October 06, 2016 10:45 AM UTC

Another Day, Another Damning Mike Coffman Fact-Check

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• by: Colorado Pols

A couple of weeks ago, we took note of a mail piece sent to an Aurora household attacking Democratic CD-6 candidate Morgan Carroll for supposedly voting “to make it easier to sue doctors and nurses providing free services.” The mail piece’s citation for this accusation was a long unidentified URL on the Colorado state legislative website–no bill number or anything else to make it easy to verify the claim.

Which made sense, because as it turns out, the claim wasn’t true. Carroll had in fact voted “yes” on final passage of the bill in question, House Bill 06-1076 sponsored by then Rep. Josh Penry, meaning the claim that she voted to make it easier to sue doctors and nurses is categorically false. Since our original story on September 26th, 9NEWS, CBS4 Denver, and as of last night Politifact Colorado, have all come to the same conclusion:

Coffman falsely says Carroll voted to make it ‘easier to sue’ doctors, small businesses, nurses

Carroll voted for the bill after it was amended on the floor to grant immunity to medical volunteers from civil liability when an “act or omission of a volunteer” resulted in injury, except in cases of gross negligence, reckless misconduct and even violent crimes — acts that would prevent a volunteer from receiving immunity under the federal Volunteer Protection Act.

Ultimately, Carroll supported passage of the law that made it harder — not easier — to sue volunteer doctors, nurses and other health-medical professionals — unless there was evidence of gross negligence… [Pols emphasis]

We rate this claim False.

There’s no way to reconcile this blatantly false claim with the truth, and Coffman’s campaign has made no real attempt to. In fact, the only thing they seem to want to do in response to this wave of adverse fact-checking is disrespect the fact-checkers:

9News just reprinted a Coloradopols post, which is about right. #COpolitics

— Team Coffman (@TeamCoffman2016) September 29, 2016

Having supported every tax & spending increase ever, Morgan isn’t a big spender either. Why no one takes fact checks seriously. #COpolitics

— Team Coffman (@TeamCoffman2016) September 29, 2016

Folks, this is a campaign that is not just freely telling lies as a deliberate campaign strategy. Team Coffman honestly does not care about the press calling them out. They are quite simply banking on the assumption that more people will see their false allegations than will see the debunking of those allegations in declining earned media. And they’re not even being coy about it.

Even in today’s outrage-fatigued political climate, that should infuriate voters. Not to mention journalists.