November 22, 2019 12:28 PM UTC

Controversial Former GOP Lawmaker, Judy Reyher, Runs Again for Pueblo House Seat

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• by: Jason Salzman

(For Democrats, the gift that keeps on giving – Promoted by Colorado Pols)

After losing a bitter primary race to fellow Republican Don Bendell last year, former Colo state House Rep. Judy Reyher has thrown her hat into the contest to displace Democrat Bri Buentello, who defeated Bendell in a close race last November.

“You all remember when I posted a few months ago I was stepping away from politics to do something else,” wrote Reyher on Facebook this week, stating that she’d “officially filed” her paperwork to enter the race for the Pueblo-area House seat. “I can tell you it broke my heart to post that sentiment. Should have known better.”

Reyher thanked “Republican House leaders” and others for “all of the approval and confidence I have received.”

Bendell challenged Reyher in the GOP primary in 2018 for the seat, in part because of, as he put it, “mistakes” she’d made.

Asked at the time why he was challenging Reyher, Bendell said: “I had been asked by a few people privately to get involved because they felt like there had been a few mistakes made that are going to be used by the Democrats against us,” Bendell said. “And we can’t lose that seat. And they felt like I would have a better chance to beat the liberal they are running from Pueblo in the general election.”

Reyher’s “mistakes” apparently included Facebook posts, which were first spotlighted by the Colorado Times Recorder, with comments such as, black people are “hatred filled beings.”

Reyer said, after losing the primary to Bendell, that Bendell couldn’t win the general election, due to allegations from his children that Bendell failed to pay child support for 17 years.

Reyher was appointed to the Legislature in 2017 amid a cloud of controversy, narrowly beating GOP activist Tamra Axworthy in a vote by members of a GOP vacancy committee.

The seat had become vacant in 2017 after former State Rep. Clarice Navarro (R-Pueblo) resigned to join the Trump Administration.

Reyher, who did not immediately return a call for comment, lost to Bendell the following year.