April 20, 2022 10:33 AM UTC

Welcome to the Establishment, Lauren Boebert

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• by: Colorado Pols

Two years ago today, Republican Rep. Scott Tipton was assumed to be cruising to another term in a solidly-Republican district in CO-03. In April 2020, there was little reason to think that unknown upstart Lauren Boebert could pose a serious challenge to the six-term Congressman from Cortez.

Two months later, Boebert would go on to defeat Tipton in a Republican Primary by a nearly 10 point margin after Tipton basically forgot to campaign for re-election. Boebert’s bombastic style — yell loudly and often, but accomplish nothing — was a hit with the right-wing base in Colorado who delighted in her regular appearances on Fox News and OANN and Mar-a-lago. Today, Boebert is the undisputed face of a Colorado Republican Party that doesn’t mind a healthy dose of racism as long as the underlying goal is trying to “own the libs.”

Boebert is now facing her own Republican Primary opponent in State Sen. Don Coram, a more moderate Republican from Montrose who bristles at Boebert’s pointless combativeness. Boebert has significantly more resources and name ID than Coram, which makes her the favorite in the June 28th Primary Election, but she is apparently worried enough that she is calling on the establishment Republican lawyers in an effort to keep Coram off the ballot:

Four CD3 voters sue to keep @coramforco from being on the primary ballot to challenge @RepBoebert. Lawsuit says @COSecofState accepted petition signatures she shouldn’t have allowing him to qualify. Attys on the suit: Fmr Deputy SoS @suzannetaheri & @GeorgeBrauchler #copolitics

— Marshall Zelinger (@Marshall9News) April 20, 2022

Coram was informed by the Colorado Secretary of State’s office last week that his campaign had collected enough petition signatures to qualify for the June Primary ballot. He did cut it a little close, however; Coram needed 1,500 valid signatures for ballot access and was credited with 1,563.

A lawsuit has now been filed to challenge Coram’s signatures by four CO-03 residents (David Laird, Dale Ruggles, Mandy Roberts and Byron Roberts). They are represented by none other than Maven Law Group, the go-to Republican law firm that includes former State Senate candidate Suzanne Staiert Taheri and former District Attorney/Attorney General candidate George Brauchler. It’s not clear who might be footing the bill for this legal challenge, but Boebert’s most recent fundraising report did include a $10,341 payment to Maven Law Group.

You might recall that Staiert Taheri was the lead attorney on a 2020 ethics case — headed up by Maven — targeting then-Senate candidate John Hickenlooper for the sole purpose of trying to damage Hick’s candidacy against incumbent Sen. Cory Gardner. This effort failed to sufficiently harm Hick, but a lot of establishment Republican types put a great deal of time and money into manufacturing the “controversy.”

The more sane Republicans in Colorado have been keeping their distance from Boebert since her 2020 election; thus it was presumed that Coram’s candidacy in CO-03 would have the support of Colorado Republicans who didn’t want to keep plummeting down the endless rabbit hole inhabited by Donald Trump acolytes and “Big Lie” believers. This lawsuit changes that calculation.

From a strategic perspective, there’s no benefit for Republicans in preventing Coram from challenging Boebert in June. The third congressional district is a pretty solid Republican district, so whoever wins the GOP Primary is likely to cruise to victory in a General Election.

So why do this? Trying to keep Coram off the ballot is a message from the Republican establishment that Lauren Boebert — warts and all — is now part of the club. Apparently, nothing else matters so long as you can raise money and get your face on Fox News on a regular basis.

Coram may be standing by his principles, but Republican lawyers don’t accept that as currency.