Category Archives: Gov. Jared Polis

The GMS Podcast: Falling on Ridiculously Dull Swords

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  by: Colorado Pols May 13, 2022 at 9:19 AM MDT

This week in episode 108 of the Get More Smarter Podcast, your hosts Jason Bane and Ian Silverii look back at the 2022 legislative session and highlight some of the more important pieces of legislation to come out of the Gold Dome.

Later, Jason and Ian talk about Joe/John “O’Dancing” O’Dea (it will make sense when you listen); John Eastman; and Tina Peters.

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

Questions? Comments? Complaints? Let us have it at AngryRants@ .com. Or send emails to jason@getmoresmarter.com or ian@getmoresmarter.com.

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Heidi Ganahl Tosses Anchor to John Kellner

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  by: Colorado Pols May 10, 2022 at 3:26 PM MDT

When a particular political party has a strong candidate running at the top of the ticket, it generally benefits all of the other associated candidates down the ballot. When this happens, the common political lexicon is to say that lower-tier candidates are “riding the coattails” of the candidate at the top of the ticket.

But the reverse can also happen, which is what Colorado Republicans have experienced in recent election cycles and seem destined to deal with again this November. Republican gubernatorial candidate Hiedi Heidi Ganahl was recently a guest on KHOW radio (with Ryan Schuiling filling in as a guest host on The Leland Conway Show), where she proceeded to make a big splash that drenched several other unsuspecting Republicans.

After listening to Schuiling drown for a full minute while trying to downplay national polling showing widespread support for abortion rights, Ganahl was asked about the Reproductive Health Equity Act (RHEA) passed by the state legislature. Here’s her response:

GANAHL: Well, I mean, right, it’s disgusting. I don’t know any, um, many other moms – and I’m a mom of four – that believes that this is okay. We fight like crazy to keep our kids safe and the thought of, you know, letting a child die after birth…or giving birth and letting a child die, is abhorrent to the majority of women I know.

And so, I think we should do every single thing we can to overturn that law, and as governor I will fight to do that. Hopefully I’ll have the legislature to help me do that as well, and a good Attorney General – um, go John Kellner! [Pols emphasis]

You’ll want to add this to your playlist:

 

Here’s the audio of Ganahl’s entire response on the question, which concludes with her statement that incumbent Democratic Gov. Jared Polis is destroying the State of Colorado.

 

Ganahl’s extreme position on abortion rights is not a new revelation — she has regularly talked about reversing RHEA but won’t say if she would back legislation to restrict abortion rights — but this is the first time we can recall that Ganahl also tossed this live hand grenade to other Republicans in the legislature and to Republican Attorney General candidate John Kellner.

Perhaps Kellner is completely on board with efforts to overturn RHEA and/or rollback abortion rights in Colorado, but we’d imagine he’d prefer to answer that question himself. Ditto for other Republican candidates running for State House or State Senate in a state where voters overwhelmingly support abortion rights.

 

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The GMS Podcast: The One With the Epic Rant on Abortion Rights

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  by: Colorado Pols May 6, 2022 at 1:16 PM MDT

This week in episode 107 of the Get More Smarter Podcast, your hosts Jason Bane and Ian Silverii welcome back Christy Powell once more for the latest news on fundraising numbers for statewide races and one unforgettable diatribe about abortion rights (seriously, it could be its own episode — jump to the 22:45 mark).

But first, Jason and Ian consider the political implications in Colorado of the demise of Roe v. Wade and make sure to update you on where Republican candidates for federal office stand on the issue. We also dive into the big news in the race for Governor and listen to Republican candidate Greg Lopez talk himself into oblivion in an interview with 9News.

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 |

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Statewide Fundraising: Bad News for Ganahl and the GOP

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  by: Colorado Pols May 3, 2022 at 2:50 PM MDT

WEDNESDAY UPDATE: Tina Peters at last filed her first campaign finance report, and it was pretty good (relative to her Republican opponents, anyway).

—–

UPDATE: As of 3:41 pm, Peters has yet to file a campaign finance report.

—–

The deadline to file Q1 fundraising reports in Colorado was midnight on Monday, May 2, which means we have our first good look at how much support the various campaigns for statewide office have generated…

…Except for Mesa County Clerk and Recorder Tina Peters, who as of this writing has yet to submit her first fundraising report as a candidate for Secretary of State. On the one hand, it is perfectly on-brand for Peters to miss her first fundraising deadline, since she clearly operates on the idea that laws are meant for everyone else. On the other (much larger) hand, candidates for SECRETARY OF STATE should probably follow the same rules they will be expected to enforce if elected.

We’ll update this post if and when Peters decides to file a fundraising report. In the meantime, here’s a breakdown of how the rest of the statewide candidates fared in Q1.

As you read these numbers, remember something that we often repeat here at Colorado Pols: Fundraising isn’t just about money — it is an indicator of the level of support for a particular candidate. People generally don’t give money to candidates if they don’t believe they can win. 

 

GOVERNOR

This has not been a great week to be Republican gubernatorial candidate Hiedi Heidi Ganahl. You could say that about most weeks since Ganahl first announced her candidacy last September, but this has been a particularly rough couple of days for the current CU Regent.

Ganahl has long been the presumed frontrunner for the Republican nomination for Governor and the chance to challenge incumbent Democratic Gov. Jared Polis in November, but her entire campaign has been what you could charitably call “underwhelming.” Over the weekend, Danielle Neuschwanger became the gubernatorial nominee of the American Constitution Party (ACN), which is a massive blow to whichever Republican candidate wins the nomination in June. On Monday, Ganahl essentially confirmed the weakness of her candidacy with another poor fundraising report.

Ganahl’s fundraising has been historically bad for a Republican gubernatorial candidate — a trend that continues with the first quarter of this year. There’s no positive way to spin the fact that the presumed GOP frontrunner begins the month of May with just $200k in the bank. It’s not fair to compare fundraising numbers with Polis, who will self-fund his re-election campaign to whatever tune he deems necessary; but as you’ll see with other fundraising numbers below, Ganahl’s totals don’t even look that great compared to campaigns for lower-profile offices.

The rest of the campaign finance numbers in this race aren’t all that relevant, since we wouldn’t expect either Greg Lopez or Neuschwanger to be raising a lot of money.

 

ATTORNEY GENERAL

Incumbent Democrat Phil Weiser continues to raise boatloads of cash for his re-election bid, which has allowed him to already book a lot of television advertising time (hence Weiser’s large Q1 expenditures).

Republican John Kellner didn’t get a full quarter in which to fundraise — he didn’t really begin his AG campaign until February — but these are poor numbers nonetheless. Strong candidates often raise a good deal of money in their first quarter because that’s when they are first hitting up the donors with whom they have a close relationship. Kellner’s weak fundraising may also be an indication that he will be relying almost entirely on the assistance of the Republican Attorney General’s Association (RAGA) for most of his advertising expenditures.

 

SECRETARY OF STATE

Incumbent Democrat Jena Griswold is setting new records for fundraising for a candidate for SOS. Similar to Weiser, this is allowing her to reserve a bunch of advertising time in advance.

We wrote about Republican Pam Anderson’s anemic numbers in an earlier post. If Anderson is going to win a Republican Primary in June, she’s likely going to need a significant expenditure from an outside group or PAC to boost her name ID. We still don’t know who Mike O’Donnell is, but it’s a bad sign for Anderson that his cash on hand numbers are nearly seven times larger.

 

STATE TREASURER

Much like his Democratic colleagues (though to a lesser extent), incumbent Dave Young is raising enough money that he can start to book advertising spots in advance, which generally saves campaigns a good deal of money.

Republican Lang Sias, meanwhile, is raising the kind of money that would be great for a State House race but is not particularly impressive for a statewide campaign. Sias has been doing this long enough that he should have plenty of contacts for fundraising purposes; of course, he’s also been losing for long enough that those contacts may not be returning his phone calls. These weak fundraising numbers could be a sign that Sias is counting on a third-party expenditure to raise his name ID…or it might just be a reminder that he’s Lang Sias.

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Danielle Neuschwanger Scrambles GOP Race for Governor

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  by: Colorado Pols May 2, 2022 at 11:01 AM MDT

Clockwise from top left: Dan Maes, Heidi Ganahl, Danielle Neuschwanger, Tom Tancredo

There was some VERY big news over the weekend regarding the 2022 race for Governor in Colorado. As first noted by the Colorado Times Recorder and subsequently confirmed on Saturday, Danielle Neuschwanger will continue her campaign for Governor — but as the candidate of the American Constitution Party.

When last we saw Neuschwanger, she was threatening to sue (and, somehow, incarcerate) State Republican Party Chairwoman Kristi Burton Brown after Neuschwanger failed to make the 30% threshold required for ballot access at the Republican state assembly on April 9. Neuschwanger has been adamant that she was robbed in the “Great ClickerGate Conspiracy,” but she isn’t waiting any longer for that ball of red string to be unraveled. Instead, Neuschwanger is doing the only thing that would have been worse for Colorado Republicans than a bitter Primary fight: A vote-sucking General Election challenge.

Buoyed by polling data suggesting that she outperforms Republican Hiedi Heidi Ganahl in a hypothetical November matchup against incumbent Democrat Jared Polis, Neuschwanger refuses to go away despite finishing in third place at the GOP assembly behind Ganahl and top-line candidate Greg Lopez. This is nothing short of disastrous for Colorado Republicans.

The last time something like this happened was in 2010, when Tom Tancredo ran for Governor under the banner of the American Constitution Party (ACN) because establishment Republicans were horrified that some guy named Dan Maes was able to become the official GOP nominee for Governor. What makes this situation different is that Tancredo ran on the ACN ballot with the unofficial blessing of GOP bigwigs. Presumably, Republicans are much less enthusiastic about Neuschwanger’s ACN candidacy, but that doesn’t make it any less impactful.

Tom Tancredo, Dan Maes, and John Hickenlooper at a 2010 gubernatorial candidate forum.

 

It’s unlikely that Neuschwanger’s candidacy will have the same effect that Tancredo had in 2010, when his presence reduced Maes to just 11% of the General Election vote and damn near cost Republicans their “major party status” on future ballots in Colorado. The Tancredo/Maes dynamic allowed Democrat John Hickenlooper to cruise to victory in what was otherwise remembered as the Tea Party wave election (the final vote percentage in the 2010 race for Governor: 51% for Hickenlooper, 36% for Tancredo, and 11% for Maes).

Neuschwanger’s name on the November ballot may not cripple the Colorado Republican Party as it almost did in 2010, but she undoubtedly will take votes away from Ganahl or Lopez (whomever becomes the GOP nominee after the June Primary) in a race in which Republicans already faced an uphill battle in trying to oust a popular incumbent in Polis. And that might be enough to essentially end this race before it even gets started.

The 2022 Governor’s race had been dropping in priority for Republicans amid Ganahl’s silly campaign and the hopeless follies of Lopez (who won first place at the GOP assembly mostly for promising to pardon Tina Peters). When you add Neuschwanger’s ACN candidacy, it’s hard to argue that beating Polis is not a lost cause for Republicans.

We swear, we didn’t know this was going to happen when we recently concluded our “Worst Campaigns in Colorado (This Century)” bracket challenge. The worst, it seems, is yet to come.

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Recall Polis People Ask for More Time to Fail

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  by: Colorado Pols April 25, 2022 at 4:00 PM MDT

When last we caught up with efforts to “recall” Governor Jared Polis and Secretary of State Jena Griswold, the crack grassroots organization pushed by right-wing activist Lori Cutunilli was trying to entice people into the depths of an underground parking garage with vague promises of booting one or more statewide elected Democratic officials out of office.

We’re checking back on the subject now because it has been 60 days since the “Recall Polis-Griswold” group began gathering petition signatures for the latest iteration of this particular lost cause. Today, April 25, the “Recall Polis-Griswold” committee was supposed to officially submit a minimum of 630,000 petition signatures in order to trigger a recall election for Polis and/or Griswold. Based on the following message posted to Facebook today by Cutunilli, it seems unlikely that anyone will be marching into the Secretary of State’s office with anything other than lost time.

Recall Polis-Griswold update posted to Facebook today.

 

We’re not sure exactly how long of an extension the “Recall Polis-Griswold” committee requested, but the details aren’t particularly important. Whether they are seeking another 60 or 90 days, they’re never going to come up with enough signatures to get an actual recall election underway before our regularly-scheduled 2022 election takes place.

For now, Cutunilli and friends might just have to hope that Polis and Griswold get re-elected in November, which would give them four more years to keep this nonsense train rolling.

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Heidi Ganahl is Very, Very Silly

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  by: Colorado Pols April 25, 2022 at 10:24 AM MDT

Last week, Colorado Gov. Jared Polis made national headlines for jokingly suggesting that he would offer “asylum” to Mickey and Minnie Mouse in the wake of news that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis was going after the Disney company for being critical of his “don’t say gay” bill.

DeSantis asked his Republican friends in the Florida legislature to dissolve a special improvement district that was created to bring Disney World to Orlando, Florida a half-century ago. Republican lawmakers obliged, and DeSantis signed the bill into law within a matter of days. Polis was rightly concerned about the idea that any government would sanction a private company for disagreeing with policy ideas. As he wrote in a widely-quoted Tweet on April 19:

Polis later suggested that Colorado would be happy to host Disney — or other companies that are being attacked by DeSantis over cultural grievances — should they wish to relocate to a different state.

All of this apparently riled up Republican gubernatorial candidate Hiedi Heidi Ganahl, who explained her beef in a Friday appearance on The Leland Conway Show on KHOW Radio (in which Ganahl was presented as a “gubanoral candidate”). Ganahl is so daft that she took Polis’s comments on Disney seriously:

LELAND CONWAY: I imagine, Heidi, [that] you see a lot of hypocrisy here.

HEIDI GANAHL: Oh my goodness, do I, Leland. Thanks for having me today. You know, as usual, Jared Polis is an out-of-touch failure and a hypocrite. You know, the media will not ask – and I don’t mean your media, the mainstream media – will not ask the hard questions of Polis. They’re allowing him to get away with the perception that he is innocently courting Disney, and very libertarian-ish [Pols emphasis], and this idea that he stays out of the business of corporations and small business is ridiculous. He’s almost destroyed small business owners across Colorado with all of his regulations and taxes and fees. 83 new ones, to be exact, since he got elected.

 

Ganahl is correct that the “mainstream media” has not asked Polis about “innocently courting Disney,” but she has the rationale all wrong. The reason Polis isn’t being asked about courting Disney is not because there is a big conspiracy brewing with the mainstream media; Polis isn’t getting these questions BECAUSE EVERYONE ELSE understands that Polis was trolling DeSantis and making a joke in order to make a point.

Sorry to break it to you, Heidi, but Jared Polis is not really offering asylum to fictional mouse people.

Ganahl is such a ridiculous candidate that she grasps at anything she thinks can give her some sort of advantage in the culture wars 2022 election. Perhaps Ganahl doesn’t actually believe that Polis is trying to convince Disney World to rebuild in Colorado, though it’s entirely possible that she truly does think this is a real thing. The point here is that Ganahl is willing to entertain any absurdity if it allows her to criticize the incumbent Governor.

Heidi Ganahl is a non-serious person who wants to be elected to a very serious job. Unfortunately for Ganahl, silliness is not a good qualification for any public office.

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Republican Candidates Say the Darndest Things

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  by: Colorado Pols April 22, 2022 at 11:11 AM MDT

The June 28th Primary Election is just about two months away, and most of the action will take place among Republicans. With primaries for U.S. Senate, Governor, Secretary of State, and Congress (C0-03, CO-04, CO-05, CO-07, and CO-08), there are at least 20 different Republican candidates trying to get their message out to the GOP faithful.

There are so many campaigns and candidates searching for time on a forum dais or a right-wing radio show that it’s difficult to keep track of who said what and when. Rather than go through each race individually, we decided to focus on some of the more, shall we say, interesting comments of the last week or so.

 

“Hang the rest of them”

Image from Ron Hanks’s U.S. Senate campaign website

Republican Senate candidate Ron Hanks was on KOA’s morning news show this week when the interview with Marty Lenz and April Zesbaugh took an odd turn. Hanks insisted that the Jan. 6 insurrection was conducted by Antifa; when he was challenged on this, Hanks fought back before calling for thousands of Americans to be hanged:

MARTY LENZ: Do you have any regrets about being in and around the crowd the day of the US Capitol riot?

RON HANKS: Not at all. Those were millions of peaceful Americans. It was a peaceful rally. The people I met out there were phenomenal and I think to impugn a million peaceful Americans is folly, and Bennett has done it. But in the spirit of bipartisanship, so has Mitch McConnell. So I have nothing but disdain for the both of them for doing that, for impugning the motives of one million Americans. That’s totally wrong. [Pols emphasis]

LENZ: So, you’re a military man. And I’m not talking about the ones peaceful prior to it. The ones that incurred on the Capitol and broke in and went after Capitol Police. You’re somebody that’s served in the military [and] that looks like that’s an insurrection. Do you see that differently?

RON HANKS: I see the million people I was with. If you are talking the Antifa types that were scaling the scaffolding…[Pols emphasis]

LENZ: No. With all due respect, they were not Antifa. I know you intellectually know that. I know you know that.

RON HANKS: Well, I don’t think you know that.[Pols emphasis]

LENZ: I think that is readily accessible observational reality respectfully to you on that. I think that’s a bridge too far for many people, sir, respectfully.

RON HANKS: Well, fair enough. A million peaceful Americans concerned about their country. That’s who I was there with. Hang the rest of them. That’s a disgrace. [Pols emphasis]

APRIL ZESBAUGH: Ron, we’re going to leave it there today, thanks for joining us.

 

 

There’s plenty more after the jump…

(more…)

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First Atlanta’s All-Star Game, Next Disney World?

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  by: Colorado Pols April 21, 2022 at 12:05 PM MDT

Magic Kingdom in the city of magic mushrooms?

As the Denver Post’s Molly Burke reported yesterday, the sparring between Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and major Florida economic contributor Disney over that state’s controversial new “Don’t Say Gay” legislation, which has led to threats by Gov. DeSantis to take retaliatory action against Disney World, has drawn in Colorado’s Gov. Jared Polis with an offer to welcome Disney to our state:

The Florida governor has also proposed to dissolve the special tax status for Disney World that has been in place for 55 years in retaliation to the entertainment giant’s opposition to what critics have dubbed the state’s “Don’t Say Gay” law.

In response, Polis tweeted that the two companies could find a home in Colorado, rather than dealing with “Florida’s authoritarian socialist attacks on the private sector.”

“In CO, we don’t meddle in affairs of companies like @Disney or @Twitter,” Polis wrote. “Hey @Disney we’re ready for Mountain Disneyland and @Twitter we’re ready for Twitter HQ2, whoever your owners are.”

Gov. DeSantis’ quarrel with Twitter doesn’t exactly carry the moral weight of Disney’s criticism of the controversial legislation DeSantis signed into law–which as we’ve discussed is meant to confront the “problem” of sex ed to kindergartners that despite Heidi Ganahl’s insistence to the contrary does not actually exist. But for any governor who claims to support economic growth, which last time we checked was most of them, welcoming businesses instead of threatening them seems like the way to go:

After Denver was in the right place at the right time with the right politics to snatch away the 2021 All-Star Game due to Georgia’s passage of vote suppression legislation, we take these kinds of conflicts more seriously than we once did–even if it’s unlikely that a city-sized attraction like Disney World would relocate to a place where it’s freezing half the year. It’s much more likely that Disney will simply hunker down and outlast Gov. DeSantis.

But it’s another chance for Polis to look like the real “pro-business leader” while DeSantis and Ganahl wage war on Mickey Mouse.

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Get More Smarter on Thursday (April 21)

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  by: Colorado Pols April 21, 2022 at 10:31 AM MDT

Go Nuggets! Let’s Get More Smarter. If you think we missed something important, please include the link in the comments below (here’s a good example). If you are more of an audio learner, check out The Get More Smarter Podcast. And don’t forget to find us on Facebook and Twitter. 

 

CORONAVIRUS INFO…

*Colorado Coronavirus info:
CDPHE Coronavirus website 

*Daily Coronavirus numbers in Colorado:
 http://covid19.colorado.gov

*How you can help in Colorado:
COVRN.com

*Locate a COVID-19 testing site in Colorado:
Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment 

 

► As The New York Times details for the first time, Republican Congressional leaders were (at one point) adamant about getting tough with former President Donald Trump following the Jan. 6 insurrection. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy was also apparently already sick of Rep. Lauren “Q*Bert” Boebert.

CNN’s Chris Cillizza, meanwhile, takes note of a particularly damning quote from Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell about Trump:

Mitch McConnell knew that what happened on January 6, 2021, was deeply wrong. And that blame for the riot that day lay at the feet of then-President Donald Trump.

We now have definitive proof of that fact, thanks to a new excerpt published Thursday from the forthcoming book “This Will Not Pass” by New York Times reporters Alex Burns and Jonathan Martin.

“The Democrats are going to take care of the son of a bitch for us,” McConnell told two associates just days after the insurrection, referring to the effort to impeach Trump in the Democratic-led House, according to the Times’ reporters. [Pols emphasis]

 

► Russian President Vladimir Putin declared victory in Mariupol, Ukraine on Thursday. Russia has recently refocused its attacks on the Eastern part of Ukraine. 

 

► Charles Ashby of the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel has more on a lawsuit filed by a handful of Republicans hoping to keep State Sen. Don Coram from appearing on the June Primary ballot against Congressperson Lauren “Q*Bert” Boebert.

 

► Democrats in the state legislature are trying to improve price transparency at hospitals and cut down on “surprise billing.”

 

► Republican Senate candidate Ron Hanks is apparently getting tired of just talking about the”Big Lie,” so he’s going back to the classics. As The Colorado Times Recorder explains:

Hanks (R-Cañon City) says he would vote to repeal the Affordable Care Act (ACA) if he was elected to be Colorado’s next senator.

Hanks was answering an audience question during an April 3 event called the Rally for the Colorado Red Wave at Bandimere Speedway in Morrison.

Hanks also took another shot at Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell:

“Yeah. I’m gonna get rid of McConnell. The Government needs to be out of our healthcare in my view.”

 

Click below to keep learning things…

 

(more…)

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The GMS Podcast: For a Better Circus, Add More Clowns

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  by: Colorado Pols April 13, 2022 at 11:54 AM MDT

This week in episode 105 of the Get More Smarter Podcast, your hosts Jason Bane and Ian Silverii guest host Christy Powell spend an entire episode breaking down the fantastic disaster that was last weekend’s Republican Party state assembly. Which other Republicans are dancing alongside Secretary of State nominee Tina Peters?

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 |

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The GMS Podcast: Whose Demon is it Anyway?

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  by: Colorado Pols April 8, 2022 at 9:59 AM MDT

Sen. Julie Gonzales and Scott Wasserman

This week in episode 104 of the Get More Smarter Podcast, hosts Jason Bane and Ian Silverii talk with State Sen. Julie Gonzales (D-Denver) and Bell Policy Center President Scott Wasserman about what Colorado can (and should) do with TABOR refunds and affordable housing funding.

But first, we talk about a demon named Ba’al and why you should never use words like “sacrifice” and “altar” when you are a candidate for Congress and your name is Tim Reichert.

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 |

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Heidi Ganahl Straight Up Lies About Sex Education

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  by: Colorado Pols April 5, 2022 at 1:54 PM MDT

Heidi Ganahl just says whatever

In case you haven’t been watching Fox News regularly or keeping up with the latest in Republican cancel culture, we need to lay out some context before we get to the meat of a story that includes Rep. Lauren “Q*Bert” Boebert and Republican gubernatorial hopeful Hiedi Heidi Ganahl.

Republicans want to cancel all things Disney because that company spoke out against the controversial “Don’t Say Gay” law recently enacted in Florida. Greg Sargent explains for The Washington Post — in a column featuring Boebert — about what has Republicans so salty these days:

Boebert, Vance and others are angry that Disney has come out against Florida’s new law restricting classroom discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity. They are upset about a leaked video that showed a Disney executive talking about inserting pro-gay material into Disney content. Some have lobbed the vile charge of “grooming” at the Florida law’s critics, Disney included.

In response, the culture warriors want the government to rescind all policies that economically privilege Disney. Laura Ingraham insists that for woke companies such as Disney, “everything will be on the table” if Republicans take power.

In case this argument wasn’t clear enough, Arizona right-wing Republican Rep. Andy Biggs, who is the keynote speaker at the Colorado Republican Party’s big “Centennial Dinner” later this week, recently Tweeted out an image of Disney’s logo with a Soviet Union-style twist.

During a press briefing at the White House on Monday, this issue came up through a question from Fox News reporter Peter Doocy. White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki responded with a question of her own that left Doocy speechless:

DOOCY: So, if you guys oppose this legislation that bans classroom instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity in K through 3, does the White House support that kind of classroom instruction BEFORE kindergarten?

PSAKI: Do you have examples of schools in Florida that are teaching kindergarteners about sex education?

Doocy could not answer this question because there aren’t any examples of public schools teaching sex education to kindergarteners. Schools don’t teach kids about sex education in grades K-3, just like they weren’t ever teaching K-3 students about Critical Race Theory (CRT).

Republican gubernatorial candidate Heidi Ganahl has talked often about how much she was inspired by the 2021 gubernatorial campaign of Republican Glenn Youngkin in Virginia, particularly with how Youngkin used CRT as a bogeyman to scare parents into supporting his platform. The CRT thing isn’t really working here in Colorado, however, so Ganahl was eager to grab onto the next big lie about woke schools.

Listen to what Ganahl said on The Dan Caplis Show late last week when prompted to talk about sex education in Colorado schools and Democratic Gov. Jared Polis:

 

GANAHL: Oh, geez, Dan, I have a list running of I think about 44 different things that are just disgusting and terrible that he’s led the path for in Colorado, whether it’s the abortion bill or teaching our kids sex ed in kindergarten…

“Teaching our kids sex ed in kindergarten.”

HEIDI GANAHL IS MAKING THIS UP!!!

Polis isn’t responsible for sex education being taught to kindergarteners in Colorado BECAUSE IT DOESN’T HAPPEN. Schools don’t do this for a lot of different reasons, including one that is very obvious: It would be functionally ridiculous to teach kids about sex education (or CRT) when they just learning the alphabet and how to color between the lines on worksheets.

One of the things that made Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” law so ridiculous is that students in grades K-3 aren’t being taught sex education anyway:

The Florida Department of Education told PolitiFact that sexual orientation and gender identity are not included in the curriculum taught in the state’s kindergarten through third-grade classrooms.

Similar nonsense claims in Colorado were debunked in 2019 when the state legislature passed a bill that included changes to sex education curriculums. It is up to individual school districts to decide how and when to incorporate sex education into the curriculum, but schools are not required by state law to even discuss the subject. Colorado does require that sex education must be age-appropriate, so what Ganahl is describing couldn’t happen anyway.

There are plenty of real issues that can, and should, be discussed in the 2022 race for Governor, but Heidi Ganahl would rather just make things up instead.

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On Brand: Republicans Want You To Vote In Fear

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  by: Colorado Pols April 3, 2022 at 12:31 PM MDT

Rep. Tom Sullivan with members of Moms Demand Action and Colorado Ceasefire.

The Denver Post’s Nick Coltrain reported Friday and we wanted to be sure got a mention:

People won’t be able to flaunt their firearms within 100 feet of a polling place under a law signed by Gov. Jared Polis on Wednesday.

House Bill 1086, dubbed the Vote Without Fear Act, makes it a misdemeanor to openly carry firearms near ballot drop boxes, buildings with polling locations or vote counting facilities during elections. The open carry of firearms is otherwise legal in much of Colorado. The law still allows for permitted Coloradans to carry concealed firearms, and exempts on-duty law enforcement officers and people who open carry on property they own that’s within the buffer zone.

Polis, a Democrat, at the bill signing ceremony called voting “one of our most sacred rights as Americans,” and said this law will help keep Coloradans from feeling intimidated when they vote. He noted that Colorado already limits other rights, such as prohibiting people from advertising on behalf of a candidate, within that 100-foot area.

Unattended ballot drop boxes to collect mail ballots have proven convenient and very popular with Colorado voters, but they create a novel opportunity for intimidation by individuals taking advantage of Colorado’s highly permissive open carry gun laws. It’s true that opportunity has always been there to intimidate voters since the state adopted mail ballots and drop boxes, but it’s only in the last couple of years that the prospect of militant political activists actually doing something like this one a large scale has made the urgent need for a law evident.

And of course, like almost every piece of gun safety legislation passed in Colorado in recent years, the Vote Without Fear Act passed without a single Republican voting in support:

Republicans argued it would be an infringement of the Second Amendment right to bear arms, unfairly penalize people who accidentally enter the 100-foot zone with otherwise legal firearms on their hips, and questioned why it doesn’t apply to other weapons, such as clubs being brandished.

Republican gubernatorial candidate Heidi Ganahl who praised the recent highly controversial door-to-door armed “canvassing” by the so-called U.S. Election Integrity Project (USEIP) likewise opposed the bill, calling it Democrats’ “latest tactic to water down our rights.” But the Supreme Court has repeatedly held even in the much-cited Heller decision affirming basic gun rights that reasonable restrictions on guns are not incompatible with the Second Amendment. And if we can’t regulate guns in order to protect the right to vote, there’s an argument we’ve lost sight of what those rights are all about.

Some of us, it appears, already have.

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You Will Never Make The Fearmongers Happy

7
  by: Colorado Pols March 29, 2022 at 12:27 PM MDT

Heidi Ganahl: eating her own to own the libs.

Last week, as most area news outlets reported, Gov. Jared Polis and a bipartisan coalition of lawmakers unveiled legislation meant to crack down on the distribution of the deadly synthetic opioid drug fentanyl, which in recent years has been mass-produced and in some cases substituted to users without their knowledge for other drugs with lethal consequences. The rapid proliferation of fentanyl and corresponding sharp rise in overdose deaths have turned policy toward the drug into a political hot button–and in Colorado, we’ve been covering as the conflict developed this legislative session, an attempted partisan election-year wedge.

But as Marianne Goodland at the Colorado Springs Gazette’s political blog reports and we’ve been watching the whole session as the issue has developed, the partisan grandstanding over fentanyl doesn’t comport with reality past or present:

In a rare bipartisan press conference in the 2022 session, Gov. Jared Polis, legislators, families who have lost loved ones and district attorneys on Thursday announced a comprehensive bill to confront the state’s burgeoning fentanyl crisis, arguing its passage would make streets and homes safer.

The bill will focus on both heightened penalties for fentanyl distribution – but not possession – and more resources for a state education campaign and treatment for those addicted to the compound drugs that now often contain fentanyl.

Thursday’s press conference introducing what’s become known as the “fentanyl bill” featured Republican sponsors of the legislation, including Rep. Mike Lynch of Wellington and Sen. John Cooke, the former Sheriff of Weld County, as well as prosecutors from both sides of the aisle in support including Republican Mesa County DA Dan Rubinstein. Denver7:

Sen. John Cooke, R-Greeley, a former Weld County sheriff who is one of the sponsors of the bill, said bringing those cutoff points down was “critical if we are going to go after the people responsible for these deaths.” Several district attorneys from both parties also said they supported the changes.

“Through this legislation, we will be able to respond aggressively to dealers taking lives when distributing this deadly drug,” said Mesa County District Attorney Dan Rubinstein, a Republican…

“This is not a partisan issue. This is a leadership issue,” Lynch said at the news conference. “It’s where we come together as a state to find and fix problems, and I’m honored to be a part of it.” [Pols emphasis]

But just as we saw with Republican Rep. Shane Sandridge’s brave stand against misinformation from fellow Republicans about the 2019 bipartisan sentencing reform bill that reduced possession–but not distribution–of most drugs to a misdemeanor below a specified quantity, partisan usual suspects are simply refusing to acknowledge this year’s bipartisan effort to address fentanyl. That’s resulting in some rather…awkward situations:

Folks, if you’ve ever met Sen. John Cooke, the former Weld County Sheriff who would on most days gladly bend fold and spindle reality to “own the libs,” you know how preposterous it is to refer to Cooke as a “far-left lawmaker.” But that’s what GOP gubernatorial candidate Heidi Ganahl just did! Hopefully they can make amends, or the next Weld County Lincoln Day dinner could be a dicey affair.

Moving past the laughably misplaced partisan fingerpointing over another bipartisan effort, the fixation for opponents remains on undoing perhaps the most important concept behind the 2019 reform bill, which was separating the medical problem of drug addiction from the crime of drug dealing. And this bears a moment of discussion.

(more…)

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The GMS Podcast: Caucus Conundrum (feat. Rep. Joe Neguse)

0
  by: Colorado Pols March 28, 2022 at 10:54 AM MDT

Rep. Joe Neguse (D-Boulderish)

This week in episode 102 of the Get More Smarter Podcast, hosts Jason Bane and Ian Silverii examine the results of a very strange weekend for Colorado Republicans at their county assemblies.

Later, we talk with Congressman Joe Neguse (D-Boulderish) about campaigning in a newly-redrawn congressional district; chairing the U.S. House Subcommittee on National Parks, Forests, and Public Lands; passage of legislation to create the Amache National Historic Site; and his efforts to assist Ukrainian refugees escaping the war with Russia.

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 |

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Gov. Polis has an admirer at The Bulwark

4
  by: JohnInDenver March 24, 2022 at 7:17 PM MDT

(Promoted by Colorado Pols)

This week, The Bulwark’s Tim Miller shares an interview teaser for an episode of Not My Party on Snapchat  (in his own style) and writes an article about Jared Polis.

In the article, the theme is “Look to the Colorado governor for a model of how you can build a coalition of the normal and decent.”

it has been Polis, more than maybe any other Democrat in the country, who has succeeded at delivering for Colorado on the central promise of the Joe Biden presidency—one that has consistently flummoxed the president himself: returning a bit of normalcy to our tumultuous partisan politics.

Polis has brought down the temperature, brought politicians from across the aisle into the fold, and governed in a way that appeals to (or at least earns grudging acknowledgement from) many Republican voters.

In a midterm year looking ugly for Democrats, Polis is running for re-election—and that normalcy is paying big dividends for him.

Interesting to read a conservative, never-Trump, political orphan gay man talking about about a not-conservative, never-Trump, gay man who is a Democratic governor.

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Sorry Heidi: There Is No GOP “Leading Candidate” For Governor

10
  by: Colorado Pols March 15, 2022 at 10:56 AM MDT

An announcement from Colorado Republican gubernatorial candidate Heidi Ganahl about a “gubernatorial forum” tonight in Colorado Springs struck us with its newly-added presumptuous tagline:

As you can see, Ganahl is now billing herself as the “leading Republican candidate for governor.” In the advertising world, “leading,” like “best-selling,” is a claim you’re supposed to be able to justify with hard metrics–otherwise it’s better to go with more vague superlatives like “fastest-growing” that don’t necessary imply they are actually, you know, #1.

Not to mention the age-old saying: “if you have to say you are, you aren’t.”

But that got us thinking in all fairness: what’s the metric by which Heidi Ganahl could plausibly justify calling herself the “leading candidate?” There’s only one head-to-head matchup poll that’s been done pitting Ganahl and her upstart Republican opponent Danielle Neuschwanger against incumbent Gov. Jared Polis, and in that poll Neuschwanger performed better against Polis than Ganahl.

At last week’s candidate forum in DougCo, Ganahl reacted poorly to this being pointed out:

Would the metric Heidi is relying on be fundraising, then? Ganahl has technically raised the most of the Republican primary pack, but by any objective scale her fundraising has been extremely anemic compared to other Republican primary candidates in Colorado running for U.S. Senate and even congressional races. Ganahl certainly hasn’t demonstrated the fundraising ability to distinguish herself beyond the resources any Republican nominee could reasonably expect to start flowing after the primary.

So if it’s not polling and not fundraising, which most people would call the two most important benchmarks, where else can Ganahl point to justify her claim to be the “leading candidate for governor?” It’s not social media footprint either. Danielle Neuschwanger has well over twice the number of Twitter followers as Ganahl. Then we went over to Ganahl’s Youtube page to see how her overproduced campaign videos are going over:

(more…)

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The Get More Smarter Podcast: Episode 100!!!

0
  by: Colorado Pols March 15, 2022 at 10:10 AM MDT

This week in episode 100 — yes, 100 — of the Get More Smarter Podcast, hosts Jason Bane and Ian Silverii talk with two different guests about two very important subjects related to Colorado politics.

First, we chat with Skyler McKinley of AAA Colorado to get the real story on how and why gas prices are rising…and how it has nothing to do with politicians in either party.

Later, Andrew Baumann of Global Strategy Group walks us through the latest numbers from the “Mountaineer” polling project. Why is little-known Republican Danielle Neuschwanger polling better than Hiedi Heidi Ganahl in the GOP race for governor? Baumann also explains how the “crimenado” narrative is less perilous to Democrats than you might think, as well as the problems with Colorado Republicans continuing to attach themselves to former President Donald Trump.

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 |

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Get More Smarter on Friday (March 11)

0
  by: Colorado Pols March 11, 2022 at 10:44 AM MST

It’s been two years since the coronavirus pandemic began. Let’s Get More Smarter. If you think we missed something important, please include the link in the comments below (here’s a good example). If you are more of an audio learner, check out The Get More Smarter Podcast. And don’t forget to find us on Facebook and Twitter. 

 

CORONAVIRUS INFO…

*Colorado Coronavirus info:
CDPHE Coronavirus website 

*Daily Coronavirus numbers in Colorado:
 http://covid19.colorado.gov

*How you can help in Colorado:
COVRN.com

*Locate a COVID-19 testing site in Colorado:
Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment 

 

► Republicans across Colorado continue to attack Democrats for crimes committed in the last couple of years. One Republican, however, has had enough of this nonsense. Says Republican Rep. Shane Sandridge: “I don’t care what party you’re in. Just tell the truth.”

 

► The three Republican candidates for Governor met on Tuesday for a forum sponsored by the Douglas County Republican Women. We chronicled the entire debate, which primarily demonstrated that none of these people — Hiedi Heidi Ganahl, Greg Lopez, and Danielle Neuschwanger — should be allowed anywhere near a position of leadership. 

 

► Colorado’s Congressional delegation is mostly united on a decision to ban Russian imports of oil and gas. You’ll never guess who is taking a different position (okay, you’ll probably guess). As Colorado Public Radio reports:

While members of Colorado’s congressional delegation on both sides of the aisle have been quick to rally around the idea of banning Russian energy imports after the country’s invasion of Ukraine, the challenge of making up the difference remains a bone of contention.

GOP Rep. Lauren Boebert was the only member of the delegation not to support the Russian oil ban bill. She offered her own version, which would ban oil imports from Russia, Iran and Venezuela, as well as open up Alaska’s ANWR for fossil fuel development and expedite pipeline approvals, among other things. Her bill is not expected to advance.

Republicans such as Rep. Ken Buck (R-Greeley) are calling, unsurprisingly, for the government to do more to open up oil and gas production in the United States. This is absolutely not the problem, however; the oil and gas industry doesn’t WANT to drill more, because they’re making too much money as it is.

 

► President Biden is promoting even more stringent sanctions against Russia. From The Washington Post:

President Biden said the U.S. and its allies would strip Russia of routine trade benefits, adding to the financial pressure on Russian President Vladimir Putin over his invasion of Ukraine.

The Group of 7 nations and the European Union also will take the first step toward implementing similar measures, which would have a more dramatic impact upon the Russian economy.

Biden called the actions “another crushing blow to Russia’s economy,” which already has been pummeled by comprehensive financial sanctions.

“The free world is coming together to confront Putin,” the president said in remarks from the White House.

 

 

Click below to keep learning things…

 

(more…)

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Debate Diary: Republican Candidates for Governor in 2022

10
  by: Colorado Pols March 10, 2022 at 12:40 PM MST

The three Republican candidates for Governor got together for a candidate forum in Douglas County on Tuesday. You know what that means – it’s time for another Debate Diary!!!

On Tuesday, March 8, Hiedi Heidi Ganahl, Greg Lopez, and Danielle Neuschwanger took center stage at The Lone Tree Hub for a candidate forum moderated by former State Sen. Bill Cadman and right-wing chucklehead Jon Caldara. You can watch the entire forum here, or keep reading for our blow-by-blow coverage of the event.

With only three candidates, this GOP debate wasn’t nearly as long as the Senate candidate forums we’ve seen earlier this year (click HERE and HERE to read those). But what this event lacked in length it more than made up for in sheer inanity.

Ganahl demonstrated an unmistakable lack of personality coupled with a minimal amount of substance; if you watched this forum without any prior knowledge of the candidates, it would not have been obvious that Ganahl is supposed to be the GOP frontrunner. She was by far the most aggressive in attacking the other two candidates, which is also a weird look for someone who is supposed to be carrying the “frontrunner” banner.

Neuschwanger was the most interesting and memorable of the candidates, but she is also undoubtedly a few sandwiches short of a picnic. For instance, Neuschwanger repeatedly promised to fire the entire State of Colorado workforce on her first day in office.

As for Greg Lopez…he was Greg Lopez.

From left to right: Heidi Ganahl, Greg Lopez, and Danielle Neuschwanger

Anyway, let’s get to it…

NOTE: What follows is a chronological re-hash of Tuesday’s debate. As always, unless it is in direct quotes, consider all statements paraphrased in the interest of time and/or the prevention of carpal tunnel syndrome.

 

(more…)

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How Is “Recall Polis 4.0” Going, You Ask?

4
  by: Colorado Pols March 7, 2022 at 2:23 PM MST

You probably didn’t ask, but as readers know the 2022 iteration of the cottage industry pretending to be on a campaign to recall Gov. Jared Polis for cash and prizes, depending on your reckoning either the third or fourth such campaign since Polis’ election in 2018, is in the field once again–and hard up against a pressing daily requirement to gather at least 10,500 valid Colorado voter signatures on two separate petitions to stay on track for the required 630,000+ each for Polis and Secretary of State Jena Griswold.

By now, if this campaign were to have even the slightest chance at succeeding, we would need to see recall petition gatherers on every street corner–a much larger effort than what’s required to put a statewide ballot initiative up for a vote even under the state’s new restrictive ballot measure petition requirements. For a campaign that hasn’t raised enough money to cover the physical cost of printing petitions, that’s a level of organization that nobody rationally expects.

So are there any signs of life out there? Well…

Last Saturday, if you ventured into the depths of the Englewood Civic Center’s parking garage and found this older model Dodge Durango, you could be one of the lucky few to sign Recall Polis/Griswold 2022 petitions. Can you think of more inviting space in which to hand over your personal information? You may have needed to explain to an Englewood cop either coming or going that you weren’t there to buy drugs.

If you’ve already written off the governor’s race, then maybe you don’t care. But if the goal is actually to compete against Polis in the regular election that is already coming up in November, every moment spent on attempting to recall Polis before then is wasted. For a campaign starting off down double digits in polling, this is a distraction Republicans can’t afford.

Best case scenario for both sides: Recall Polis 4.0 stays a black-market product traded in parking garages.

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Silly Sweeping Statements Starring Heidi Ganahl

12
  by: Colorado Pols March 7, 2022 at 12:37 PM MST

GOP gubernatorial candidate Heidi Ganahl (R).

Although standards are not what they once were in the post-Trump era, one of the hallmarks of an undisciplined campaign is a reliance on overbroad statements about issues that tend to reveal more ignorance about the subject at hand than anything else. In recent weeks, gubernatorial candidate Heidi Ganahl’s call to “end all mandates except FREEDOM” prompted quite a bit of head-scratching from anyone who actually sat down for as moment to make sense of what she’s saying. Are we just talking about COVID vaccinations or is this about all childhood vaccines? Is this about more than vaccines?

Even if we’re just talking about vaccinations, as recently as a few years ago Republicans and Democrats with any credibility agreed that vaccine mandates for children attending school make sense. Taking Ganahl at her word, she’s way outside what has been the mainstream for most of our lives.

Along with the ambiguous call to “mandate freedom” in Ganahl’s stump speeches, there’s another line we’ve heard a couple of times now (most recently in Grand Junction this weekend, audio below) that, while it might sound appealing in friendly confines, fares poorly under scrutiny:

GANAHL: And I will Day One roll back every single executive order that [Polis] has signed–over 500 of them. [Pols emphasis]

This is very close to what Ganahl said to right-wing AM radio host Mandy “Half Breed” Connell on KOA radio last week, so it’s definitely a rehearsed line:

CONNELL: What would you do if you were elected governor? Like, what would be your strategy Day One?

GANAHL: Well, Jared Polis does a lot of his dirty work through boards and commissions and through executive orders so that he doesn’t have, so he can be kind of hands off so I would repeal every executive order I possibly could, which there’s over 500 right now that he’s put in place. [Pols emphasis]

CONNELL: What?!

GANAHL: Yes.

First of all, most of the emergency executive orders from the COVID-19 pandemic, which are by far the most contentious, are already expired with the end of the state of emergency. So in those cases there’s literally nothing to repeal. Dozens more of the executive orders Ganahl promised to “roll back” are natural disaster declarations for fires, floods, and avalanches across the state. How would that even work, and what kind of harm would that do to the affected victims? Among others, Ganahl just vowed to repeal Gov. Polis’ executive order granting tribal authorities access to law enforcement databases for child welfare, multiple orders promoting election cybersecurity, and expanding rural broadband. Are these really issues that Ganahl wants to go on the record opposing?

Finally, let’s not forget Executive Order D2022-011, Colorado’s Response to and Condemnation of Russia’s Unlawful Ukrainian Invasion. Unless Heidi Ganahl tells us differently, we have no choice but to conclude that the GOP’s candidate for governor of Colorado is calling for the repeal of the state’s condemnation of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. That’s national news–and unless you’re Vladimir Putin it’s not the good kind.

As we’ve been saying patiently to politicos on both sides for so many years, words mean things. And when silly sweeping statements come round to bite you in the backside like an ill-mannered chihuahua, there’s no one to blame but yourself.

This is what an unserious campaign looks like.

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The Slow Death of the Republican Crimenado Narrative

1
  by: Colorado Pols March 3, 2022 at 10:10 AM MST

Senate Minority Leader Chris Holbert (R)

Republicans, including fledgling gubernatorial candidate Hiedi Heidi Ganahl, are trying really, really, really hard to cement a 2022 election narrative that crime is out of control in Colorado and it’s all because of Democrats. Vote for us, say Republicans, and your catalytic converters will be safe once again!

This entire effort is getting rather silly. Research show that increases in crime in Colorado have generally mirrored those in the rest of the country, but Republicans have cherry-picked statistics in a dubious scientific manner in order to support their rhetoric that Colorado is more murdery than other states as a result of policies enacted by Democratic lawmakers. We’ll get to that canard in a moment, but first let’s consider how Republicans are dealing with the crime issue right now.

On Wednesday, NOT A SINGLE REPUBLICAN voted to advance legislation out of the House Judiciary Committee intended to cut down on identity-based crimes. Two weeks ago, a bill to reduce youth violence also passed out of the House Judiciary Committee…again, without one Republican vote of support.

For months, Republicans have brayed about “Democratic bills” that have led to a rise in crime throughout Colorado. Yet Republicans are actively opposing crime-prevention measures during the current legislative session. Republicans don’t appear to be interested in preventing crime; their focus is instead on keeping people in jail who have already committed crimes. Or, perhaps Republicans will only work on crime prevention if Coloradans vote for them in November.

Now, let’s get back to the Republican claim that Democrats are responsible for an increase in crime because of legislation passed in recent years. Even if you were able to definitively state that Colorado has more crime than other states and it is because of recent legislation, then you would need to blame Republicans as much as Democrats. Take a look at the list below of the various crime-related bills that Republicans point toward as proof of their “crimenado” nonsense. You’ll notice that most of them have…wait for it…Republican support.

For example, consider HB19-1263, which is the legislation that Republicans generally point toward when they complain that Democrats have made it easier for bad guys to flood Colorado with fentanyl. That bill had bi-partisan support and received eight Republican votes when it was passed. This is why some Republicans, such as State Party Chair Kristi Burton Brown, are now being forced to throw their fellow Republicans under the bus rather than abandon their shaky rhetoric altogether.

Of all of the crime-related bills that get shoehorned into the “crimenado” narrative, only one was passed without any Republican support — and that was legislation (HB21-1251) about regulating the use of ketamine when detaining suspects who are considered overly-aggressive when confronted by police officers. If you want to say that crime is on the rise because Democrats made it harder for paramedics to inject a suspect with ketamine…well, good luck with that.

Look, we get it: Republicans think that scaring Colorado voters about an increase in crime is their best bet for getting elected in November. They might even be correct in that assessment. The problem, of course, is that this narrative of Democrats making life easier for criminals is not supported by actual facts.

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