February 03, 2012 03:01 AM UTC

Laura Bradford's Three-Day Weekend From Hell

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• by: Colorado Pols

(Bumped into Friday – promoted by Colorado Pols)

A major snowstorm bearing down on Denver has closed the Colorado General Assembly Friday. Barring anything unexpected, Rep. Laura Bradford (?-Collbran) will drive home this evening, and decide some time this weekend whether or not to disaffiliate from the Republican Party–and if she does, whether to become and independent or, as has been reported a possibility, a Democrat. There’s really no overstating the importance: control of the one-seat GOP majority Colorado House, and the future of Speaker of the House Frank McNulty, even if the House remains Republican-held, hangs on her decision.

Assuming she does leave the GOP, as Rep. Bradford is reportedly “95% decided” to do, it comes in the aftermath of a traffic stop last week in Denver that spun out of control into damning allegations against her. Since DUI is an embarrassing but not necessarily career-ending offense, the worst Bradford faced was accusations of abuse of the until-now obscure legislative immunity from misdemeanor arrest members enjoy “going to or returning from” the legislative session. After reaching a point where Rep. Bradford’s resignation was basically certain, a stunning news conference by Denver Police on Tuesday resulted in her partial exoneration–at least to the original police report’s contention that she had tried to evade arrest with legislative immunity.

Rep. Bradford says now that she believes she would have passed tests to determine if she was legally under the influence, something that can never really be proven either way now–we’re left with her word versus a police report whose veracity has been called into fundamental question, so we don’t see how it can ever really be settled. But more importantly, Bradford says that her House Republican leadership, especially Speaker McNulty, threw her to the wolves before the DPD’s false reports were revealed–and that this was the product of estrangement between Rep. Bradford and House leadership that had been building for a long time.

Because Bradford will be forced to campaign as a write-in candidate with any party affiliation other than GOP, and it’s fair to say relations with her party have broken down, it’s likely that Bradford is not going to run for re-election–she said as much to the Grand Junction Sentinel. It’s clear that her beef is with McNulty and Majority Leader Amy Stephens, so she need only disaffiliate to independent and call for an election to accomplish the objective of bringing them both down. This seems to us to be her most likely move, and then serve out the rest of her term.

And it’s likely to work if she does. Speaker Frank McNulty has many rivals, folks, who smell weakness now. Since the possibility of McNulty’s position being thrown into jeopardy arose yesterday, we have learned more than we ever knew had been discussed about a possible alternative leadership arrangement in the House that could be triggered by new leadership elections. We will not be disclosing any names, except to say it’s very possible this could accomplished in a way that the House remains in Republican hands. This would be significant for, among other things, lifelong Republican Rep. Laura Bradford’s conscience.

As we said, this weekend, Rep. Bradford will make the decision that will either set these possibilities into motion, or not. The best comparison we can think of for what Bradford will experience, unless she flees the state for the weekend leaving her phone and credit cards behind, is the “encouragement” 2010 GOP gubernatorial nominee Dan Maes received from Republican leadership to get out of that race. The rumors of those meetings, if you recall, fell somewhere between a “bad cop” interrogation and an episode of 24.

You wouldn’t wish that on an enemy, folks–we’ll update, one way or another, when Rep. Bradford emerges on the other side of one of the biggest decisions of her life.