A March 30 Rocky Mountain News article by April M. Washington reported that "[a] political Web site called Face the State touched off a firestorm Thursday when it posted an e-mail written by Rep. Mike Merrifield, D-El Paso, to Sen. Sue Windels, D-Arvada." But the article failed to identify FacetheState.com as a conservative website run by a frequent contractor** for conservative Republican political candidates.

The News reported that Merrifield, the House Education Committee chairman, wrote an email to Windels that was critical of charter school supporters, stating, “There must be a special place in hell for these Privatizers, Charterizers and Voucherziers. They deserve it!” And while the News noted that Face the State posted a copy of the email on its website on March 29, the article failed to note the website's conservative agenda, describing it only as a “political Web site.” Face the State also posted a brief article about Merrifield's note.

Merrifield resigned as chairman of the House Education Committee on March 30 after apologizing to the legislature for the email.

Appearing as a guest on the March 30 broadcast of Newsradio 850 KOA's The Mike Rosen Show, the registrant of the domain name FacetheState.com, Brad Jones, admitted that the site's ideology is “libertarian-slash-free markets.” Jones also described Face the State as engaging in both “original reporting” and “news aggregation, kind of in the spirit of a Drudge Report, something like that":

From the March 30 broadcast of Newsradio 850 KOA's The Mike Rosen Show:

ROSEN: Brad, good to have you with us. Tell us a little bit about FacetheState.com and something about your background as well.

JONES: Sure, Mike; thanks for having me on today. This is an important issue. FacetheState.com is a new, Colorado-focused website. We're up just as of this last Monday. And it serves two main -- main features up. We call it Colorado's Front Page. There's news aggregation, so every morning we get up and look at all the major and minor news sources all around Colorado and synthesize all of the information that's going on around the state, and try to get a pulse for what's going on politically and otherwise. So there's the news aggregation, kind of in the spirit of a Drudge Report, something like that. And then there's what we'll be talking about today, which is our original reporting. We go out and pursue leads that we get from the public, from people in government and elsewhere, and really try to look at stories that might be overlooked by the mainstream media or other online sources as well.

ROSEN: I like it when people tell us where they sit before they tell us where they stand. What's your orientation? Is it fair to say that your orientation is conservative-slash-libertarian?

JONES: I, I think a little bit more libertarian-slash-free markets. I'm not a social conservative. Obviously people are going to look at the website and see that we approach things from a certain perspective, which is more from the place of people can make decisions better for themselves. Transparency in government, free markets are better than government control, that kind of thing.

ROSEN: So that's your agenda and you don't conceal that agenda.

JONES: Sure. But we're also trying to be very fair in our treatment. If you look at a lot of the original reporting that we have on right now, we try to, as much as we can, and as much as people are willing, talk to us from both sides of the story.

In addition to his involvement with Face the State, Jones calls himself the “host[]” of another conservative Republican website, ColoradoSenateNews.com. He also is listed as the creator of the website for 1310 KFKA's The Amy Oliver Show -- hosted by conservative Independence Institute director of operations Amy Oliver. Jones has appeared as a guest host for Oliver on several occasions.

Moreover, according to the Colorado Secretary of State's online campaign finance database, in 2005 and 2006 Jones was paid*** nearly $10,000 by Colorado Republican candidates, including former gubernatorial candidates Bob Beauprez and Marc Holtzman, Secretary of State Mike Coffman, State Board of Education member and former congressman Bob Schaffer, and CU Regent candidate Brian Davidson. In 2005, he also was paid*** $1,200 by the campaign committee to defeat Referendum C.

While its website claims that “Face the State was created to provide a one-stop-shop for political news affecting Coloradans,” the “news” articles included in its "Special Reports" section reveal a conservative slant.

For example, the "Exclusive" about the Merrifield email stated, “The email exchange shows that both Windels and Merrifield are opposed to parental choice in any form. Indeed, Merrifield's constituents who choose charter or private schools for their children certainly won't find solace in his harsh treatment of their decisions.”

Additionally, a March 29 “Staff Report” titled “Dems Kill Small Business Defense Bill” stated that "[a] Democrat-led effort to stall legislation that would have expanded Colorado's 'Make My Day' law to protect business owners sends a dangerous message to would-be thieves and predators." Similarly, another Staff Report, titled “State Senator Ron Tupa Tied to National Far-Left Organization,” asserted that Tupa (D-Boulder) “has close ties to the Progressive States Network, a national organization headquartered out of New York that now appears focusing on Colorado to promote its national 'progressive' agenda.”

From the March 30 Rocky Mountain News article by April M. Washington, “Rep. Merrifield's e-mail rips charter school supporters”:

An e-mail written by the House Education Committee chairman saying there must be “a special place in hell” for charter school supporters has some top lawmakers hopping mad.

A political Web site called Face the State touched off a firestorm Thursday when it posted an e-mail written by Rep. Mike Merrifield, D-El Paso, to Sen. Sue Windels, D-Arvada.

“There must be a special place in hell for these Privatizers, Charterizers and Voucherziers. They deserve it!” he wrote.

Merrifield made his comments during an e-mail exchange in which he and Windels, chairwoman of the Senate Education Committee, discussed whether to push for a full repeal of the State Charter School Institute, provided they could get Gov. Bill Ritter's backing.

[...]

The e-mail revelation comes as the Senate is set to reconsider a bill by Windels and Merrifield designed to restore public school districts' authority over most charter schools in the state. Senate Bill 61 would require the state board of education to grant exclusive chartering authority to local school boards.

Critics say that the e-mail shows that Merrifield and Windels have conspired all along to gut charter schools, despite packaging their bill as a way to foster better relations between traditional public schools and the state charter school board.