A physician and board-certified forensic pathologist, he is one
of the few county coroners in the state who also serves as medical
examiner.
Dobersen’s experience and the demand for his services in such
high-profile cases as the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the
Jon Benet Ramsey murder and last year’s hurricane in New Orleans
have made him a noncontroversial reference point among his fellow
Republicans.
By By: Peter Jones
Dr. Michael Dobersen, the Arapahoe County coroner, is arguably
among the most qualified coroners in Colorado.
A physician and board-certified forensic pathologist, he is one
of the few county coroners in the state who also serves as medical
examiner.
Dobersen’s experience and the demand for his services in such
high-profile cases as the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the
Jon Benet Ramsey murder and last year’s hurricane in New Orleans
have made him a noncontroversial reference point among his fellow
Republicans.
“The Republican Party doesn’t choose who the coroner is. The
voters make that decision. His qualifications are impeccable,” said
Nathan Chambers, chairman of Arapahoe County Republicans. “Whether
he is Republican or not doesn’t have a whole lot to do with
it.”
Yes and no. Prior to filling the position as a midterm
appointee, Dobersen had been a lifelong Democrat. Changing
political parties helped seal his hiring, according to the
coroner.
Dobersen was appointed in 1993 after the county’s Republican-led
commissioners assembled a search committee with representatives
from the sheriff’s and district attorney’s offices.
As part of the interview process, the GOP officials – none of
them still serving – asked the applicant to meet with a group of
unelected Republican leaders. According to the medical doctor, it
soon became clear what was missing from his “impeccable”
vita.
“They said, ‘Things would get easier for you if you were a
Republican,'” Dobersen recounted. “I said, ‘I’m a Democrat, and I
don’t think political party has anything to do with this job. But
this is a job that I’ve been working for my whole life, and if
becoming a Republican is something that I need to do, I’ll do
it.'”
Dobersen has been re-elected as a Republican ever since and will
face Democratic challenger Gregory Kinney in November.
The political climate has evolved in Arapahoe County over the
last decade, but in the early 1990s, party affiliation may have
been as vital a sign for its coroner as actual coroner experience,
which is not required by state law. A dentist and a construction
professional are among those who currently hold the office in
Colorado.
Coroner is one of five nonlegislative county-level jobs in the
state – sheriff, clerk and recorder, treasurer and assessor are the
others – that are filled by partisan races per the Colorado
Constitution.
Those who hold the posts in Arapahoe County – all Republicans –
are mixed about whether the partisan system makes much
sense.
“I’ve always had a bit of a difficult time with that,” Sheriff
Grayson Robinson said. “My business is public safety. I’ve always
said that the moment I’ve raised my right hand to take that solemn
oath of office, the R has nothing to do with my name. Party
affiliation does not play into the operations of this sheriff’s
office in any way, shape or form.”
Robinson, who is running unopposed for re-election, says he took
some flak from party leaders when he publicly endorsed Adams
County’s Democratic Sheriff Doug Darr.
“It caused a little bit of turmoil,” Robinson said. “But that
doesn’t bother me because I feel so strongly about that man and the
work that he and I do together sharing a county line.”
Dinner with Robinson has been an auction item at Democratic
fund-raisers, to some Republicans’ chagrin.
Like the sheriff, Dobersen does not mince words when it comes to
his feelings about a partisan race to conduct autopsies.
“It makes no sense at all,” the coroner said. “As a physician, I
never thought I’d be running for my job in an election. I feel like
a fish out of water anyway. But I do know that what I’m doing is a
public job, and I’ve got to play by the rules to do my
job.”
Few make a practice of questioning the partisan system. Most
officials accept it as a CEO might take for granted the by-laws of
his board of directors. Some, though, stand by it as imperfect but
preferable to its alternatives. Assessor Ed Bosier says a
nonpartisan race would be more likely to attract inexperienced
candidates.
“If you decided you wanted to be county assessor, all you’d have
to do is go and get 750 signatures from somebody. At least through
the partisan politics, the parties tend to hold their candidates to
a standard that requires some experience,” he said.
Bosier, whose term ends in January, failed to make the primary
ballot for county treasurer after taking a distant third at April’s
Republican assembly. Some charged that qualifications and party
endorsements were at odds in the race.
Bosier’s department appraises property valuations.
According to Republican Clerk and Recorder Nancy Doty, simply
appointing her position, as some states do, would do nothing to gut
politics from the system and would make officials less
accountable.
“I think it’s going to be partisan no matter what you do,” the
elections supervisor said. “If you’re appointed, there’s going to
be people out there lobbying for this position or that
position.”
Doty’s November challenger is Democrat Kathleen Conway, whose
campaign has tied a recent controversy over computerized voting
machines, which the county purchased this year at Doty’s
recommendation, to alleged Republican malfeasance.
***
What is good for the municipal goose is not necessarily good for
the county-level gander, according to the state
Constitution.
In Colorado, cities are just as obliged to run nonpartisan races
as non-homerule counties in the state are required to be partisan.
(See related sidebar about Broomfield County.)
While Arapahoe County has no choice but to elect its coroner as
a Republican or Democrat, Denver’s Mayor John Hickenlooper, though
coincidentally a Democrat, was elected in a nonpartisan
race.
It is an irony that makes little sense to Chambers – but not
because he disagrees with the county’s model.
“The party that a person is associated with tells you a lot
about that person. It tells you how they view the role of
government,” the GOP chairman said, suggesting city councils be
elected as partisans.
When it comes to nonlegislative positions, though, Chambers’
conclusions are not shared by many observers.
“That’s a funny argument,” said Chris Gates, a former president
of the Denver-based National Civic League. “What’s the Republican
position on trash removal? What’s the Democratic position on
response time? What’s the Libertarian position on test
scores?”
According to Gates, the payoff to parties from partisan-groomed
functionaries is a safe, nonlegislative training venue for
tomorrow’s state lawmakers. Some in Colorado’s General Assembly
began their political careers at the county level. Many in Congress
were recruited by the parties from state legislatures.
“The county is a proving ground for people to learn their
politics, develop their Rolodex and develop their political skills
so they can be in the queue to run for higher office,” Gates
said.
John Nalbandian, a professor of public administration at the
University of Kansas at Lawrence, a school that has produced many
of the nation’s city and county-level officials, agrees.
“There’s no logic to (partisan functionaries), other than the
logic of supporting the strength of political parties,” he
said.
And as for what a party label can reveal about such candidates,
Robinson discounts any illusion that his Republican brethren are
any tougher on crime than their Democratic counterparts.
“I think it’s ludicrous,” the sheriff said. “The men and women
who serve as sheriffs are all law-and-order-type people.”
Although Karen Middleton, chairwoman of Arapahoe County
Democrats, tried hard, but unsuccessfully, to find a candidate to
challenge Robinson, she agrees that the sheriff, assessor and
coroner have little opportunity to advance Democratic
principles.
“This is a little hard to say in the middle of an election, but
I would not object to some of these functional positions changing,”
she said.
Other than department budgeting, an area in which fiscal
conservatism has become a prized talking-point for both political
parties, Bosier sees little theoretical or practical difference
between a Republican or Democratic assessor.
“It doesn’t come into play at all,” he said.
Least of all in Dobersen’s case, according to the
coroner.
“It doesn’t matter whether I’m a Republican, Democrat or
independent. The important thing about this job is qualifications,
background and training,” the former Democrat said. “Within the
elected officials here in the county, they all know and they
tolerate me, and that’s just fine.”