October 08, 2014 09:02 PM UTC

Jill Repella - Scaring Women to the R Side

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• by: kwtree

(Promoted by Colorado Pols)

 Recently, in Pueblo, Beauprez attempted to sidetrack discussion about reproductive choice with a strange diatribe about how women are really scared about Hickenlooper's release of violent parolees, and this is the security issue for which women should vote Republican.

Lieutenant Governor candidate Jill Repella posted a statement on the Beauprez website :  HIgh Risk Parolee Scandal. She touts her female credentials: "As a single mother, I find that [release of parolees] appalling." Repella, a woman promoting this as a woman's issue,  attempts to woo women to the Republican side as "security voters".

Beauprez got booed by the audience, and lambasted by Mike Littwin, for bringing  the murder of prisons chief Tom Clements by parolee Evan Ebel into the debate to make his point about women's safety. Hickenlooper responded factually, that prisoners are no longer released directly from solitary confinement onto the streets.

Prison and Parole Reform:

Reforms to the prison system were started by Clements, and have been continued by his replacement, Rick Raemisch. There is a LONG way to go. It doesn't help that services to help people transition from prison to public life are not well funded, and probably won't be under TABOR restrictions. Parolees usually have to come up with their own funds for the required fees, drug tests, etc. This while they are homeless,  jobless, and without mental support systems, unless the prisoner's family steps up.

The way prisoners are confined and released is in fact a public safety and human rights scandal. Men and women should be outraged and asking for reform.

But Beauprez will not be campaigning for any increases to transition services for prisoners. He didn't put out any actual policy solutions to the problems of transitioning people from the criminal justice system to the streets. He's just going to be tougher, somehow. And if he had his way, Colorado would still be jailing people for possession of small amounts of marijuana – Bob doesn't care for legalization.

The Beauprez campaign claims that Hickenlooper  is attempting to "hide the story" about parolee crimes. This is just spin. The Bureau of Prisons does not release public details about parolees to the media unless a crime has been committed.  The Post article, a great investigative piece by reporters Brown, Osher, and Crummy, cited by the Beauprez campaign, provides ample details about the parolees and their crimes. There is no indication that Hick hid anything from the media.

Jill Repella is stepping up as Beauprez' surrogate in the effort to persuade women that they will be safer and more secure under a Beauprez/Repella governorship. Even though the Beauprez campaign has not published any actual policies for public safety.  Even though Beauprez, as Governor, would certainly sign a law to restrict access to abortion, if the legislature loses its collective mind and sends him one. Even though putting more people in prison, with less funding, doesn't make the community any safer.

So, women wouldn't have control over their own personal health decisions, and might be jailed themselves for nonviolent, victimless crimes such as marijuana possession, or for having a miscarriage or abortion – but with Big Head Bob in charge,..maybe women will just feel safer?

I won't.

photo of Bob Beauprez and Jill Repella from the Beauprez campaign, via the Villager online edition