Political Activities and Affiliations
Harber was elected secretary of the Colorado Democratic Party in 1983. He was elected as a Presidential Delegate to the 1984 Democratic National Convention in San Francisco and was also elected to the Convention's original Credentials Committee. In addition to his 1984 delegate win, he was elected as a Presidential Delegate to the Democratic National Conventions in Chicago (1996) and Los Angeles (2000).
In 1982, Harber was a candidate for Secretary of State and later won his party's nomination in 1990. In both 1996 and 2000, he won election in a statewide party race to represent Colorado in the Electoral College.
Harber has served as a parliamentarian and secretary of numerous political assemblies and conventions, at the county, congressional, and state level. He was elected chair of State Senate District 17 and Vice Chair of House District 31, and has held many other elected party positions – ranging from Precinct Committee person to Caucus Chair and Secretary to County, Congressional, State, and National delegates. He has held no partisan position since 2000 due to his work in the media.
A staunch supporter of the concept of public disclosure, "sunshine" laws, and Open Records Acts, Harber fought a precedent-setting battle against the State of Colorado in 1982 in which the Secretary of State ultimately was required to release public information in its most usable form (i.e. electronic).
A decade later, in 1993, he won a case against another government entity (the Northern Colorado Water Conservatory District – NCWCD) which had tried to use the law and the cost of litigation to hide important public information. In 1994, at the request of the Sierra Club, he agreed to intervene in a case against the NCWCD filed by the Sierra Club by formally supporting the Club's position in a joint filing.
Colorado Governor Roy Romer appointed Harber to the Colorado Department of Law's Collection Agency Board (CAB) in the Office of the Attorney General in 1988. Harber served there under both the Democratic and Republican Attorneys General and promoted many improvements on behalf of consumers. He was elected in 1989 as the first public member ever to serve as chairman of the CAB. In 1990, he was appointed by the Governor to serve as a business representative on the State's Complete Count Committee for the 1990 US Census.
Despite his history of political activism, Harber is known for his fairness and the equal access he has provided Republicans to all his radio and TV shows, including his unique broadcasts from the 1996 Republican National Convention. He has broadcast his show "live" from places as disparate as the Democratic Leadership Council to the White House Press Room to the conservative Heritage Foundation.
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