Top Garcia aide to head tax measure campaign

Updated – Andrew Freedman, chief of staff to Lt. Gov. Joe Garcia, is leaving the Capitol to become campaign director for Colorado Commits to Kids, the effort to pass a $950 million K-12 tax increase.

OnSight Public Affairs, a political consulting firm that is advising the group, confirmed to EdNews Wednesday that Freedman was joining the campaign but didn’t specify his title. The company put out a news release Thursday afternoon.

The campaign was formally launched Tuesday. “The campaign structure is something that’s going to be designed as we go along,” OnSight spokesman Curtis Hubbard said then.

Garcia has been the administration’s point man on education issues, and Freedman has been his chief of staff since Gov. John Hickenlooper and Garcia took office in early 2011. Freedman worked on Hickenlooper’s 2010 gubernatorial campaign.

While Hickenlooper has been publicly coy about the extent of his support for the ballot measure, people close to the effort say they’re confident of his backing. The founding partners of the OnSight firm have worked for Hickenlooper in the past, and Freedman’s move seems to signal another tie between the administration and the campaign.

Hickenlooper was quoted in the news release as saying, “Andrew is immensely talented and passionate about promoting education reform. We will miss his leadership in the lieutenant governor’s office and his daily contributions as part of our senior leadership team.”

Freedman is the second top Garcia aide to leave in recent weeks. The lieutenant governor also is executive director of the Department of Higher Education. Deputy Executive Director Matt Gianneschi, who handled the department’s day-to-day operations, recently left for a job at the Denver-based Education Commission of the States.