July 29, 2013 02:45 PM UTC

One and Done? Rep. Jared Wright Draws Primary Challenge

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• by: Colorado Pols

As the Grand Junction Sentinel's Charles Ashby reports:

Freshman Rep. Jared Wright will face a Republican primary challenger during his first re-election bid next year.

Palisade resident J.J. Fletcher told The Daily Sentinel that he intends to unseat the incumbent, in part because he’s still upset with the Fruita Republican.

After Wright won the GOP nomination last year for House District 54, which includes all of Mesa County outside of Grand Junction and the western half of Delta County, he came under fire for losing his job as a Fruita police officer under questionable circumstances and for filing for bankruptcy in 2011.

When those issues came to light, Fletcher was one of numerous Republicans who called for Wright to resign his nomination to allow the HD54 GOP Central Committee to pick a replacement. Fletcher intended to vie for that appointment.

The story of now-Rep. Jared Wright's resignation from the Fruita Police Department under dubious circumstances, combined with a 2011 bankruptcy revealing a rash of questionable purchases for anyone making the kind of salary Mr. Wright did as a junior small-town cop, led to a major controversy as Grand Junction-area Republicans urged him to step aside in time for the party to appoint a replacement candidate. Scandal-weary from Wright's predecessor Rep. Laura Bradford, it did seem for time that Wright's record of "clock milking," dishonesty and financial irresponsibility would make him more toxic than he was worth to his benefactors.

Wright refused to step aside, however, and won the HD-54 election against a token Libertarian opponent. Since then Wright has managed to avoid further headline-producing embarrassment as a freshman legislator, but hasn't exactly distinguished himself either. It's been unknown to us since then whether or not an attempt would be made at (metaphorically) euthanizing Wright for the good of the party in general next year.

Well, here's somebody ready to try.