Well, as each of us go to the pump every day and fill up our gas tank, and see food prices go up at the grocery store, I'm sure, and Congress continues to do nothing. You saw in the papers this morning that our own Colorado governor is still balking at the idea that we need to have more production of oil and gas here in Colorado, even though we can do it in an environmentally sound way. Senator Allard's gonna continue to push really, really hard. We're gonna try to force Congress, before they go on their July Fourth recess, to address this crisis.

[...]

OLIVER: I do wanna get to this breaking news, 'cause we do have some great news for northern Colorado.

CONWAY: We do, Amy; and this is the culmination of a lot of work by a lot of people, led by our own Weld County Sheriff, John Cooke. Somebody you may know.

OLIVER [laughs]: In my policy of full disclosure, I am married to the man. So, I do know him.

CONWAY: That's right, but you didn't even know about this until I just called you about it, so -- in terms of this. But here is what is happening today: The [subcommittee on] Commerce, Justice, and Science, [Senate] Appropriations Committee, as we are speaking, is marking up their fiscal year 2009 appropriations bill, and Senator Allard has been working with local law enforcement officials, including under the leadership of Sheriff Cook; Luke Hecker, the Loveland police chief. The University of Northern Colorado has been engaged in this. And what we have today is, when this bill gets passed in a bit here out of committee, there will be $500,000 directed to build a new, full-service crime lab in northern Colorado. This is really important, because under the leadership of the Weld County commissioners, they have said any federal funding we can get, they will match dollar-for-dollar out of the mineral impact fund that Weld County has. And so this $500,000 will actually translate into a million dollars to get this new, full-service crime lab for northern Colorado. It's huge.

From the May 30 broadcast of 1310 KFKA's The Amy Oliver Show:

OLIVER: Well, Sean Conway, who I normally have in studio right about this time -- right about this time -- and we do a national legislative update. Actually, we are going to rework that a little bit, and I'll be talking probably either with Senator Allard himself or with -- and only for a couple of minutes. We'll just get a quick overview of what's been happening, and we'll do that during the summer -- or with Senator Allard's spokesperson, a guy named Steve Wymer -- great, great guy -- or maybe get one of their policy analysts. Here's the reason why: Sean is candidate for county commissioner at-large. And he's got a primary coming up, and according to, I guess, you know, I don't know the specifics of it -- management does, they know it better than I do -- because we're getting into election season, Sean cannot be on the show. So -- other than as a candidate, and we're gonna look forward to doing that. He's got a primary opponent, a gentleman named Mike Freeman. I think I have that right. And we'll have both of them on, hopefully, at some point. Get a hold of both of them on, as they're looking to be the Republican candidate for the county commissioner at-large. So, we'll look forward to having that dialogue in studio at some point in the very near future. So that's why Sean is not here today.

—E.B. & J.F.B.