The Appearance of Justice
On the Colorado State Board of Veterinary Medicine, a marriage of regulatory convenience, and more than 400 pages of CORA records with cavernous omissions.
Recently I’ve taken a modest professional interest in the creation and credentialing of the mid-level practitioner in Colorado.
And, like anyone else with a modest professional interest, I sent a dozen or two Colorado Open Records Act requests to a variety of Colorado state agencies and institutions.1
In November 2024, the people of Colorado voted to create the Veterinary Professional Associate. In doing so, they placed the subsequent work of turning a ballot measure into a regulatory framework in the hands of the Colorado State Board of Veterinary Medicine. This is the work that determines much of what the Veterinary Professional Associate will be.
That work is deciding what training qualifies a graduate to enter the profession, what the supervision requirements look like, what scope of practice the role carries. That work is not glamorous, and I say that as a guy who has spent a lot of time in unglamorous jobs. The rulemaking is conducted through stakeholder meetings and redline cycles and motions seconded at hearings most members of the public will never attend. It is the work that turns democratic will into rules with real consequences for animals, for owners, and for the veterinarians and technicians who will share clinics with this new tier of practitioner.
While unglamorous, the work is important and consequential. It is work of public trust.
The legislative declaration of the Colorado State Board of Veterinary Medicine, from the Veterinary Practice Act, Title 12, Article 315:
“This article 315 is enacted as an exercise of the police powers of the state to promote the public health, safety, and welfare by safeguarding the people of this state against incompetent, dishonest, or unprincipled practitioners of veterinary medicine. It is hereby declared that the practice of veterinary medicine is a privilege conferred upon persons possessed of the personal and professional qualifications specified in this article 315.”
“Safeguarding the people of this state” is a powerful phrase. It’s not a trivial matter. The board's sole and exclusive statutory purpose is consumer protection under the state's police powers, safeguarding the public from incompetent, dishonest, or unprincipled practitioners. Not promoting the profession. Not supporting workforce expansion. Not industry development. And licensure is framed as a privilege, not a right.
Further, a regulatory body like the State Board of Veterinary Medicine functions only to the extent that the public, and the regulated profession, are able to have confidence that the rulemaking serves the people’s interests rather than the interests of the rulemakers or any other constituency.
Colorado law and DORA’s own internal policies recognize this directly. The Board’s Code of Ethics, DORA Policy 80-30, requires members to:
“Decline to deliberate, participate, or otherwise attempt to affect the outcome of any matter before the regulatory program when doing so may result in a conflict of interest or the appearance of a conflict of interest.”
The standard is appearance, not just actuality. While that may raise the eyebrows a bit, I think the standard is high because the standard has to be high. A board whose members participate in matters for which their neutrality is reasonably in doubt is not a board upon which the public can rely, regardless of whether the appearance of conflict cashes out in a documented financial transaction reported on one’s taxes.
Meanwhile, I’ve gotten some productions in response to my CORA requests. And what’s absent is as interesting as what’s included.
“A fair trial in a fair tribunal is a basic requirement of due process.” — In re Murchison, 349 U.S. 133 (1955)
I love America. I really do.
I don’t know how many countries in the world2 allow just any old citizen to send a letter requesting document from a government agency, and that agency just sends it along, but I’m glad I live in one that does.
CORA No. 169-2026 (their numbering system) was filed by yours truly on April 04, 2026, received by Colorado’s Department of Regulatory Agencies on April 24, and the responsive production was emailed to me on April 29. The documents discussed below are public records, because I asked for them and a Regulatory Coordinator for the Colorado Department of Regulatory Agencies sent most of what I requested.
Government is so cool.
I practice in Pennsylvania, and have no financial interest in any hospital or clinic in Colorado. I have, I suppose, a conflicting interest in the existence or eradication of a credentialed mid-level practitioner. As a veterinarian and a pet owner, I think the VPA will not have a positive impact on the profession or on patient care. As a practice owner, I have to acknowledge that, per the assertions of its supporters, hiring a mid-level practitioner may prove to be cheaper — and thus make a hospital I own more profitable — than hiring a veterinarian. That’s a fairly broad interpretation of “conflict,” I admit, but I think it’s right to acknowledge it.
The people of Colorado voted, however narrowly, for the establishment of the VPA position. It’s not my place or purview to say that they’re wrong to do so, only that I disagree.
I’m not going too much into the nature of my disagreement with the establishment of the mid-level practitioner, rather, I’m going to discuss what I believe to be a significant ethical problem for the Colorado State Board of Veterinary Medicine as it pertains to the rulemaking of the VPA position.
"Those with substantial pecuniary interest in legal proceedings should not adjudicate these disputes." — Gibson v. Berryhill, 411 U.S. 564 (1973)
The Colorado State Veterinary Board is made up of nine members. Five licensed veterinarians,3 two veterinary technicians,4 and two public members.5
The board members, as they stand today:
Carolyn E. Karrh, DVM (President) — term expires 6/30/2027
Dean Vicksman, DVM (Vice President) — 6/30/2026
Catherine Kuntz, DVM (Secretary) — 6/30/2027
Tracey Jensen, DVM — 6/30/2029
Martha Jo Myers, DVM — 6/30/2029
Lynn Ferguson, RVT — 6/30/2027
Rebecca Rose, RVT — 6/30/2027
Heather Cammisa (Public) — 6/30/2029
Anna Stout (Public) — 6/30/2028
The public members of the board, Anna Stout and Heather Cammisa, notably have professional and financial association with veterinary medicine.
Ms. Stout, a registered lobbyist, is the executive director of AlignCare Health, Inc, a company which describes its mission as “improv[ing] access to veterinary care for families in need by aligning community resources and activities.”
Ms. Cammisa is a member of the leadership team of Open Door Veterinary Collective, a 501(c)(3)company which “giv[es] veterinary clinics tools to expand access to care so more pets get care AND clinics get paid for their services.”
The statutory language, from § 12-315-106(2)(c) of the Colorado Veterinary Practice Act:
"(2) The governor shall appoint: ... (c) Two members to the board from the public at large who have no financial or professional association with the veterinary profession."
It’s hard to imagine a definition of “no financial or professional association with the veterinary profession” that does not preclude the board membership of people who lead companies with direct financial and professional associations with the veterinary profession.
And it’s not as though Ms. Stout or Ms. Cammisa hid this information. It’s on their respective LinkedIn profiles, on company websites, in trade publications and marketing materials. There’s no reasonable case to be made that Ms. Stout or Ms. Cammisa made any effort to obscure their association with the veterinary profession.
So this information is easily verifiable by the folks who are, presumably, supposed to check before they appoint someone to a State Board. In the previous sentence, Governor Jared Polis is “folks.”
It is the job of the board members to protect the people of Colorado, to safeguard.
Can the people of Colorado trust that Ms. Cammisa will protect their interests if a veterinarian employed by the Open Door Veterinary Collective’s biggest client receives a board complaint?
What if a veterinarian in Colorado is asked by AlignCare Health, Inc. to take on a difficult procedure, a fraught patient, or to accept an alternative or lesser payment? Would they dare decline knowing that the executive director sits on the State Board?
My questions are rhetorical, but they should also be irrelevant. On the plain language reading of the statute, it is difficult to see how either Ms. Cammisa or Ms. Stout satisfy the statutory restrictions applicable to the Board’s public members.6
“Just as no man is allowed to be a judge in his own cause, similar fears of bias can arise when—without the consent of the other parties—a man chooses the judge in his own cause.” —Caperton v. A. T. Massey Coal Co., 556 U.S. 868, 886 (2009)
One of the newest appointees to the Colorado State Board of Veterinary Medicine is Tracey Jensen, DVM, with her term expiring on June 30th, 2029.
Dr. Jensen is, by every public record I can find, an accomplished and well-regarded veterinarian. She is a past-president of the American Animal Hospital Association and Wellington Veterinary Hospital, which she co-owned with her husband, won AAHA Practice of the Year in 2012. She was named Petplan’s “Veterinarian of the Year” in 2015.
As recently as February 2026, it’s reported that Dr. Tracey Jensen is the spouse of Dr. Wayne Jensen. Dr. Wayne Jensen is the architect of Colorado State University’s Veterinary Professional Associate program.
§ 24-18-108.5(2), C.R.S. is a provision of Colorado legislation specifically concerning board members like Dr. Tracey Jensen, it says,
[A member] “shall not perform an official act which may have a direct economic benefit on a business or other undertaking in which such member has a direct or substantial financial interest.
I believe that two aspects of the above described circumstances could be seen to rise to a credible claim of conflict of interest.
First, “an official act with direct economic benefit on a business or other undertaking.” Under the post-January 1, 2026 amendments the Colorado State Veterinary Board is now required to register VPAs, set qualifications, adopt scope-of-practice rules, define supervision, and approve credentialing organizations and training programs (§ 12-315-106(5)(a)–(b), § 12-315-201, etc.).
Those acts will have substantial impact on the value of the CSU VPA program, as yet the only one of its kind in the country. Acts favorable to a permissive scope, broad supervision ratios, and/or rapid credentialing pathways will facilitate the increase of enrollment, tuition revenue, faculty positions, and external funding for CSU’s new program.
Second, “a business or undertaking in which the member has a direct or substantial financial interest.” Dr. Wayne Jensen’s professional standing, position, and compensation as the architect of a decade-long institutional initiative are tied to the program’s regulatory success.
Colorado treats a spouse’s financial interest as the officer’s own across multiple ethics regimes. The constitutional gift ban at Article XXIX, Section 3(2) of the Colorado Constitution attributes to the public officer any gift or thing of value over the statutory threshold given to that officer’s spouse, prohibiting receipt “either directly or indirectly as the beneficiary of a gift or thing of value given to such person’s spouse or dependent child.”
The Colorado Revised Nonprofit Corporation Act, at C.R.S. § 7-128-501(5), defines a “party related to a director”, for purposes of conflicting-interest-transaction analysis, to include “a spouse”, alongside lineal relatives and entities in which the spouse holds an interest.
I find it particularly telling that the Colorado Office of Legislative Legal Services, in its published ethics guidance, offers as its first illustrative scenario a legislator whose spouse “is a well-known and well-recognized research scientist who heads a special institute for biotechnological research at one of our state’s leading research universities,” voting on legislation that would assist that institute, identifying it as a textbook conflict-of-interest situation requiring disclosure.
The statute that governs Dr. Jensen’s situation, § 24-18-108.5(2), prohibiting an “official act which may have a direct economic benefit on a business or other undertaking in which such member has a direct or substantial financial interest”, does not separately define “financial interest” in isolation from the rest of Colorado’s ethics framework. The framework consistently attributes the spouse’s financial interest to the officer. Admittedly, I’m not a lawyer, but as a nearly intelligent layperson, I have a hard time reading § 24-18-108.5(2) any other way.
Set the statute aside for a moment. One spouse builds the program; the other sits on the board that decides whether the program qualifies. That's the situation on its face.
Can the people of Colorado trust that Dr. Tracey Jensen will act exclusively in their interest when she rules on matters of the VPA program? A program her spouse spearheaded, for years, at Colorado State University?
Another rhetorical question, sure, but it has a real answer. This is why there’s a recusal mechanism for board members with potential conflicts, even for those with the appearance of conflict. The system was set up to absorb and manage a situation like this.
According to more than 400 pages produced in response to a CORA, one that named this specific conflict of interest, there is documentation that Dr. Tracey Jensen has recused herself from other matters before the CSBVM, but never from the VPA rulemaking.
"Objective standards may also require recusal whether or not actual bias exists or can be proved." — Caperton v. A. T. Massey Coal Co., 556 U.S. 868 (2009)
In its production response, the Department of Regulatory Agencies (“DORA”) cited a single CORA exemption: § 24-72-204(2)(a)(VII), the provision that protects “electronic mail addresses, telephone numbers, or home addresses” provided to a state agency for purposes of future communication.
That exemption permits the redaction of personal contact data points. It does not permit the withholding of substantive records, like, I imagine, ethics and conflict declarations.
Item 6 of the request I submitted asked for "all conflict-of-interest disclosure forms, recusal notices, or ethics filings" submitted by Dr. Jensen, "including any disclosures related to the VPA program, the MS-VCC program, or Colorado State University."
The production contains exactly two ethics-policy documents from Dr. Jensen: a generic Code of Conduct Acknowledgment Form she signed on July 14, 2025, and a generic FY26 Annual Board Member Training attestation dated April 7, 2026. Neither contains any specific disclosure of a conflict and neither references her husband, the MS-VCC program, the VPA, or Colorado State University.
And I asked for it, specifically. Item 8 of my CORA request sought “All communications between DORA staff or the Board and Tracey Jensen, DVM, regarding any potential conflict of interest arising from any professional or personal relationship between Dr. Tracey Jensen and Dr. Wayne Jensen, DVM, PhD, MBA, and his role in the MS-VCC program at CSU.” The production contains zero such communications.
This is consistent with one of two readings. Either Dr. Jensen filed no conflict-of-interest disclosures in connection with her service on the Board, and there were no communications between her and DORA about the conflict. Or such records exist and were withheld.
The exemption DORA cited does not authorize withholding ethics filings, so if the second reading is correct, the withholding seems unsupported by the cited statutory authority.
If the first reading is correct, the absence of disclosure is the entire problem.
Helpfully, even if Dr. Jensen didn’t flag her own conflicts of interest, a member of the public did. Before rulemaking occurred, there was an opportunity for public comments on the matter.
On Monday, July 14, 2025, at 9:10 AM, Sarah Carter, DVM, sent an email to the rulemaking inbox. Her message:
“I am writing in with concerns of conflict of interest/selection bias for the two newly appointed veterinarians on the Colorado state board of veterinary medicine, appointed by Governor Polis. Tracey Jensen DVM was appointed by Governor Polis. She is posted on the website ‘All Pets deserve Vet [Care]’ as an endorsing veterinarian of prop 129 and creation of a VPA. . . . Her husband, Wayne Jensen, who was formerly the department head at CSU CVM, is intimately involved in developing this VPA role despite majority of colleagues, professional groups, state VMAs, state veterinary technician associations, and the AVMA being opposed. . . . So I ask, is appointing Tracey a conflict of interest?”
Dr. Carter’s email was received by DORA. It is in the production. The Board therefore had, at least thirty-one days before the August 14 hearing, formal written notice that the conflict had been flagged.
The CORA production contains no documented response to Dr. Carter’s email. No reply from DORA staff. No memo from the Senior Assistant Attorney General assigned to the Board. No notation in subsequent meeting minutes. No recusal protocol triggered.
The question of conflict was raised, by a veterinarian, in writing, on the official record. The record is silent on what, if anything, the Board did to answer the question.
"The pecuniary interest of the members of the Board... had sufficient substance to disqualify them, given the context in which this case arose." — Gibson v. Berryhill, 411 U.S. 564 (1973)
On August 14, 2025, the Board convened the Permanent Rulemaking Hearing. It was Dr. Tracey Jensen’s first board meeting. Roll call lists her as present.
The minutes record two motions on Agenda Item 1, the VPA rulemaking. The first was Anna Stout’s motion to adopt the rules, seconded by the second new Polis appointee, Dr. Martha Jo Myers (more in a moment). It carried.
The second was a motion by Heather Cammisa to designate the American Association of Veterinary State Boards (AAVSB) as the national credentialing entity for the VPA. It was seconded by Dr. Tracey Jensen. Thus, even though the public records I’d requested were not produced, I believe it’s safe to conclude that Dr. Jensen did not recuse herself. Two veteran members, Dr. Dean Vicksman and Lynn Ferguson, RVT, voted no. The motion carried.
The minutes record no recusal by Dr. Jensen on either motion.
The Board handles recusal in general. The same minutes, in the same meeting, record that Ms. Lynn Ferguson “recused from participation in this case and departed the meeting room” on a disciplinary matter, and that Dr. Carolyn Karrh recused on another. In meetings since, Dr. Jensen is recorded as having left the room, recusing herself from other disciplinary matters.
The recusal practice at this Board is to leave the room and have the recusal noted in the minutes. On the rulemaking that will have a tremendous impact on determining whether her husband’s program qualifies as a path to the credential, the new appointee made the choice to remain present, to vote, and to second the contested motion at her first meeting.
"Justice must satisfy the appearance of justice." — Offutt v. United States, 348 U.S. 11 (1954)
The motion Dr. Jensen seconded matters in its own right, not because the designation it made is necessarily wrong, but because it is exactly the kind of designation that the rulemaking process exists to deliberate openly.
The rulemaking process exists so that designations of this consequence get that deliberation and scrutiny. The meeting minutes do not show such scrutiny.
"Every procedure which would offer a possible temptation to the average man as a judge... not to hold the balance nice, clear, and true... denies due process of law." — Tumey v. Ohio, 273 U.S. 510 (1927)
The second new appointee is Martha Jo Myers, DVM, term expiring June 30, 2029. Her name also appears on the published endorser list at allpetsdeservevetcare.com.
She is a paid veterinary advisor and consultant to Vetster, a commercial veterinary telehealth platform; this is documented on Vetster’s own site and in trade press. The VPA category, as designed, expands supervised veterinary practice capacity in ways structurally compatible with telehealth-platform business models.
Dr. Myers, like Dr. Jensen, made an affirmative motion contribution at the August 14 hearing when she seconded Ms. Stout’s motion to adopt the VPA rules. The minutes record no recusal for Dr. Myers either.
Dr. Carter’s July 14 comment, sent to DORA, named Dr. Myers explicitly as a second potential conflict, and the comment is in the production, and the record is similarly silent on any documented response.
"The probability of actual bias on the part of the judge or decisionmaker is too high to be constitutionally tolerable." — Withrow v. Larkin, 421 U.S. 35 (1975)
At least four of the nine members of the Colorado State Board of Veterinary Medicine appear, to my eye, to have seemingly undisclosed conflicts of interest and/or direct professional or financial interests that seem, according this layman’s reading of Colorado law, should preclude them from rulemaking on the matter of the Veterinary Professional Associate or, in some cases, membership on the State Board.
Colorado law does seem to afford a presumption of integrity and impartiality to those serving in quasi-judicial capacities. Mountain States Telephone & Telegraph Co. v. Public Utilities Commission, 763 P.2d 1020 (Colo. 1988), says so plainly, and I have no quarrel with the principle. But the same opinion seems to make clear that the presumption is rebuttable, and that it holds only in the "absence of a personal, financial, or official stake in the decision evidencing a conflict of interest." That doesn’t sound like a blanket immunity, it sounds like a condition. And the facts here seem to fail it.
Then there’s Goebel v. Benton, 830 P.2d 995 (Colo. 1992), holds that "mere allegations, opinions, or conclusions unsubstantiated by facts" are insufficient to mandate disqualification. And I think that makes sense, too, but Goebel is a case in which the Colorado Supreme Court ordered the judge to recuse. The court held that when the totality of the facts demonstrates a "bent of mind" or an appearance of bias, disqualification is required as a matter of law. A spousal relationship to the person who spearheaded the creation of the only qualifying academic program is not a “mere allegation,” it's a matter of public record. A prior public endorsement of the ballot measure is not an unsubstantiated opinion about bias, it's a documented position.
And Venard v. DOC, 72 P.2d 446 (Colo. App. 2003), provides that recusal is appropriate when a board member's impartiality "could reasonably be called into question", which, to this layperson, seems to describe the situation before the Board with some precision.
Two were publicly aligned with the ballot measure before their appointment and they presently work in roles that deal directly with the veterinary profession. One has a documented family connection to the state’s only academic training program the rulemaking will determine to qualify or not qualify, and another has a documented commercial advisory connection to a category of practice the rulemaking expands.
A member of the public raised the conflicts in writing thirty-one days before the first vote. The Board’s records contain no disclosure forms, no recusal notices on the VPA, no ethics filings, no communications specifically addressing the conflict — none of which are protected by the public records act exemption that DORA invoked.
The first vote both new appointees participated in was the rulemaking on the matter that the conflicts touched. Both seconded motions on it. Neither recused.
The State Board of Veterinary Medicine has a Code of Ethics that requires recusal where the appearance of a conflict exists. The standard the Board sets for itself is a standard the record does not show was met. A regulatory body that does not visibly meet its own ethics standard is a regulatory body the public has no way to verify is serving its interests.
You might say the rules would've passed anyway, waving off the concerns. That they could’ve redone it and we’d still be in the same stage of things. That it wouldn’t have mattered.
But in the August 14th, 2025 meeting Motion 1 (rules adoption) was moved by Ms. Stout and seconded by Dr. Myers. Motion 2 (AAVSB designation) was moved by Ms. Cammisa and seconded by Dr. Jensen. That meeting was attended by eight members of the board, with Ms. Rose absent. As I’ve described above, Two of the eight present should not have been seated at all under § 12-315-106(2)(c); two more Board members should have recused under § 24-18-108.5(2) and the Board's own Code of Ethics. So, doing the math here, if the members with conflicts of interest recuse and two more are statutorily ineligible? They don't have a quorum to pass either motion anymore. And if they did vote along the same lines, what was a 6-2 vote in the affirmative would be tied 2-2. That substantially changes the climate of the Veterinary Professional Associate in Colorado.
The structural questions about AAVSB, about Standard 6 of the AVMA Council on Education’s Accreditation Policies and Procedures, about CSU’s $50 million for a Veterinary Health and Education Complex appropriation under HB 24-1231, about the curriculum overlap Dr. Wayne Jensen himself documented, those exist independently and will be addressed in their own time. They do not depend on the outcome of the conflict-of-interest question.
What does depend on it is whether the people of Colorado can have confidence that what was decided at that August 14 hearing was decided in their interest.
And here’s another reason I love America: there’s a way to fix all of this.
A board appointment is a deal: the Governor offers a seat; the appointee accepts a set of rules. The rules are written down. The Code of Ethics is on DORA’s website. The Practice Act is on the legislature’s website. The recusal mechanism is in use, the Board’s own meeting minutes of the same show two members of this Board recusing themselves on the same day on disciplinary matters. Published minutes from a later meeting show that Dr. Tracey Jensen recused herself on certain disciplinary matters. The system works. It just requires the people who volunteered to participate to use the system that's been built.
The remedy for an undisclosed conflict is disclosure. The remedy for a missing recusal is recusal. The remedy for a vote taken without either is reconsideration of the vote with proper procedure. A motion can be reconsidered. A regulation can be redrafted. A board’s reputation, once a problem is named honestly and addressed visibly, can be reestablished.
The path forward is not difficult, though it may be uncomfortable for some involved. Dr. Tracey Jensen and Dr. Martha Jo Myers can file conflict-of-interest disclosures specifying the relationships, the financial interests, and the prior public positions that bear on the matters before the Board. Both can recuse from further VPA-related rulemaking. The Board members without conflicts can reconsider, with full disclosure on the record, the motions taken on August 14.
A 52.7-47.2 vote of the Colorado electorate authorized the creation of the Veterinary Professional Associate, it did not authorize a particular board composition, and it certainly did not authorize the suspension of § 12-315-106(2)(c) or § 24-18-108.5(2). Voters don't get to vote conflicts of interest into legality, and a Governor doesn't get to appoint around statutory eligibility requirements because a measure passed. The statute means what it says, I would think, regardless of whether it passed by a single vote or two million.
DORA can produce any disclosure forms, recusal notices, ethics filings, attestation responses, and conflict-related communications that exist for any Board member during the rulemaking period.
If those records exist and were merely overlooked, they will surface. If they do not exist, that absence is itself the answer to the trust question, and the answer requires a remedy.
While rhetorical questions litter this piece, the question of who is this rulemaking actually serving is not a rhetorical question. I believe it has an answer, and that answer is in the record.
I will keep sharing the record as it comes in. Recordings and minutes from the April 2026 Colorado State Veterinary Board meeting are not available as of the time of this writing.
As Mr. Mark Cushing frequently ends his articles: much more to come.
Sure, it’s a little “mainstream” as far as pastimes go, but I don’t make fun of your hobbies.
Graduates of a school of veterinary medicine, Colorado residents, and licensed to practice in Colorado for at least the five years preceding appointment.
Colorado residents who have been certified by a Colorado association of veterinary technicians and practicing as vet techs in the state for at least five years immediately preceding appointment.
From the public at large, with no financial or professional association with the veterinary profession.
At the time of this writing, I have not reached out to Governor Polis’ office for comment. I have, however, sent a number of CORA requests — more than three weeks ago — to the Office of the Governor and have not received a response. I didn’t reach out for comment because, well, if the Governor’s office didn’t respond to official requests with a law mandating a response, why on earth would I spend any time with unofficial requests without a law mandating a response?