Election Day Doesn

It been months since an election, but political committees are still raking in contributions.

In financial reports from the beginning of October to the end of December, candidates collected money before and after Election Day.Governor-Elect Bill Ritter received approximately $1,036,000, with almost $16,000 coming in after the election.

Republican challenger Bob Beauprez collected approximately $438,000 during the same time period, which was less than half of what Ritter ended with.  Almost $12,000 came in after Beauprez lost the election.

The Colorado Leadership Fund, a Republican committee, received $136,031 after the election. Some of that came from high profile lobbying firms like Phaseline Strategies or Intermountain Corporate Affairs.

Coloradans For Fairness, a group that tried to legalize domestic partnerships, received over $1.5 million, and almost $50,000 of it came in after the measure lost.

Alternatively, Coloradans For Marriage, which passed a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage, ended the year under $36,000, and approximately $16,000 was after Election Day.

Even with victories and defeats, political organizations keep on trucking, along with their supporters.

Erin Rosa was born in Spain and raised in Colorado Springs. She is a freelance writer currently living in Denver. Rosa's work has been featured in a variety of news outlets including the Huffington Post, Democracy Now!, and the Rocky Mountain Chronicle, an alternative-weekly in Northern Colorado where she worked as a columnist covering the state legislature. Rosa has received awards from the Society of Professional Journalists for her reporting on lobbying and woman's health issues. She was also tapped with a rare honorable mention award by the Newspaper Guild-CWA's David S. Barr Award in 2008--only the second such honor conferred in its nine-year history--for her investigative series covering the federal government's Supermax prison in the state. Rosa covers the labor community, corrections, immigration and government transparency matters. She can be reached at erosa@www.coloradoindependent.com.