October 12, 2023 11:53 AM UTC

Colorado GOP: Never Miss an Opportunity to Miss an Opportunity

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• by: Colorado Pols

If you’ve followed Colorado politics in the last decade, you’re probably well aware that the Colorado Republican Party has moved so far beyond “dumpster fire” status that it’s hard to come up with an appropriate analogy anymore for their consistent ineptitude. The GOP’s persistent failures were punctuated in 2022 with devastating losses to Democrats up and down the ballot; Democrats captured an unprecedented majority in the state legislature and won every statewide race by double-digit margins. The 2022 results were so bad for Republicans that one defeated former lawmaker called it “an extinction-level event.”

Under Chairman Dave Williams, who was elected in March, the State Party has somehow gotten progressively more ridiculous. Republicans have been channeling their collective frustration into silly internal spats and pointless arguing. The most recent example came just last week, with former GOP Chair Dick Wadhams and others devoting a significant amount of time and energy into trying to determine if an Op-Ed critical of Wadhams — published under the name of Colorado Springs Republican Rep. Ken DeGraaf — might have actually been written by Williams himself.

If you’re thinking, Who gives a shit? then you’re on the same wavelength as everyone else.  Colorado Republicans now spend more time chasing ghosts than Scooby Doo and the entire squad of “Mystery Inc.”

In this context, you can probably understand why Republicans were REALLY excited about the controversy created by newly-appointed Democratic State Rep. Tim Hernandez, who has been criticized for his response to the Hamas attack on Israel last week — more specifically, for his continued refusal to condemn violent terrorist actions targeting innocent civilians. We’ve already weighed in on that controversy, so we won’t belabor the condemnation of Hernandez.

But when Republicans were finally given an opportunity to justifiably criticize a Colorado Democrat, they completely overshot the target. Check out this breathless email recently sent out by the Colorado Republican Party:

The Colorado GOP email thanks the Denver Gazette for reporting on the Hernandez story and implies that this story written by Carol McKinley includes the new information that “Hernandez shockingly admits support for Hamas.” Except…it doesn’t.

McKinley’s story says nothing of the sort. It does, however, include this line:

[Hernandez] later Monday evening released a statement denying that he attended the rally to support Hamas or the attacks.

You can make your own judgments on what Hernandez did or did not mean when parsing his words on this subject, but we’re not aware of any example of the freshly-appointed Denver lawmaker admitting that he supports Hamas.

Nevertheless, Rep. Lisa Frizell of Castle Rock was among the Republicans who immediately called for a formal censure of Hernandez. As McKinley notes, this would be quite the departure from precedence:

The last and possibly only time a Colorado lawmaker received a censure was 2008, when Douglas Bruce, R-Colorado Springs, kicked a Rocky Mountain News photographer as he took pictures of Bruce during a ceremonial prayer.

By Wednesday night, the howling from the GOP had grown into another predictable overreaction. As 9News reports:

The Colorado Republican Party has called on Hernandez to resign or for House leaders to expel him [Pols emphasis] – an unlikely outcome that would require support from two-thirds of House members. Hernandez’s Republican colleagues called for Democratic leadership to issue some sort of formal reprimand.

Colorado Republicans want Hernandez to be EXPELLED for something he didn’t say during a rally outside the State Capitol? We understand that Republicans are trying to raise the temperature on the first decent controversy involving a Colorado Democrat that they’ve had in some time, but this has the exact opposite effect. It’s too much. It’s too far.

Back in 2018, then-Rep. Steve Lebsock was expelled by the legislature for basically being a sexual predator in and around the State Capitol. Colorado Republicans are arguing that attending a rally three months before the legislature is even in session is a comparable offense. That’s stupid.

It also doesn’t gel with what Republicans have done and said in the past. For example, former State Sen. Dave Schultheis once said ON THE FLOOR OF THE SENATE that babies born with HIV or AIDS represented some sort of karmic punishment for their “promiscuous” mothers. What did Republican legislative leaders do about that? Not a damn thing.

The Hernandez story has now received more attention than it probably deserves. Democrats already responded with a clear condemnation of their new colleague. Rather than take this opportunity to draw some sort of useful contrast with a reasonable response, the GOP smashed their foot on the gas pedal and rocketed right past the story as it was unfolding.

Colorado Republicans never seem to miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.