November 26, 2021: The Day Lauren Boebert Finally Blinked

4
  by: Colorado Pols November 26, 2021 at 1:20 PM MST

Rep. Lauren Boebert (R).

The Hill reports on the above video that went viral over the Thanksgiving holiday, of Rep. Lauren Boebert telling a story suggesting that fellow Rep. Ilhan Omar is feared by Capitol Police as a possible suicide bomber:

In the video, shared by a Twitter account called PatriotTakes, Boebert recounted an incident she said took place with Omar.

“So the other night on the House floor was not my first jihad squad moment. So I was getting into an elevator with one of my staffers. And he and I are – we’re leaving the Capitol. We’re going back to my office and we get in the elevator, and I see a Capitol Police officer running hurriedly to the elevator,” Boebert said in the video.

“I see fret all over his face, and he’s reaching… The door’s shutting, like I can’t – I can’t open it – like, what’s happening? I look to my left, and there she is. Ilhan Omar. I said, ‘Well she doesn’t have a backpack, we should be fine,’” she said as the audience in the video could be heard laughing…

During the debate over the censure of Rep. Paul Gosar of Arizona over a video he promoted depicting the death of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, Boebert smeared Rep. Omar as a member of the “Jihad Squad” on the floor of the House and even brought up the false rumor that Rep. Omar had once married her brother. In response, Omar ripped Boebert as an “insurrectionist who sleeps with a pervert”–in reference to Boebert’s husband’s conviction for public indecency and lewd exposure, which unlike Boebert’s claims about Rep. Omar being a suicide bomber is a matter of record.

As for the exchange Boebert described above with a U.S. Capitol Police officer frightened at the prospect of sharing an elevator with Rep. Omar? Here’s Omar’s response to that:

Fact, this buffoon looks down when she sees me at the Capitol, this whole story is made up. [Pols emphasis] Sad she thinks bigotry gets her clout.

Well folks, sometime between the video of Boebert telling this story being posted on Thanksgiving morning and today, something we’ve never seen before finally happened: Lauren Boebert was persuaded to deliver the closest we’ve ever seen from her to an apology.

Let’s be clear that this is objectively speaking a terribly weak apology, not even directly to Rep. Omar but “anyone in the Muslim community” offended by Boebert suggesting that Rep. Omar is a terrorist. Hopefully Boebert delivers a more direct apology when she meets with Omar, because this hardly seems sufficient. With that said, this is still the first time we have seen Boebert offer any kind of apology after literally hundreds of occasions that called for one, and that’s highly significant. It indicates to us that somebody who Boebert cannot afford to alienate has finally had enough.

The question now is, does this half-apology go far enough to spare Boebert from sanction by the House like Reps. Marjorie Taylor-Greene and more recently Paul Gosar? Without Boebert’s seat on the House Natural Resources Committee, her value to her CD-3 constituents–not to mention her questionably generous benefactors in the oil and gas industry–pretty much evaporates. We have to think a threat of this magnitude is the only circumstance that could compel Boebert to do what Donald Trump considered unthinkable.

This apology, weak as it is, shatters Boebert’s image as an indefatigable slinger of red meat.

As it turns out, there is a limit.

Rule of .6%: How Aurora’s New Republican Overlords Roll

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  by: Colorado Pols November 24, 2021 at 11:09 AM MST

Aurora Mayor Mike Coffman with “Mini-Mike” City Councillor Dustin Zvonek.

As readers know, most of the counties making up the Denver metropolitan area have announced a return to mandatory mask use in most public indoor settings. Suburban Jefferson County along with the two counties still serviced by the Tri-County Health Department, Adams and Arapahoe County, were joined by Denver in reinstating mask mandates until the current surge of COVID-19 cases trends downward. The other county nominally a part of the erstwhile “Tri-County” Health Department, Douglas County, stands alone in refusing to mandate mask use after having pulled out of TCHD in protest of requiring masks in Douglas County public schools.

Conservative Douglas County’s refusal to enforce a mask mandate while the state struggles to cope with skyrocketing COVID-19 cases is the backdrop for the first test of the city of Aurora’s new Republican majority on the City Council, after Mayor Mike Coffman’s campaign to pack the Council with Republican loyalists became one of the only bright spots in an otherwise poor showing for Colorado Republicans in the off-year 2021 elections. As the Aurora Sentinel’s Kara Mason reports, Republicans on the City Council are seizing on Douglas County’s refusal to go along with the rest of the metro area’s mask mandate as a pretext to let the whole city of Aurora disregard the Tri-County Health Department’s mask mandate:

The mask mandate in Aurora, imposed by the Tri-County Health Department, which overlays Aurora and all of Adams and Arapahoe counties, could be in jeopardy after some Republican members of the city council asked the city manager to refuse the order.

A group of sitting and newly-elected Republican Aurora City Council members on Tuesday requested the city disregard a new mask mandate for Adams and Arapahoe counties because it doesn’t cover a sliver of residents in Douglas County, which has no public establishments.

The council members all signed a letter, saying it would cause inequity about where in Aurora the mask mandate would be required and where it wouldn’t. There are, however, no commercial businesses in the Douglas County portion of Aurora, according to city data. [Pols emphasis]

The letter said the Tri-County measure “has placed the City of Aurora in a situation where the new mandate will not evenly apply to all our city’s residents.”

Understand this clearly: the Republican members of the Aurora City Council are arguing that because a portion of their city is located in Douglas County, there should be no mask mandate in the areas of the city located in Adams and Arapahoe Counties in order to promote “consistency.” The problem? Look at a map of Aurora:

The tiny sliver of Douglas County within the city of Aurora’s boundaries contains less than 1% of the total population of Aurora–2,560 out of over 386,000 according to the 2020 Census. As the Sentinel reports, the area of Aurora south of County Line Road is also entirely residential–meaning there are exactly zero businesses who would be forced against their God-given right as Douglas County residents to require masks.

Obviously, the idea that this small area of Douglas County with no affected businesses should be able to dictate policy to the overwhelming majority…well, it’s an idea so perfectly outrageous that only a brand-new Republican city council majority would be foolish enough to do this. From the CU medical campus on down the line of Aurora stakeholders this is certain to provoke a major backlash–and serve as a warning for Aurora voters about the choice they just made at the ballot box.

It’s one of the clearest cases of Republicans “fighting for the 1%” you’ll ever see.

Wednesday Open Thread

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  by: Colorado Pols November 24, 2021 at 6:56 AM MST

“There are times a country is so tired of bull that only the truth can provide relief.”

–Molly Ivins

Election Fraud Conspiracists Still Knocking on Colorado Voters’ Doors

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  by: Erik Maulbetsch November 23, 2021 at 2:41 PM MST

(STILL coming to your town — Promoted by Colorado Pols)

It’s over a year since the 2020 election, but teams of election fraud conspiracists are still going door-to-door in counties all over Colorado, searching for so-called “phantom votes” that they remain convinced — without evidence— actually exist.

Late last month, U.S. Election Integrity Project (USEIP) representative James Peabody, updated the Jefferson County Republican Men’s Club on the group’s field efforts in counties all over the state.

“I was instrumental in getting walk lists [of voters] put together for counties all across the Eastern Plains, from Otero up to Larimer,” says Peabody. “El Paso & Douglas Counties are done. In Jefferson County we through one precinct, we have four precincts we’re targeting. Weld is done. In Boulder, I think they’re wrapping up as well. We’ve got a really good cross-section of the population of Colorado already covered. Then they’re going to start generating reports from their intelligence gathering uh in the next month or two. So we can see some progress there”

The “intelligence gathering” Peabody mentions is the canvassing effort. Volunteers wear homemade badges, which identify them as being part of an official-sounding group such as the “Voter Integrity Committee,” and tell people election fraud was committed in their name or using their address, thus promoting a conspiracy that election officials and experts say simply isn’t true.

USEIP’s own documents and internal chat logs reveal that at least some of the door-knockers are armed, and, furthermore, they show that at one point the group had at least two volunteers who were sex criminals.

(more…)

The GMS Podcast: What the Hell Is Going on in Mesa County? (ft. Charles Ashby)

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  by: Colorado Pols November 23, 2021 at 1:38 PM MST

For this week’s 92nd episode of the Get More Smarter Podcast, a whole episode dedicated to Mesa County Madness! Jason Bane and Ian Silverii welcome Grand Junction Daily Sentinel reporter Charles Ashby back to the show who gives us the definitive rundown of the continuing scandal surrounding Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters and what role Lauren Boebert’s former campaign manager Sherronna Bishop has in it all.

There are too many wild stories to link in this episode description, but you can scroll through Charles’ recent articles here.

Listen to previous episodes of The Get More Smarter Podcast at GetMoreSmarter.com.

Questions? Comments? Complaints? Let us have it at AngryRants@getmoresmarter.com.

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | Spotify | Stitcher | TuneIn

Backup? Backstab? Boebert Belatedly Wades Into “MesaGate”

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  by: Colorado Pols November 23, 2021 at 9:13 AM MST

UPDATE: In a Facebook post this morning, a ‘heartbroken’ Sherronna Bishop responds to Rep. Lauren Boebert’s praise for the Mesa County DA:

The Mesa County DA overseeing this Warrant
“Acted in a professional and responsible way”
Says Congresswoman Lauren Boebert
Huh. Unprecedented action busting a door down, guns drawn, handcuffing a mother in front of her children then going through my home and taking my electronics.
I have ZERO criminal history
I have ZERO violent history.
All things the use of force by the FBI are reserved for.
I have also not spoken with or been interviewed by the Congresswoman.
Breaks my heart.

The faithful are greatly dismayed:

Folks, they’re talking about Lauren Boebert. Let that sink in.

This is a fateful moment in Boebert’s short political career.

—–

Rep. Lauren Boebert with 2020 primary campaign manager Sherronna Bishop.

The Grand Junction Sentinel’s Dale Shrull updating with a significant development in the ongoing federal criminal investigation into the “MesaGate” election systems data breach, allegedly committed by Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters with assistance from Rep. Lauren Boebert’s former campaign manager Sherronna Bishop and a range of far-right players including “MyPillow Guy” Mike Lindell and the man believed to be behind the “QAnon” conspiracy theory–easily the craziest story in Colorado politics this year, which is no mean feat.

After months of stone-cold silence while these friends and close political allies of Boebert have come under criminal investigation, fled into hiding and re-appeared, defending themselves by claiming as Boebert has herself said innumerable times that the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump and every law they broke was to prove it (even though they did not prove any such thing), yesterday Rep. Boebert announced they she had received a “briefing” from Mesa County DA Dan Rubenstein about the case:

“Many of the constituents I represent have expressed concern about the ongoing investigation into Mesa County Clerk and Recorder Tina Peters. At my request, I recently received a briefing from District Attorney Dan Rubinstein,” the statement said. “He addressed my concerns about the involvement of the FBI and the absolute necessity for the presumption of innocence to be extended to all of those being investigated.”

Boebert said she has been an opponent of the “overreach and targeted nature of the FBI’s activities on a national level” in the past, and that was one reason she spoke to Rubinstein.

“It was clear from our conversation that the District Attorney is being responsible in his approach and conducting his work in as timely and professional a manner as possible, as well as providing local oversight of the FBI’s role,” her statement said.

Tine Peters supporters rally in Grand Junction.

Given Boebert’s close ties to at least one of the individuals whose homes were searched by the FBI and local law enforcement last week, her former campaign manager Sherronna Bishop, this “briefing” Boebert received from DA Dan Rubenstein could be considered highly inappropriate–for Boebert to request and for DA Rubenstein to grant. Boebert’s trashing of the FBI for its “targeted activities” is a clear shot at the investigations into the January 6th insurrection and far-right militia groups for which Boebert has a well-known affinity.

But interestingly, as you can read above Boebert came away from her meeting with nothing but praise for DA Rubenstein and an affirmation of his methods in the investigation so far–seemingly a huge blow to her erstwhile friends complaining about “large teams of heavily armed federal agents” smashing their way into the homes of any American who dares to oppose critical race theory and sex ed. Also and perhaps just as noteworthy is how Boebert doesn’t even touch the underlying question once central to her message, which is the belief despite any evidence that the 2020 elections were stolen from Donald Trump.

Boebert’s roaring silence as the scandal in her backyard involving some of her closest political allies has grown into national news has always struck us as indicative of a bigger story behind the scenes. Wading into the scandal via the politically-friendly district attorney in the case could be yet another serious ethics problem for Boebert.

On the other hand, if Boebert really is cutting her old friends loose…that’s huge news too. After all, we’re talking about Boebert’s core base of support in CD-3. If Boebert demoralizes the hard-right Republican base by leaving Clerk Peters and her alleged co-conspirators to twist in the wind, who does Boebert have left in her corner to stave off a primary challenge?

Watch this space for updates. We expect them.

“MesaGate” Scandal Gets A New Handle: Alleged Wire Fraud

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  by: Colorado Pols November 22, 2021 at 1:40 PM MST

 

Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters with Western Slop right-wing activist Cory Anderson.

As the Glenwood Springs Post-Independent’s Ray Erku reports, the former campaign manager of freshman GOP controversy aggregator Rep. Lauren Boebert, “America’s Mom” Sherronna Bishop, is complaining loudly about the FBI’s pre-dawn visit to her and Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters’ homes last week–and in the process disclosing new details about the criminal investigation into the leak of Dominion Voting Systems election machines data to fringe conspiracy theorists, in a half-baked and failed (emphasis ours) attempt to prove fraud in the 2020 presidential election:

Bishop confirmed Thursday that law enforcement searched her home earlier this week.

“While homeschooling my youngest children, the FBI along with Mesa County Investigator Matthew Struwe decided it was necessary to bust open my front door with a battering ram and put me in handcuffs while they trampled through my home terrifying my family,” she said. “My daughter was pulled around by her hoodie by one of the FBI agents.”

Bishop said she repeatedly asked authorities during this time what prompted the search but received no explanation… [Pols emphasis]

Rep. Lauren Boebert with 2020 primary campaign manager Sherronna Bishop.

This is not what Bishop told CBS4’s Rick Sallinger, who reports that Bishop was told the search was related to potential federal wire fraud charges–for the first time clarifying the FBI’s interest in the case:

Bishop recalled, “Just as we were about to open the door it flew open. They had used a ram to bust down the door.”

She says the door wasn’t locked. Bishop, a former campaign manager for Rep. Lauren Boebert, says she was told the search was part of a wire fraud investigation. [Pols emphasis]

The same day, Republican Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters‘ home was searched…

But as Colorado Newsline reports, “America’s Mom” sees more afoot here than mere wire fraud:

Bishop, a former campaign manager for Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert, said law enforcement officers busted through her door during the search of her home, and she compared them to Nazis.

She said the search warrant was related to a charge of “conspiracy to commit wire fraud.”

…She said the investigation is part of pushback against people who question election integrity, critical race theory being taught in schools, “comprehensive sex education” and mask mandates in schools.

“It’s a new day, for sure,” she said.

To summarize, “America’s Mom” wants you to believe that she and Clerk Tina Peters are being persecuted by the FBI as part of an ongoing campaign to oppress opponents of critical race theory, sex ed, and kids wearing masks–not to mention “hickerbillies” (a word Bishop herself gifted to us and we’re eternally grateful for it) who believe despite the lack of any actual evidence that the 2020 presidential election was not legitimate.

So, maybe that. Or maybe it’s a federal crime to send stolen data across the internets.

We’ll update when we know for sure, but the latter makes a bit more sense.

Colorado’s “Election Truthers” File DOA Crazypants Lawsuit

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  by: Colorado Pols November 22, 2021 at 10:19 AM MST

As Colorado Newsline reports, Colorado’s “Insurrectionist Man of Mystery” Rep. Ron Hanks has teamed up with one of the (literally) most interesting names in Colorado politics, Douglas County Clerk Merlin Klotz, to file suit demanding that Dominion Voting Systems machines across the state be summarily executed–preferably by packing them with large quantities of explosives and shooting them at a safe distance.

We’re joking, of course. It’s yet another frivolous lawsuit demanding an audit of the 2020 elections:

The lawsuit claims that election system software used in Colorado’s 64 counties in 2020 was improperly certified, that the secretary of state’s office illegally destroyed election records, and that Griswold exceeded her authority when in the summer she adopted emergency rules to prevent the kind of election audit then occurring in Arizona, which she deemed illegitimate.

Also named as plaintiffs are Merlin Klotz, the Douglas County clerk and recorder; two of the three Rio Blanco County commissioners, Gary Moyer and Jeff Rector; and Park County Commissioner Amy Mitchell.

Douglas County Clerk Merlin Klotz (R).

Rep. Hanks’ participation in a lawsuit against Secretary of State Jena Griswold to force an Arizona-style “fraudit” of Colorado’s already counted, audited, and certified 2020 election results–which is almost certain to end up in the court’s “circular file” as quickly as that can be arranged–is not in itself surprising. But the enlistment of arch-conservative Douglas County Clerk Merlin Klotz in support of Hanks’ hare-brained lawsuit is a development worth noting. Back in December of 2020, as Colorado Community Media reported at the time, Clerk Klotz publicly urged Vice President Mike Pence to carry out essentially ex-CU professor John Eastman’s plot to overturn the election results on January 6th:

“Pence has plenary authority on January 6 and can declare AZ, GA, MI, NM, NV, WI and PA elections illegal, not following state and general election processes,” Merlin Klotz said in a Dec. 28 Facebook post. “Contact/encourage Pence.”

The concept Klotz — a Republican elected clerk and recorder in 2014 — was referring to is a long-shot effort for Congress to challenge the electoral tally on Jan. 6. In the post, Klotz further commented that declaring the states’ elections illegal would result in 232 electoral votes for Trump and 222 for Joe Biden…

“I think it is important that if I’ve got a knowledge base that I share that knowledge base,” he said. “If you don’t like what you hear I’m sorry but this is a possibility.”

With that said, and relevant to today’s story, back in December of 2020, Clerk Klotz had nothing but praise for how the 2020 elections were carried out in Colorado:

Klotz said he believes Colorado has an “amazingly secure” election system [Pols emphasis] but that it is “well substantiated” that other states didn’t follow the same stringent election protocols.

When asked about specific claims of election fraud that Klotz found credible he said “nothing in particular stood out.”

“It’s a matter of saying this election may or may not be over but we did a great job in this state, the state as a whole,” he said. “It’s unfortunate that they (other states) didn’t follow the same protocols that we have.”

What changed between last December, when Clerk Klotz praised Colorado’s “amazingly secure” election system, to today joining Ron Hanks’ crackpot quest to find what no other investigation for court battle among dozens has ever found? In the absence of a better explanation, we’ll have to chalk it up to a combination of shamelessness and an irresistible desire to be in the news. For Republicans like Heidi Ganahl who would prefer to ride the fence on the 2020 election in order to win a GOP primary without antagonizing general election swing voters, this lawsuit presents an unworkable contradiction.

Unfortunately for Ganahl, the contradictions, and even the inevitable outcome of this latest lawsuit, are not the plaintiffs’ problem. In Donald Trump’s GOP, Hanks and Clerk Klotz have an audience of one.

Monday Open Thread

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  by: Colorado Pols November 22, 2021 at 6:50 AM MST

“Nothing is more terrible than to see ignorance in action.”

–Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Weekend Open Thread

17
  by: Colorado Pols November 19, 2021 at 10:23 PM MST

“I think that that’s the wisest thing–to prevent illness before we try to cure something.”

–Maya Angelou

Build Back Better: Footing for Climate Smart 21st Century USA

1
  by: PKolbenschlag November 19, 2021 at 2:50 PM MST

(Promoted by Colorado Pols)

After some weird all-night, poorly-done performance art–which consisted of words and sometimes sentences strung together with bored partisans as background props, fidgeting on their phones: the Build Back Better Act finally passed the U.S. House of Representatives Friday morning. 

Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy had lots and lots of words between items of actual business on the House Floor before final passage of the Build Back Better Act, which now heads to the U.S. Senate.

This bold and ambitious legislation is a cornerstone of President Biden’s domestic agenda, and a real boon for rural Colorado.

Fortunately the Western Slope can count on some great Colorado leadership in the U.S House of Representatives, even if it’s not our own cartoonish Twitter Troll of dubious character who couldn’t be bothered to do something useful for her district. 

Luckily Representative Neguse who also represents parts of western Colorado, and the other non-Trump Party members of Colorado’s delegation, did support this bill and worked hard to include provisions that will benefit our communities.

So now it is up to our Senators — Michael Bennet and John Hickenlooper —  to help move this through the Senate. We need them to keep standing up for rural Colorado by securing this investment in its future. 

I write as someone who has spent all my years in Colorado working to organize and create change on the Western Slope, generally in rural communities and small towns. The Build Back Better Act can be a game-changer for our region, an area that has lagged behind our urban counterparts in infrastructure, community services, and income for decades. 

The Build Back Better Act can help restore the health of our lands and waters, create jobs, and build for a more sustainable and propserous future. This Act would be a real downpayment on the work needed to conserve our pubic lands, benefit wildlife, and make a positive climate impact.

Our public lands have been mined and fracked for resources that have helped cities thrive, and the water that would flow in our rivers here has also found its way there, along with most of the wealth from the minerals and timber that have also been removed.  

But rural places are not alone in this way. Other disproportionately affected, under-funded and front-line communities will also see an infusion of needed investments when the Senate passes Build Back Better. That’s why I support it being fully funded and sent to President Biden. 

Build Back Better will invest in places and communities where such resources are both badly needed and can be highly impactful. This is the type of investment that tax cuts for the wealthy and corporate subsidies will never provide, the kind that strengthen the foundations built up from the bottom, not the kind that only promises that crumbs may one day tumble down from above. 

For western Colorado the Build Back Better bill–now heading to the U.S. Senate–and the recently signed Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act will have a real impact on the ground–in “red” and “blue” counties alike, for conservatives and liberals, for farmers and students, in valley and mountain towns, for workers and children and families.  

(more…)

Rittenhouse Verdict Societal Implications Thread

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  by: Colorado Pols November 19, 2021 at 2:20 PM MST

It’s the news dominating discussion as the cycle fades into the din of Thanksgiving week, so here’s a thread to discuss the acquittal of Kyle Rittenhouse, the teenage vigilante who everybody agrees killed two complete strangers in the street with a weapon he legally should not have possessed–and just got away with it. Washington Post:

President Biden on Friday called on Americans to respect the jury’s decision in the Rittenhouse trial, telling reporters that the system “works” and declining to discuss a previous tweet in which he appeared to suggest that Rittenhouse was a white supremacist.

“I stand by what the jury has concluded,” Biden said upon arriving back at the White House from Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, where he underwent a routine colonoscopy. “The jury system works, and we have to abide by it.”

Later Friday, in a statement issued by the White House, Biden urged Americans to “express their views peacefully” and said that while the verdict “will leave many Americans feeling angry and concerned, myself included, we must acknowledge that the jury has spoken.”

Although Rittenhouse has been acquitted of all the charges brought against him in state court, the fact that Rittenhouse crossed state lines to carry a weapon he wasn’t legally allowed to own could still result in federal charges:

Legitimizing a claim of “self-defense” in a situation where someone has put themselves directly in harm’s way with an illegal assault rifle almost guarantees future killings like those carried out by Kyle Rittenhouse. Rittenhouse’s acquittal on a claim of self-defense after traveling across state lines to roam the streets of Kenosha during a riot sets a precedent that could well inspire a dramatic increase in armed vigilante violence during future protests of all kinds. The open carry ban in Denver is all that prevents a similar situation playing out in Colorado’s largest city, as we saw last summer when an idiot at a racial justice protest in neighboring Aurora unloaded his openly-carried weapon at a passing vehicle injuring two fellow protesters.

One thing is sure: no good will come of this verdict. It rewards every kind of behavior society should not.

Tom Sullivan Helps Grow Democratic Senate Majority

4
  by: Colorado Pols November 19, 2021 at 10:40 AM MST

Rep. Tom Sullivan (D-Centennial).

Taking note of a bigger-than-average development in the field of candidates setting up to run for Colorado’s newly-finalized state House and Senate seats, the announcement yesterday that Democratic Rep. Tom Sullivan of Centennial will run in the newly redrawn but still-swingy south Denver suburban Senate District 27:

The new redistricting maps, approved Monday by the Supreme Court, created a new, open Senate District in eastern Centennial and unincorporated Arapahoe County. In talking with my family and community, we have come to the decision that the best next step for continuing to serve Colorado and Arapahoe County, is to run for the new SD 27.

It is an honor and a pleasure to represent HD 37 in the State House, and I would be humbled and thrilled to have your support in this new adventure to serve SD 27. I am proud of the work we have done over the past four years to keep our children and communities safe from unnecessary violence, support our public schools, and build back better from the COVID-19 pandemic.

But there is still work to be done to ensure that all Coloradans have access to the opportunities they need to thrive, which is why I am running for the State Senate.

This race is key for protecting the Democratic majority in the State Senate, but I know we have the team for it. Just like in past elections, we will be out knocking doors and making phone calls to talk to our community members everyday. I look forward to seeing all of our wonderful volunteers again this summer.

Tom Sullivan, an ordinary guy propelled into public service after his son Alex was murdered in the July 2012 Aurora theater mass shooting, has emerged in just a few years in office as one of the most compelling, least pretentious, and hardest-working members of the Democratic House majority. Sullivan’s frank-spoken vigor in the House and on the campaign trail has made him an endearing and authentic figure very popular with voters exposed to his message. Sullivan’s strengths were further demonstrated in 2019 when the current chair of the Colorado Republican Party Kristi Burton Brown initiated a recall attempt against Sullivan that crashed and burned as a direct result of Sullivan’s personal popularity in the district.

Newly redrawn Senate District 27 is on paper very competitive, with Democrats outperforming Republicans by less than five percent. Sullivan’s inherent strength as a candidate can be expected to add points to the district’s past results, giving Democrats a solid edge–and Sullivan his next step up in a career that as of today is a room without a roof.

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