February 17, 2023 10:02 AM UTC

Republicans, Thiry Want Inmates to Return Asylum Keys

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• by: Colorado Pols

UPDATE: As expected, Senate Bill 101 failed to make it out of the Senate State, Military and Veterans Committee on Thursday and is now officially dead. Republican State Sen. Larry Liston was the only ‘YES’ vote.

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There is an effort underway by the likes of “Unaffiliated” voter enthusiast Kent Thiry and Republican State Sen. Barbara Kirkmeyer to scrap the party caucus system that has played a significant role in turning the Colorado Republican Party into a barn full of drooling nitwits.

As The Colorado Sun reports in its “Unaffiliated” (no relation) newsletter:

The former DaVita CEO’s next political act, which may be his most transformative yet, comes on the heels of his acquittal in April on federal criminal charges alleging that he worked with business competitors to prevent the hiring of each other’s employees.

“I’m passionate about democracy,” Thiry told The Colorado Sun in a recent interview. “And it takes work to keep a democracy working.”

Thiry, who is registered as an unaffiliated voter, is pushing the legislature to make changes to Colorado’s primary processes, but he indicated he’s willing to pursue ballot measures if the General Assembly doesn’t act…

…Thiry supports Senate Bill 101, which would end Colorado’ caucus and assembly process of selecting primary candidates and make signature gathering the only way to make the ballot. It would also let unaffiliated voters sign partisan candidate petitions. [Pols emphasis]

Senate Bill 101 is sponsored by Kirkmeyer and Republican State Rep. Mary Bradfield of Colorado Springs. Kirkmeyer was the Republican nominee in CO-08 last November, eventually losing a close race to Democrat Yadira Caraveo. But in order to even make it to the General Election, Kirkmeyer had to first win a Republican Primary Election that turned into an all-out brawl over which candidate was the most MAGA of them all. To be clear, Kirkmeyer holds plenty of extremist views, but she had to let her right-wing freak flag fly more than she probably would have preferred in order to become the official Republican nominee.

Kirkmeyer understands that Colorado voters largely reject right-wing views; outside of a few bright red districts here and there, a Republican path to victory in a General Election is now closer to “none” than “slim.” But Republican candidates who try to soften their right-wing viewpoints have a hard time even making it onto the ballot, let alone winning a Primary Election. Last weekend we learned another lesson on the extent of the problem for the GOP when El Paso County Republican Party Chair Vickie Tonkins was re-elected to a third term despite significant effort from the establishment to kick her out.

The MAGA Republicans are firmly in control of the Colorado Republican Party, and they aren’t going to let anyone just take their keys away. Take a look at this email dated Feb. 4, 2023, from former Republican State Sen. Kevin Lundberg:

Thiry and Kirkmeyer can talk all they want about fairness and equality and protecting democracy, but right-wingers such as Lundberg know what is really happening here: Establishment Republicans are looking for a way to bypass the base in future elections so that they can still sound like reasonable candidates in a General Election.

Senate Bill 101 isn’t something that most people are clamoring for; it is opposed by grassroots Republicans, the Colorado Democratic Party, and the Colorado Libertarian Party, among others. This is a bill, and potentially a future ballot measure, that was created in order to fix a problem that Colorado Republicans created for themselves.

It’s not a mystery as to how the Colorado GOP lost control to the right-wingers. The roots of the problem date back to at least the Tea Party movement that preceded the 2010 election, but it wasn’t until the 2020 election that the GOP establishment in Colorado decided to hand everything over to the most MAGA members of the Republican Party. Nationally, the GOP largely stood with President Donald Trump after he blamed his re-election loss on claims of election fraud, and they mostly refused to budge even after the insurrection on January 6, 2021. Here in Colorado, Republicans such as Kristi Burton Brown and Scott Gessler ran for the role of State Republican Party Chairperson by explicitly campaigning on their support for Trump’s unfounded claims of election fraud.

Kristi Burton Brown (KBB) won the 2021 election for GOP Chair by effectively capturing a larger percentage of crazy people than Gessler. The downside to recruiting all of these nuts to take part in the race for GOP Chair was that it put many of them in local party leadership positions. The completely bananas 2022 State Republican Party Assembly demonstrated what happens when a major political party caters almost exclusively to its right-wing base.

Establishment Republicans need Kent Thiry and Senate Bill 101 to solve a problem they can’t fix on their own. Unfortunately for them, this legislation is destined to be killed in committee as soon as this week.