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The Colorado GOP is Getting Some Bad Advice…But From Whom?

2
  by: Colorado Pols September 21, 2023 at 4:51 PM MDT

UPDATE: Apparently Erik Maulbetsch of the Colorado Times Recorder noticed the same thing and published his own story just a little earlier than ours. Maulbetsch also notes that State Republican Party Treasurer Tom Bjorkland was paid $5,000 for “Treasury Services” via his own business entity called “Tactical Data Solutions, Inc.”

If you happen to work for the Colorado GOP and have yet to receive a paycheck, you might want to head over to the Colorado Secretary of State’s website and make yourself a business entity.

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Follow us down the gopher hole (because rabbit holes are so cliche).

Things have been quite the mess for the Colorado Republican Party for many years now, but Chairman Dave Williams has taken that mess to a whole new level since being installed as the new head honcho in March.

Instead of focusing on fundraising and helping Republican candidates prepare for 2024, Williams has wandered off in multiple different directions in the last few months:

♦ He “negotiated” an “alliance” with the Colorado Libertarian Party that has turned out to be a worse idea than injecting yourself with bleach in order to fight off COVID-19;

♦ Williams regularly trolls members of the LGBTQ community and recently emerged as the registered agent for a group trying to get an anti-transgender measure on the 2024 ballot;

♦ He keeps trying to get Republicans to vote in favor of a proposal to opt-out of Colorado’s open primary system. Since Republican committee members keep voting him down, Williams is using the State GOP to file a second lawsuit against the Colorado Secretary of State’s office…AND he has retained the services of (soon to be disbarred) attorney John Eastman, whose name you’ll remember on account of his work trying to organize a coup to keep Donald Trump in power;

♦ Williams is also pushing for new party bylaws that would “assume” that someone who doesn’t show up to vote at a central committee meeting was probably planning to vote YES on whatever was being discussed;

Williams accomplishes all of this when he takes a break from attacking other Colorado Republicans for one reason or another. We also know he hasn’t been that busy raising money for a staff that has yet to receive a paycheck; Williams has been saying publicly that he purposely didn’t try to raise money after becoming GOP Chair because of…reasons.

Anyhoo, this got us wondering about whether all of this crackpottery comes solely from inside Williams’s melon or if there have been other outside consultants chirping in his ear. We looked up recent expenditures for the Colorado Republican Committee federal account — which is traditionally the account that the Colorado GOP uses for day-to-day needs such as rent, electricity, salaries, etc. — and lo and behold, look what we found:

Federal campaign finance reporting

The Colorado Republican Committee made a $2,500 payment on August 21, 2023 to “Fox Group Ltd” for “Chairman Consulting for GOP.”

We’d never heard of “Fox Group Ltd,” so we looked up the entity registration on the Colorado Secretary of State’s website:

“Fox Group Ltc” (we blacked out the address)

“Fox Group Ltd” is a business entity in good standing with the Colorado Secretary of State’s office. Its registered agent is a guy named…David Williams?

Hmm…

Maybe “David Williams” is a different person than GOP Party Chair Dave Williams? After all, it is a common name. So we checked the address of “Fox Group Ltd” and the voter registration address for Dave Williams (which is public information), and lo and behold…

Yeah, you figured it out by now. It’s the same guy (if you need further proof, this is also the address that Williams used for his State Representative campaigns).

Dave Williams voter registration (again, we blacked out the address)

 

Weezie

The person doing “Chairman Consulting” for the State Republican Party is, in fact, the same person who is ACTUALLY the Chairman for the Colorado Republican Party.

To paraphrase Lil’ Wayne, Dave Williams is talking to himself because he is his own consultant.

This is weird for a number of reasons. As far as we can tell, nobody at the State Republican Party has received a paycheck yet (if anybody is even there doing work…or if they even have an office anymore). But Williams has still found a way to make some money by creating a silly expenditure paid out to his own business entity.

Is this legal? Sure. Is it a little shady? Yes. Is it totally and completely in-character for Williams? You betcha!

If and when the Colorado GOP does find enough money to pay for staff salaries, it will be fun to see if Williams is paid for the time he spends advising himself.

New CO GOP Finance Report: Expenses Nearly Double Income, Thousands Paid to Party Officers

1
  by: Erik Maulbetsch September 21, 2023 at 4:36 PM MDT

The Colorado Republican Party spent nearly twice as much money as it raised last month. The party’s latest FEC filing shows it raised a little over $12,000 while spending about $22,000. The almost $10,000 shortfall equals the amount spent on party officers and staff, either for direct payments or travel reimbursement.

Party Treasurer Tom Bjorklund, who participated in the Jan. 6 insurrection, received $5,000 for “Treasury Services.” Chair Dave Williams was paid $2,500 for consulting via his company Fox Group Ltd., and was reimbursed another $600 in mileage and parking expenses. Party Secretary and QAnon believer Anna Ferguson received $883 in mileage reimbursement. The party also reimbursed staffer Weston Imer $1,386 for travel and office supply expenses.

The total amount raised, $12,266, is about a third less than the party collected in the previous month, when it reported $18,734. Even that amount, however, did not cover the party’s July expenses which totaled nearly $21,000.

$2,500 payment to Colorado GOP Chair Dave Williams’ company

Talk show host George Brauchler asked Williams about the party’s fundraising earlier this week.

Brauchler: Can you update us on the fundraising status for the party? How are we doing?
Williams: We’re doing all right. We’re not swimming in cash, but we’re not broke. We’re paying our bills and we’re preparing for 2024. I think to date we’ve fundraised about over $200,000 and we have more pledges coming in. It’s a bit of a slow roll, but it’s coming.

According to today’s filing, the year-to-date total is $147,439, approximately $50,000 short of Williams’ claim.

The party has raised another $50,000, but there’s a catch: it can’t spend it on elections. Former state Sen. Kevin Lundberg oversees the party’s independent legal defense fund, which was established for its lawsuit challenging Colorado’s voter-approved open primaries. As of Sept. 9 Lundberg claims to have raised over $50,000. Lundberg, who also runs the Republican Study Committee of Colorado, describes donations to the legal fund as “the most cost-efficient dollars you invest in our state’s future.” By law these dollars can only be used for the party’s legal expenses and not to support its candidates or any other political activity.

Yesterday Colorado Morning News hosts Marty Lenz & Jeana Gondek asked Williams about the costs of another different lawsuit the party just joined — whether former Donald Trump can appear on a presidential ballot in Colorado based on his involvement in the Jan. 6 insurrection.

Gondek: Dave, obviously a lawsuit generally costs money and time. So how is this being funded with you guys and is joining this time-consuming, and is it getting in the way of any other top priorities?
Williams: The truth is, yes, there are other priorities that are also equally important for us. But this is important enough to where we felt it was necessary to ensure that no one is disenfranchised in the Super Tuesday primary that’s coming up in March. We’re going to continue to fundraise. We have adequate funds to continue operating our party functions.

Williams did not respond to emailed questions as to whether the payment to him and Bjorklund are one-time expenses or will be recurring. The Colorado Times Recorder also asked whether he was including the legal fund’s $50,000 in the $200,000 estimated total he gave Brauchler on air. This article will be updated with any response received.

This article first appeared in the Colorado Times Recorder.

Congress Stalls Out as Republicans Throw Rocks at Each Other

10
  by: Colorado Pols September 21, 2023 at 12:23 PM MDT

UPDATE #2: Congress is indeed adjourned and Members are headed back to their home districts (or in the case of Rep. Lauren Boebert, wherever it is she goes when she’s not in Congress). House Speaker Kevin McCarthy is not in good company, either presently or historically:

 

—–

UPDATE: Not a good sign:

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“I don’t understand why anybody votes against bringing the idea [forward] and having the debate. This is a whole new concept of individuals that just want to burn the whole place down. That doesn’t work.”

— House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (9/21/23)

Congress has ground to a halt as right-wing Republicans dig in on their spending cut demands in advance of a Sept. 30 deadline to continue funding the federal government.

As The Washington Post reports, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives can’t even agree to hold a vote on funding for national defense:

House Republicans on Thursday failed to advance a Defense Department appropriations bill, a stunning defeat after leaders believed they had swayed enough votes to move the bill forward.

It was the second time in a week that a vote on the rule, needed to advance the bill, was defeated.

The failed vote came after an almost three-hour meeting Wednesday that focused both on long-term spending bills and the more immediate task of avoiding a government shutdown after Sept. 30. During the closed-door meeting, a majority of the House Republican conference found consensus around more than $1.5 trillion in discretionary spending for the upcoming fiscal year. And while they reported progress on a bill to keep the government open in the short term, a plan to avoid a shutdown was not finalized.

But any good feelings out of that meeting crumbled Thursday morning, when five Republicans — Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (Ga.), Dan Bishop (N.C.), Andy Biggs (Ariz.), Eli Crane (Ariz.) and Matthew M. Rosendale (Mont.) — voted against advancing the measure to a final vote. [Pols emphasis] Rules Committee Chairman Tom Cole (R-Okla.) switched his vote from a “yes” to “no,” which allows Republicans to bring up the motion again later if they have the votes.

No shit, Sherlock

Things have gotten so bad for House Speaker Kevin McCarthy that his own Republican caucus can’t even agree on trying to vote on a spending agreement. A government shutdown seems unavoidable at this point, even though House Republicans know full well that they will get hammered by voters as a result.

Republicans and Democrats agreed on a new federal budget in May in order to raise the debt ceiling and stave off what economists predicted would have been a catastrophic default (this was the same debt ceiling vote that Rep. Lauren Boebert infamously missed altogether). But right-wing Republicans, led by the House “Freedom Caucus,” aren’t interested in abiding by that agreement and want MORE cuts.

As the editorial board of The Washington Post explained earlier this week, there is a way out of this mess:

A deal already exists to avert a U.S. government shutdown. It’s the debt ceiling compromise that was agreed to in May by House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and President Biden. The deal was a true middle ground: Mr. Biden and other Democrats agreed to spending cuts on domestic programs in 2024 and 2025 and a reduction in IRS funding in exchange for House Republicans raising the debt limit and forgoing deeper cuts. Both sides gave a little, and the result was some real (though modest) savings. As a new budget year approaches in October, all lawmakers have to do is follow the spending levels they agreed to earlier this year.

Yet far-right lawmakers are demanding a renegotiation, insisting on substantial cuts to everything but defense and veterans aid — the things they did not get earlier this year — and threatening a government shutdown if they do not get their way.

Mr. McCarthy does not have to bow to these lawmakers’ demands. He can stick to the previous agreement, passing a budget with some votes from House Democrats, and avoid an Oct. 1 shutdown. [Pols emphasis]

Soon-to-be-former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy

If McCarthy does not negotiate with Democrats, he’ll be giving into the demands of right-wing terrorists that will only lead to another round of ridiculous demands later:

Instead, Mr. McCarthy has tried to get his far right on side, proposing a budget that would slash funding for everything other than defense or veterans by 8 percent. That means cuts to education, transportation, national parks, public health and even law enforcement, among other popular and widely used programs. The bill would fund the government only through October, meaning there would be another hostage-like situation over the 2024 budget again this fall — during which the new, lower spending levels would no doubt be the basis for further demands. [Pols emphasis]

The other problem for McCarthy, which he created himself when he agreed to a bunch of silly demands back in January in order to secure enough support to become Speaker in the first place, is that making a deal with Democrats will likely lead to a Republican effort to call a vote to “Vacate the Chair” and elect a new House Speaker. McCarthy can work with Democrats to prevent a government shutdown…or lose his job as House Speaker.

McCarthy wouldn’t be the first Republican leader in Congress to fall victim to right-wing Republicans waving torches. The 2013 government shutdown happened for many of the same reasons and bled into a debt ceiling debate that ultimately ended the career of House Speaker John Boehner. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, who was next in line to become Speaker, himself suffered a massive upset in a Republican Primary Election just a few months later.

This movie will likely end the same way. It’s not a coincidence that government shutdowns almost always happen when Republicans are in control in the House of Representatives.

Meanwhile, the rest of Congress (and America) are left waiting for House Republicans to get their shit together so that everyone else can get back to the job of governing.

Colorado Congressman Jason Crow (D-Aurora) is at least trying to maintain a sense of humor about one cancelled vote after another. Check out this video featuring a star turn for “Buddy” the dog:

 

Two-Timing Thornton: Jan Kulmann For Congress Redux?

2
  by: Colorado Pols September 21, 2023 at 10:25 AM MDT

Thornton Mayor Jan Kulmann (R).

Earlier this summer, defeated 2022 Republican primary candidate for Colorado’s new swing CD-8 seat Jan Kulmann announced with what seemed like finality that she would not be making another run for Congress in 2024, instead campaigning for re-election as Mayor of Thornton. Colorado Community Media’s Luke Zarzecki reported in July:

Thornton’s Mayor Jan Kulmann will not be running for the Republican seat in the 2024 Congressional District 8 race.

“I am not doing it because I am not a partisan politician. That is the lesson I learned running for Congress,” Kulmann said…

Kulmann, who is running for reelection as mayor in the 2023 Thornton election, said she was hoping to bring nonpartisan politics to Congress.

“I thought being a mayor, I could bring non-partisan politics to Congress and I was wrong. Nobody wants that. They wanted a show and that’s not who I am. So I enjoy being the mayor because it has not been partisan,” she said.

Fast-forward to the present day, and it appears this sentiment is out the window. Reliable sources tell us that Jan Kulmann was in Washington recently to meet with the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC), and despite Kulmann’s pledge to remain with the people of Thornton and eschew “partisan politics,” Kulmann appears to be seriously considering jumping into the 2024 GOP primary for CD-8. Kulmann is unlikely to formally announce a congressional campaign until after she wins re-election as Mayor of Thornton in November, since premature disclosure of a run for Congress could be a huge political headache for Kulmann after promising Thornton voters she wouldn’t.

Sorry about that.

National Republicans circling back to Jan Kulmann in this high-profile swing congressional race is first and foremost a sign of dissatisfaction with the current field of Republican CD-8 contenders–not to mention the new challenge created by a state Republican Party bent on purity testing candidates, which at least in part affected 2022 CD-8 nominee Sen. Barb Kirkmeyer’s decision to herself not run again in 2024. The two “leading” candidates in the race today, Weld County Commissioner Scott James and freshman state Rep. Gabe Evans, are in no way strong enough to deter other primary candidates. Kulmann, on the other hand, has the strong support of oil and gas interests and the well-known GOP political consultants allied with them.

The timing of these alleged discussions is Kulmann’s most immediate problem. A mayor running for re-election on a promise to serve the people of her community first should not be simultaneously running a shadow campaign for Congress just two months after swearing it off. For Thornton voters, Kulmann waiting until after this November’s election to break her promise from July and announce her run for Congress would be a considerable betrayal.

There’s an easy way for Kulmann to prove these new rumors wrong, and that would be to firmly and publicly shut the door on running for Congress next year. Even the smallest hint of equivocation on this question is a sign that the situation has changed from earlier in the summer. The one thing everyone should be able to agree on is that the voters of Thornton deserve straight answers before they receive their municipal election ballots next month.

Thursday Open Thread

5
  by: Colorado Pols September 21, 2023 at 12:24 AM MDT

“A man who carries a cat by the tail learns something he can learn in no other way.”

–Mark Twain

McCarthy’s Leadership Teeters As Nation Careens Toward Shutdown

5
  by: Colorado Pols September 20, 2023 at 1:47 PM MDT

“The game is not over,” Speaker Kevin McCarthy said.

CNN puts the best face possible on GOP House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s bad situation in an update today:

Speaker Kevin McCarthy, facing a looming government shutdown deadline and intense pressure from his right flank, projected optimism that his conference can work together on potential tweaks to the conservative stopgap measure.

“I feel like we are” making progress, McCarthy said Wednesday morning, less than two weeks away from the September 30 government funding deadline…

House Freedom Caucus Chairman Scott Perry, a Pennsylvania Republican, characterized discussions Wednesday morning as “very positive” and said they have “both sides of the equation” in the room discussing and they are “working through” disagreements.

However, the GOP-led proposal is likely dead on arrival in the Senate, so it’s unclear how Congress avoids a shutdown.

Draft resolution to oust Speaker McCarthy left in a bathroom by Rep. Matt Gaetz (R) of Florida.

As Politico reports, while McCarthy tries to cobble together a deal that can satisfy the hard-liners in his caucus and still have a prayer in the Democratic-controlled Senate–at this point considered a rational impossibility–the White House is paying out the proverbial rope:

On Tuesday, GOP leadership canceled plans for a procedural vote on a short term funding bill, wary it had the numbers to pass. Hours later, hard-right conservatives tanked a procedural vote related to a defense spending bill. Moderate House Democrats have been working on a last-ditch fall back option to avert a shutdown, but any final product will need approval from the Senate.

For now, the White House is staying out of the mix, trying instead to draw a contrast between the House majority that can’t complete the task of keeping the government’s lights on and Biden, who on Tuesday addressed the United Nations General Assembly in New York. It’s also highlighting the price of the latest GOP plan, such as, in their estimation, cutting 800 Customs and Border Protection agents and 110,000 Head Start positions for children…

This morning, Colorado’s Sen. John Hickenlooper put out a statement blasting House Republicans for their unrealistic dickering while the deadline approaches, and warning of the serious economic impact of a government shutdown that will be felt once again from Colorado’s national parks to government employee strongholds like El Paso County:

“A government shutdown would be catastrophic. It would disrupt much of our country, including freezing military service members’ pay, delaying Medicare payments to seniors and closing our National Parks.

“There’s a process for getting a federal budget done, but it involves everyone working in good faith and looking for space to compromise.

“Instead of coming to the table, House Republicans are barricading themselves and almost using military and seniors as hostages.”

At this point, McCarthy’s task of passing a funding resolution that can pass the U.S. Senate, meaning a bill that doesn’t give in to the far right’s futile and expanding draconian demands, looks impossible without once again reaching across the aisle for Democratic support in a reprise of the deal ending the artificial crisis over raising the nation’s debt limit earlier this year. McCarthy barely survived that power play, mostly because the positive outcome for the country stymied the anger from the right.

That is not a dynamic that McCarthy can count on again. After being burned and scorned in the debt ceiling fight, the Freedom Caucus risks losing its own influence if their threats to topple McCarthy prove toothless a second time. The far right has no realistic plan to win this budgetary impasse with the Senate and White House controlled by Democrats, instead they seem to be choosing destruction out of pure ideological spite. McCarthy, despite his willingness to appease the Freedom Caucus by entertaining their obsession with tit-for-tat impeachment of Joe Biden, will have no choice but to give his right flank the shaft once again–unless he wants to go down in history as the man who presided over yet another preventable economic disaster.

Despite his best efforts to learn from their example, McCarthy has arrived at the very same predicament that ended the careers of Republican House Speakers Paul Ryan and John Boehner before him. McCarthy must now choose between the best interests of the nation in the most basic sense, and the crazies he gave the power to challenge his speakership at any time they choose.

If Ryan and Boehner couldn’t run this gauntlet, we don’t see how McCarthy does either.

Evans Supports Overturn of Roe, Dodges Nat’l Abortion Ban

3
  by: Jason Salzman September 20, 2023 at 1:00 PM MDT

(Promoted by Colorado Pols)

The hard-line stance against abortion taken by state Sen. Barbara Kirkmeyer, the Republican who ran for Colorado’s new congressional seat last year, is widely seen as one of the top reasons Kirkmeyer lost her race to Democrat Yadira Caraveo.

But that may not stop the new crop of Republican candidates hoping to oust Caraveo next year from staking out hard-right anti-abortion stances as they compete against each other for Republican primary voters, who are more anti-choice than the general electorate.

State Rep. Gabe Evans (R-Ft. Lupton), who announced his bid to unseat Caraveo on Sept. 6, told KNUS radio’s George Brauchler on Sept. 11 that he supports the Dobbs decision, which rescinded the constitutional right to an abortion, saying he sees no reason to “reverse course.”

Gabe Evans

Evans made the comment in response to Brauchler’s question about whether Evans would “support the nationalization of pro-life laws.” The overturn of Roe allowed individual states to decide whether to legalize abortions, and some anti-abortion activists are pushing Congress and the president to pass a law banning abortion in all states, even in Colorado where abortion is permitted.

“Do you support congressional action in this area?” asked Brauchler of Evans.

Evens didn’t commit to backing a national abortion ban, saying instead, “You know, so the pro-life movement has been working for the last 50 years to try to have this issue, you know, overturned and returned to the states. We’ve seen a lot of success there. And I don’t really see any reason to reverse course on the success that the pro-life movement is having.”

Evans’s support for the overturn of Roe v. Wade comports with an anti-choice stance he took in a Freedom Voter Guide survey. There, he indicated he opposed abortion, even for women who were raped by a family member and supported abortion only to save the life of the mother.

Evans’ Republican primary opponent, Weld County Commissioner Scott James, also supports the overturning of Roe. He apparently hasn’t talked publicly about abortion since announcing his candidacy Sept. 5, but he wrote in 2022, prior to the Dobbs decision, that if “Roe is indeed overturned, the matter will rightly (my opinion) be returned to state legislatures to be decided by the people.” He also wrote that he personally believes life begins at conception and opposes a Colorado law enshrining the right to an abortion in state law, calling the 2021 Reproductive Health Equity Act (RHEA) “horrible.”

James has not said how he’d vote on a national abortion ban.

James didn’t return an email seeking comment.

The incumbent, Caraveo, a medical doctor, disagrees with the Dobbs decision and is against banning abortion via statute. She’s promised to “fight to guarantee a woman’s right to choose at the federal level, just as we’ve done in Colorado.”

Scott James

Colorado State University Political Science Prof. Kyle Saunders points out next year’s election will be substantially different than the 2022 mid-term because, among other things, it’s a presidential contest, but the candidate’s positions on abortion could make a difference in multiple ways.

“In the nationalized elections that are coming in 2024, opinion on the presidential candidates as well as the candidates and their stances will matter in vote choice *on the margins,*” Saunders wrote in an email to the Colorado Times Recorder, adding that abortion will “likely be a big issue in the Republican primary process, but so will crime, inflation, and other economic concerns.”

“In a marginally close district like this one, Republicans are in a difficult situation: they have to activate and turn out their voters while also not losing enough of the smaller portion of persuadable voters that they lose on the abortion issue,” wrote Saunders. “To be able to overcome this, the candidate that Republicans choose in their primary process must have the political skills to be able to effectively speak to both the base and to that smaller but consequential set of moderate voters, which is a pretty big lift.

(more…)

Ken Buck Retirement Rumors Heat Up

19
  by: Colorado Pols September 20, 2023 at 11:07 AM MDT

Whether he’s Buckpedaling forward or backward, Ken Buck wants out of Congress.

As we’ve been predicting for months on the Get More Smarter Podcast (both HERE and HERE), Congressman Ken Buck (R-Greeley) is on his way out of Congress. According to a new report from The New York Post, Buck is waiting only for the right exit strategy:

The White House’s go-to Republican critic of the impeachment inquiry into President Biden is considering leaving Congress for a new job — and expressed interest in being an on-air commentator for CNN, The Post has learned.

Rep. Ken Buck (R-Colo.), a five-term fiscal hawk, has surprised fellow conservatives by repeatedly criticizing the probe launched last week into Biden’s alleged corruption, including with a Sept. 15 Washington Post op-ed that other Republicans said included glaring inaccuracies.

Buck said privately last month that he was interested in a job at CNN, a source told The Post, after he weighed other options over the past year — including joining a DC-based law firm or seeking Biden’s nomination to the Federal Trade Commission.

Buck, 64, confirmed to The Post he’s exploring his options and said it would be “great” to join CNN.

Buck’s interest in a TV gig has been obvious in recent months; as we noted on Tuesday, Buck spent most of the August recess yammering about budgets and impeachment to every network (and even pretend networks, such as Newsmax) that would give him air time. Buck has been all over the place on the subject of impeaching President Biden, which is as much about his own indecisiveness as it is about being available to take whatever position a TV news show might desire.

After telling the Post that he was very interested in working for CNN, Buck even took the time to call back and add more details:

The congressman called back later in the day to say that he had also expressed interest in a position at right-leaning Fox News or Newsmax.

“I didn’t want to give you the impression that I’ve only talked to folks at CNN, on the left. I’ve also talked to others about this,” Buck said. [Pols emphasis]

Buck represents a vast rural district that spans the entire eastern border of the Rocky Mountain State and said Tuesday that it was unclear if he will leave office “this Congress, next Congress or whatever — but [I have] just really explored the possibility of … putting together some different things before I leave.”

This guy would really like a job on TV.

The NY Post also reports that Buck talked to a couple of Senators earlier this year about potentially earning a nomination from the White House to serve on the board of the Federal Trade Commission. It appears that if anyone has a job that involves “not being in Congress,” then Buck is more than interested in applying.

Buck has long been rumored to be looking for an exit strategy from Congress. We reported on retirement rumors in May 2019, and quickly received a reply from Buck’s communications director that he “has no official plans to retire anytime soon nor in the foreseeable future.” Those rumors continued, however, until Buck made it official in October 2019 that he would indeed seek re-election, but it didn’t make him any more interested in doing the work; Buck was regularly absent in December 2019 for House Judiciary Committee hearings into the first impeachment of former President Trump.

Buck was easily re-elected in 2020, but it was obvious at that point that he was quickly losing interest in Congress. Buck sorta flirted with the idea of running for U.S. Senate in 2021, though he was never believed to be serious about another statewide run (Buck lost a 2010 Senate race to Democrat Michael Bennet). Beyond the logistical challenges of a statewide race, Buck’s positions on various issues have become significantly more malleable in recent years; to the extent that he even bothers to pay attention anymore, Buck often wanders off in strange directions (such as his insistence last summer that George Soros funded Antifa, or something).

The likely Republican field of candidates once Buck makes his retirement official.

Buck was re-elected for a fifth term in 2022 after surviving a surprise Primary challenge from Bob Lewis, who nearly received enough support at the Republican Congressional Assembly to keep Buck off of the Primary Ballot altogether. This weakening of support in the fourth congressional district surely rattled Buck, though we hear the last straw took place after Republicans captured control of the House of Representatives and Buck was passed over (despite his seniority) for the Chairmanship of the House Judiciary Committee.

After we noted on Tuesday that State Rep. Richard Holtorf (R-Akron) was looking at a 2024 Primary challenge, Colorado Public Radio reported on more details about Holtorf’s seemingly-inevitable Congressional bid — including his claim to have formed an “exploratory committee.” There is no such thing as an “exploratory committee” in federal campaign filings — you’re either a candidate or you’re not — and it’s rare that a candidate pretends to be “looking” at a campaign but ends up NOT running.

We’d guess that Holtorf has heard the same rumors and isn’t waiting for Buck to make a decision on his future. Once Buck does make it official, every Republican with a pulse will consider their own campaign; CO-04 is a safe Republican district, and a GOP Primary winner could probably hold this seat for at least the next decade.

Buck could always change his mind and run for re-election in 2024, but his hemming and hawing on issues such as Biden’s impeachment have given Republican challengers more than enough reason to go after him anyway. What was looking like a rather sleepy 2024 election cycle in Colorado is about to get a lot more interesting.

Wednesday Open Thread

18
  by: Colorado Pols September 20, 2023 at 8:12 AM MDT

“Nothing is more intolerable than to have to admit to yourself your own errors.”

–Ludwig van Beethoven

After Asking Judge to Join Lawsuit, CO GOP Says It Won’t Comply if Ruling Bans Trump From Ballot

2
  by: Erik Maulbetsch September 19, 2023 at 2:19 PM MDT
(Rule of law, but only when we agree — Promoted by Colorado Pols)

Colorado Republican Party Chair Dave Williams- not a lawyer.

Last week a group of Coloradans filed a lawsuit to prevent Donald Trump from running for President in the state.

Subsequently, the state GOP hired Jay Sukelow, a well-known Trump lawyer to argue that the party should be permitted to intervene in the lawsuit and join the former president in his effort to appear on the Colorado Republican primary ballot next year.

Today Colorado GOP Chair Dave Williams emailed his party to celebrate the judge’s ruling granting the GOP’s request to intervene.

“Great news! A judge has granted our motion to intervene and be a party to the lawsuit,” writes Williams. “The judge also set a trial date. Colorado Republicans can now file briefs, produce evidence, and challenge the other side in this case and at trial.”

However, in a previous email sent last Friday just to the 400+ members of his party’s Central Committee, Williams shared new party documents that reveal the GOP only plans to comply if it wins.

“If President Trump is forcibly removed from our primary ballot, the Colorado Republican Party will not comply and inform the Secretary of State that we do not wish to participate in a rigged presidential primary that disenfranchises voters and limits options.“

That language appears in the party’s National Delegate Selection Plan, which Williams says was crafted in collaboration with the Republican National Committee.

Williams did not respond to an email request for comment as to how refusing to participate in a primary election that is administered by the Colorado Secretary of State would work, or why the party is bothering to participate in the legal process if it isn’t going to abide by a judge’s ruling it doesn’t like. This article will be updated with any response received.

Reached for comment via email, Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold offered the following statement:

“The Colorado Republican Party leadership has repeatedly indicated their willingness to close the presidential primary, disenfranchising Colorado republican and unaffiliated voters in order to handpick the candidate of their choice. Every voter should be able to cast a ballot in the primary election, and I will always fight so they can make their voices heard.”

(more…)

Boebert Throws Unaffiliated Boyfriend Under The Bus

12
  by: Colorado Pols September 19, 2023 at 1:25 PM MDT

 

The sordid tale of GOP Rep. Lauren Boebert’s calamitous visit to Denver’s Buell Theater a week ago to disrupt watch the new Beetlejuice musical took yet another quizzical turn yesterday as leading celebrity gossip site TMZ caught up with Boebert at Washington “Don’t Call It Reagan” National Airport, and asked her in the friendliest terms possible how she was doing after a week of some of the most brutal scandalizing ever inflicted on a sitting member of Congress from Colorado. The Hill reports:

“It’s always hard whenever there’s gravity put on the voters. I’m here to provide levity, and lift burdens off of people,” Boebert said in an interview with TMZ on Monday. “So anytime that they’re carrying mine, it’s something that you kind of feel deep inside.”

“But ultimately, all future date nights have been canceled. And I learned to check party affiliations before you go on a date,” [Pols emphasis] Boebert — who filed for divorce from her husband in May — quipped, an apparent reference to reports that her date at the “Beetlejuice” performance is a Democrat…

Hapless date comforting an usher being verbally abused by Rep. Lauren Boebert.

We have tried to avoid getting into scrutiny of Boebert’s companion, who joined her being tossed out of the Buell and who, it can be fairly said, was an equal participant in the bad behavior that got Boebert ejected from the theater. But now that Boebert is suggesting the possibility that she was set up by questioning the party affiliation of her date, we’re obliged to note that despite some reporting to the contrary, Boebert’s date is a registered unaffiliated voter, not a Democrat–and the last time we checked, Boebert needs unaffiliated voters in her camp not under the bus.

As for the future of what certainly looked like a budding romance a week ago?

Asked if her dating life with the man was “over,” the 36-year-old congresswoman replied, “We’ve peacefully parted at this time. Great man, great friend. And I wish him all the best.”

This seems like something you can’t have both ways. Either he’s a “great friend” or a Democrat plant who just set Boebert up for the biggest PR disaster of her short career? Either way, by the end of the video released by the Denver Center for the Performing Arts via 9NEWS’ open records request, the gentleman appears to be trying to ease tensions with the staff while Rep. Boebert continued to berate them all the way out the door. Notwithstanding his own contribution to the disruptive behavior that resulted in their ejection from the theater, we would argue that Boebert needs more people in her life apologizing on her behalf as opposed to running over mailboxes.

Boebert’s lame attempt at a partisan excuse for this self-inflicted disgrace is another indicator that Boebert really isn’t sorry about what happened, and is only troubled by the damage to her reputation. As of this writing, Boebert has only acknowledged her use of a vape pen in the theater with children present, while denying other documented misconduct such as threatening DCPA staffers with retaliation. Now Boebert has thrown her “date,” whom she was previously reported to have been “secretly dating” for months, under the bus like a jilted secretary in Mad Men.

What Boebert really needs to do here, of course, is the one thing she does not know how to do: stop talking.

Pick a Lane, Ken Buck

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  by: Colorado Pols September 19, 2023 at 10:40 AM MDT

Congressman Ken Buck is definitely a Republican. Beyond that, it’s impossible to tell what Buck believes about anything at any given time. Few politicians twist themselves into pretzel shapes as often as the five-term representative from congressional district four, which is how he earned the term “Buckpedaling” (HERE, HERE, and HERE for just a few examples).

As we noted last week, Buck has again been all over the road on the issue of (attempting) to impeach President Biden for crimes that Republicans have yet to figure out. Buck spent most of the August recess appearing as a guest on every national news outlet that would take his calls, where he regularly discussed his belief that it was a terrible idea for Republicans to be trying to impeach Biden when a) Republicans haven’t found any proof of anything despite more than three years of looking, and b) There are much more pressing issues facing Congress (like a looming government shutdown).

True to his namesake phrase, he Buckpedaled as soon as he returned to Washington D.C., telling POLITICO that he was totally on board with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s decision to instruct House Republicans to more forward with their Biden impeachment investigations.

“I think it’s a good move. We have to focus on spending, we have to make sure the government doesn’t shut down. We have to get our job done. And I think taking this off the table and not having a distraction is a good move.”

— Rep. Ken Buck on impeachment investigations into President Biden (Sept. 12, 2023)

 

That same day, Buck showed up for an interview on MSNBC, in which he explained to Andrea Mitchell that he had changed his mind but maybe hadn’t changed his mind:

MITCHELL: You have said as recently — to my colleague, Jen Psaki — I think on Sunday, that you did not think this was a good idea, that you did not think it was warranted. What do you think today?

BUCK: What I wanted to do was look at the evidence. I said I’ll go where the evidence takes me. And I still want to look at the evidence. I’m going to get a briefing later in the week on what evidence links [Joe Biden] to Hunter Biden’s activities. I haven’t seen that link yet, and so I’m reluctant to agree with Speaker McCarthy.

 

(more…)

Tuesday Open Thread

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  by: Colorado Pols September 19, 2023 at 8:18 AM MDT

“It takes many good deeds to build a good reputation, and only one bad one to lose it.”

–Benjamin Franklin

Libertarian Avenger Launches Campaign Against Boebert

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  by: Colorado Pols September 18, 2023 at 12:51 PM MDT

State Republican Party Chairman Dave Williams contemplating some other terrible idea.

Over the last couple of months, we have probably spent more time in this space discussing the Colorado Libertarian Party (LPCO) than we have over the course of the entire previous decade. Third parties in Colorado rarely take on much relevance because of their fairly small memberships and overall lack of organization; in fact, most of our discussions about third parties in Colorado are because of some relation to the Colorado Republican Party.

We’re discussing a third party again today because of the bizarre “alliance” that State Republican Party Chairman Dave Williams made with the LPCO earlier in the summer. The stated goal of this alliance was to prevent a Libertarian candidate from running in battleground districts because of the concern that a 2022 Libertarian challenger might have siphoned enough votes away from the Republican to ensure a CO-08 victory for Democrat Yadira Caraveo. The LPCO agreed to withhold support for a Libertarian candidate in 2024 should Republicans sign a wacky pledge promising to endorse a bunch of bizarre Libertarian positions. To the great joy of the LPCO, Williams began sending the Libertarian pledge — from a Colorado GOP email address — to all announced Republican candidates.

As far as we can tell, no Republican candidate has agreed to sign the LPCO pledge — including the GOP candidates running in the two biggest races of 2024 (CO-03 and CO-08). The pledge made even less sense in CO-03, given that there was already a Libertarian candidate in the race (Mark Ellworth, Jr); nevertheless, incumbent Rep. Lauren Boebert’s (R-ifle) refusal to sign the pledge has drawn the ire of the LPCO and added a second Libertarian candidate to the field of candidates.

Artist rendering of James Wiley, the new Libertarian challenger in CO-03.

There is a whole thread attached to that Tweet/X above detailing the decision to run (another) Libertarian candidate against Boebert, whose name is also regularly misspelled by the LPCO:

The Pledge, which simply commits the COGOP candidates to abide by the US Constitution and the principles of limited government, was a bridge too far for the Congresswoman. Considering Congresswoman Boebart won reelection by a razor thin margin, a Libertarian challenger…surely ends Boebart’s hopes for reelection.

And who is this brave challenger? Some dude named James Wiley, whose website is called — we couldn’t have possibly made this up — “Wiley4Vengeance.com“.

We don’t know much about Wiley — including what he looks like — because there is very little information about him online. There isn’t a photo or a bio on his website, but the LPCO does link to this amazeballs letter from Wiley:

The Libertarian Party of Colorado entered a Pact with the Colorado Republicans to not challenge their candidates so long as they would pledge to abide by Libertarian Principles. Since then, Lauren Boebert, aka Beetlejuice, has publicly denounced our pledge and defamed the principles we cherish as unworthy. This insult to who I am as a Libertarian compels me to eagerly fulfill the duties invoked by the Libertarian Pact and challenge her in her district which she so nearly lost by only 542 votes. 542 votes are not enough to stop me from being the cause of her defeat. [Pols emphasis]

In truth, I will be elected by the voters of CD-3 as their Libertarian representative to Congress because the land of our district is filled with Sovereign American People whose rights have suffered immeasurable damage by state actors. CD-3 needs activist leaders prepared and willing to demolish the federal government. These damages began to accumulate 247 years ago in the year 1776 and have now reached an abhorrent scale of violation too grand for a free People to submissively bear. An entire generation of elected officials will be replaced by radical American idealists prepared to reset and restore our federal governance to its most primitive and most powerless state of origin.

[Pols note: Boebert won re-election in 2022 by 546 votes, but fact-checking is for people who hate liberty.]

In short, Wiley is running for Congress because Boebert wouldn’t sign the LPCO pledge and because he wants to completely dismantle the federal government. We’re not sure that a Libertarian candidate would actually make the difference between victory and defeat for Boebert in 2024, but we’re very comfortable in predicting that James Wiley has no chance whatsoever at winning this race.

Regardless, that “alliance” concocted by GOP Chair Dave Williams seems to be backfiring. The “pledge” has succeeded mainly in handing the LPCO a specific reason to challenge a Republican incumbent such as Boebert — and it has made Libertarian candidate announcements more newsworthy than they have ever been in Colorado.

This wouldn’t be the first time that a Republican Party dalliance with a third party went awry. In 2010, the American Constitution Party (ACP) became a big topic when former Republican Tom Tancredo ran for Governor under the ACP banner. Colorado Republicans pushed Tancredo to run as the ACP candidate because they were worried that little-known Dan Maes — the actual Republican Party nominee for Governor — would have no chance against Democrat John Hickenlooper. Then-Republican Party Chairman Dick Wadhams even announced that Maes would not be supported by the Colorado GOP. Hickenlooper won that election easily, but playing footsie with the ACP nearly cost the Colorado Republican Party its “major party status” when Maes came dangerously close to dropping below 10% of the statewide vote (Maes finished with 11%).

Boebert Loses Speaking Engagements While Un-Apologizing

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  by: Colorado Pols September 18, 2023 at 12:33 PM MDT

On Friday evening, Colorado’s perpetually embattled GOP Rep. Lauren Boebert issued an apology for getting caught vaping inside Denver’s Buell Theater after days of denials, along with other unspecified ways in which Boebert said she “fell short” of her values a week ago resulting in Boebert and her companion being kicked out of the performance of the new Beetlejuice musical. Security camera footage released Thursday via 9NEWS not only proved Boebert was lying about vaping, but also revealed the full shocking extent of Boebert’s behavior both during the performance and while being escorted out–none of which was directly addressed in Boebert’s apology.

As The Hill reports via Denver’s FOX 31, yesterday Boebert appeared on the right-wing pseudonews channel One America News, where she not only didn’t restate her apology but appeared to in large part take it back:

Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) pushed back on media accounts of her being kicked out of a Denver theater production of “Beetlejuice” last week over bad behavior, saying that some accounts were exaggerated and untrue. [Pols emphasis]

“I was a little too eccentric. I’m very known for having an animated personality, maybe overtly animated personality. I was laughing, I was singing, having a fantastic time,” Boebert said in an OAN interview Sunday. “Was told to kinda settle it down a little bit, which I did, but then my next flip up was taking a picture.”

Rep. Lauren Boebert berates security at the Buell Theater.

Boebert told OAN that she is “on the edge of a lot of things,” which is a statement we’ll let readers analyze for themselves. More importantly, when it comes to Boebert’s threats to staff and general hostility while being escorted out of the theater, Boebert is back to full denial after trying to garner sympathy all weekend for her supposed contrition:

Boebert vehemently denied those claims.

“There’s reports saying I was arguing, threatening to call the Denver mayor — I don’t know why I would ever call the Denver mayor, I think he would have tried to lock me up,” she said Sunday.

While we agree it’s ridiculous to expect Denver’s Democratic mayor to retaliate on Boebert’s behalf against Denver Center for the Performing Arts employees doing their jobs, we also have no reason to doubt those employees’ truthfulness–especially compared to Boebert, who got caught red-handed lying and was forced to make a strained apology that absolutely no one believes (or for that matter, believes she even herself wrote). The video of Boebert’s inappropriate behavior of all kinds, from vaping to flash photography to what could be argued was criminal public indecency, is damning beyond the scope of anything Boebert apologized for–and that’s before she reverted to denial.

Rep. Lauren Boebert in promotional materials for the Texas Youth Summit.

Unfortunately for Boebert, it appears that other conservatives are making their own judgments. Last week as the #BeetleBert story was developing, the Texas Youth Summit announced Boebert as a late addition to their roster of speakers. In the last 24 hours, as MTN reports, Boebert got scrubbed:

The Texas Youth Summit has scrubbed spunky Republican Representative Lauren Boebert from their youth oriented event.

The group, founded by failed Republican House candidate Christian Collins, announced the addition of Boebert after the Colorado congresswoman was kicked out Buell Theatre in Denver for disruptive behavior which including vaping, flash photography, and exchanges of fondling between her and her date.

The latest roster of speakers no longer includes Rep. Boebert:

Though not related to Boebert’s official duties, this scandal has penetrated well beyond the confines of political news audiences, morphing into a pop culture story carried by nonpolitical outlets like TMZ where it’s been the most popular story for two days. The huge reach of this story beyond the political news silo makes it far more damaging to Boebert than the usual Politico scuttlebutt. In many cases it could be the first time casual observers have heard of Boebert, or maybe they dimly recall the parodies they saw on SNL.

Either way, #BeetleBert has a life of its own now. It may not be the way some wanted Lauren Boebert to go down, but it’s a public image catastrophe that Boebert could only have brought upon herself. Boebert is in absolutely no respect the victim here, having compounded an already bad situation by lying until the video came out. The precise method of self-destruction for politicians in a political death spiral is often unpredictable.

But in the end, the moment always comes.