March 11, 2016 12:51 PM UTC

Colorado Senate GOP Loves Them Some Torture

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• by: Colorado Pols

The Pueblo Chieftain’s Peter Strescino reports on passage yesterday in the Colorado Senate of a resolution opposing the transfer of detainees from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba to Colorado prisons:

The Colorado Senate voted Thursday to back a resolution to keep Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, detainees out of Colorado. The vote was 28-7.

The resolution calls for “discouraging the lease of Colorado State Prison II to the federal government.”

State Sen. Kevin Grantham, R-Canon City, and sponsor of the resolution, said he was heartened by the bipartisan nature of the vote after a debate that ranged from national security issues to torture to federal law and the U.S. Constitution.

We can start with the obvious: a 28-7 vote in favor of this resolution means a lot of Democrats in the Colorado Senate chose political expediency over supporting President Barack Obama on one of the central promises of his presidency. Closure of the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay would bring an end to one of the most controversial chapters of the “war on terror,” which many believe has emboldened our enemies and sullied the moral authority of the United States in world affairs. Democrats who voted against the President and in favor of the status quo at Gitmo yesterday have their own conscience, and history, to answer to.

With that said, there was one moment in yesterday’s debate on this resolution against bringing Gitmo detainees to Colorado that Democrats can be proud of–a proposed amendment clearly expressing that the resolution is not meant as an endorsement of the forms of torture practiced at Guantanamo Bay and elsewhere during the war on terror:

The amendment you can read above failed on a party line 18-17 vote.

So yes, there was a bipartisan vote in the Colorado Senate yesterday against the transfer of Gitmo prisoners to Colorado. Beneath that headline, however, something else happened: an attempt to condemn the torture techniques practiced at Gitmo. In response, Republicans explicitly voted in favor of beatings, waterboardings, rectal feedings, “stress positions,” and so forth.

Presuming any justice at all in this world, such a vote must come back to haunt them.