(D) J. Hickenlooper*
(D) Julie Gonzales
(R) Janak Joshi
80%
40%
20%
(D) Jena Griswold
(D) M. Dougherty
(D) Hetal Doshi
50%
40%↓
30%
(D) Jeff Bridges
(D) Brianna Titone
(R) Kevin Grantham
50%↑
40%↓
30%
(D) Diana DeGette*
(D) Wanda James
(D) Milat Kiros
80%
20%
10%↓
(D) Joe Neguse*
(R) Somebody
90%
2%
(R) Jeff Hurd*
(D) Alex Kelloff
(R) H. Scheppelman
60%↓
40%↓
30%↑
(R) Lauren Boebert*
(D) E. Laubacher
(D) Trisha Calvarese
90%
30%↑
20%
(R) Jeff Crank*
(D) Jessica Killin
55%↓
45%↑
(D) Jason Crow*
(R) Somebody
90%
2%
(D) B. Pettersen*
(R) Somebody
90%
2%
(R) Gabe Evans*
(D) Shannon Bird
(D) Manny Rutinel
45%↓
30%
30%
DEMOCRATS
REPUBLICANS
80%
20%
DEMOCRATS
REPUBLICANS
95%
5%
( – promoted by Colorado Pols) I will update them as they all come in tonight. Just Reporting the numbers – I will let the armchair quarterbacks give us their epic wisdom. CD 1 Degette Raised 141,733.00 COH 166,866.52 Raised to Date 407,882.16 CD 2 Polis Raised 24,552.25, COH 165,315.41 Raised to Date 695,193.54 […]
UPDATE: The House is convening an ethics committee to try to sort this out from their end, as the Grand Junction Sentinel’s Charles Ashby reports: The panel is to investigate whether Bradford improperly invoked legislative privilege in a recent traffic stop where she had been drinking, but was not issued a citation for driving under […]
UPDATE #2: Colorado Independent: The Perlmutter campaign responded in the wake of the announcement with a release that underlined Coors’ wealth and his support for strict anti-abortion personhood laws, which would make illegal abortion in all cases and would even outlaw some of the most popular contraception, such as the pill. “Ed looks forward to […]
We wrote last year about the sad, strange relationship between Lakewood City Councilman Dave Wiechman and then-Ward 3 candidate Pete Roybal. Wiechman contributed around $10,000 – nearly 78% of all funds raised – to Roybal’s ultimately successful campaign for city council in the hopes of finally scoring an ally in Lakewood city government.
Also included among Wiechman’s contributions to Roybal’s campaign was a $2,000 loan in direct violation of Section 3(8) of Article 28 of the Colorado Constitution – Wiechman couldn’t legally loan Roybal any money because only financial institutions are empowered to loan money to candidates.
A complaint regarding the loan was filed with the Office of Administrative Courts which made its final decision on the matter late last month.
Roybal and Wiechman maintained that Wiechman’s “loan” was actually intended as a $2,000 contribution and that Roybal had merely filed an “incorrect committee report.” The complaint against Wiechman – who was represented by Republican Attorney John Zakhem – was dismissed and Wiechman was cleared of any wrongdoing. If nothing else, Wiechman proved that he can afford good legal counsel, although the court did deny his request for attorney’s fees.
Conversely, Roybal was found to have filed an inaccurate committee report and was fined $1,575 – half of the $3,150 amount the administrative court could’ve charged him.
This was the best possible scenario for Wiechman: he didn’t violate the Colorado Constitution after all, and he still got his buddy Roybal’s vote on City Council.
But Wiechman shouldn’t be so quick to celebrate his victory in the Administrative Law Courts. The Ward 4 councilman has made it no secret that his ambitions stretch to the mayor’s office and beyond, and while a constitutional violation would’ve looked incredibly bad, Wiechman’s still going to have to grapple with the perception of corruption.
As it turns out, Wiechman’s total contributions to Roybal’s campaign ended up being over $20,000. When Wiechman does mount a campaign for higher office, it won’t be hard for his opponents to reference the fact that Wiechman gave 20 grand of his personal wealth to effectively buy an extra vote on city council.
In an era where voters are increasingly upset by the influence of money in politics, it looks really, really bad for a sitting elected official to give $20,000 in order to influence the election of a potential colleague. If Wiechman didn’t realize how bad it looks – or if he did and just didn’t care – that’s evidence enough that city council is about as high as he can ever aspire.
Lang Sias, who lost the 2008 Republican primary in CD-7, recently announced his intentions to take on Evie Hudak in SD-19. It was the potential for a Sias candidacy which forced State Representative Robert Ramirez out of the Senate race and back into a defensive campaign for HD-29. Sias is a formidable candidate, particularly at […]
Via the Colorado Statesman’s Ernest Luning, here’s the flyer advertising still-in-this GOP presidential candidate Rick Santorum’s visit to Teller County on Wednesday: 9NEWS reports that Santorum will be here starting with a speech tomorrow morning at the Lone Tree Golf Club–in between Colorado stops he’ll reportedly be in Las Vegas for a party Tuesday night. […]
( – promoted by Colorado Pols) Even if you’re a die-hard Tea-Party radio host, you’d think you’d try to clarify things when an ideologically-sympatico political candidate tells you on the air that he abandoned his business because of the Colorado Department of Labor’s efforts to enforce employment rules. That’s what Colorado State House candidate Brian […]
Lang Sias, who lost the 2008 Republican primary in CD-7, recently announced his intentions to take on Evie Hudak in SD-19. It was the potential for a Sias candidacy which forced State Representative Robert Ramirez out of the Senate race and back into a defensive campaign for HD-29.
Sias is a formidable candidate, particularly at the state level. His service as a naval aviator will likely resonate in the Republican leaning SD-19, and Sias should be able to raise money from national donors with ease: he was a top advisor on Veterans issues during John McCain’s 2008 campaign for president. McCain stumped for Sias during the latter’s congressional campaign, and although eventual nominee Ryan Frazier trounced the pilot in last cycle’s Republican primary, the fact that Ramirez stepped aside for Sias’ Senate bid is evidence that many Republicans think that Sias is the candidate to beat Hudak.
Sias should run into little difficulty fundraising for his State Senate campaign. His defunct Congressional campaign, however, is a different matter entirely.
According to the most recent reports filed with the Federal Election Commission, Sias’s committee still owes a whopping $75,685 in campaign debts and has owed that amount since September 2010.
There’s no legal roadblock preventing Sias from running for the State Senate before first retiring his Congressional campaign debt. But why hasn’t he repaid any of that $75,000 sum for nearly a year and a half?
Sias is going to have a tough time convincing donors to give both to his State Senate campaign and to put his former campaign committee back in the black. It’s clear that the candidate isn’t making any effort to reconcile what his committee owes. The bigger question is, should he?
Hudak has been lambasted by conservative critics for her support of “tax hikes” and “liberal bureaucracy.” Sias, then, will likely attack Hudak on those same points, tearing her down for fiscally irresponsible legislating. But Hudak – and the scores of independent groups who will likely send mail promoting her re-election – will be able to point out that her opponent hasn’t kept his own fiscal house in order: how’s he supposed to craft responsible budgets when his campaign is in the red?
Perhaps Sias thinks that being a State Senator will help him pay off the 75 grand he owes. Unfortunately, he won’t be able to earn that title until he gets elected, and he won’t get elected in this economy if he can’t make the point that he’s willing to trim the budget where his opponent wouldn’t. With so much money owed for so much time, Sias might have lost his ability to play that card.
Good reporting from KRDO-TV’s Lindsay Watts, working the story of Rep. Laura Bradford’s skirting of a DUI charge because of a state law preventing a legislator’s arrest whole traveling to of from a legislative session or committee hearing. More to the story worth adding: Backlash continues against a Colorado lawmaker who avoided a possible DUI […]
Normally reliable on the issue of finding efficiencies and responsibly cutting military expenditures, as we’ve noted in this space a few times, Rep. Mike Coffman surprisingly–or maybe not surprisingly–isn’t very happy with the recent push by the Department of Defense to embrace renewable energy. From Rep. Coffman’s press release following President Barack Obama’s speech on […]
To Democrats, moderates, progressives, liberals and independents, i.e. 60% of America; it is, indeed, a confusing political time. While many of us want Obama to win re-election, most of us concede that any incumbent President running for re-election with 8.5% unemployment is highly vulnerable and likely to be defeated. So it just seems weird that […]
To Democrats, moderates, progressives, liberals and independents, i.e. 60% of America; it is, indeed, a confusing political time. While many of us want Obama to win re-election, most of us concede that any incumbent President running for re-election with 8.5% unemployment is highly vulnerable and likely to be defeated. So it just seems weird that […]
The thing is, when you run for Congress, people start looking for records of what you’ve been involved with politically in your past. In the case of any member of the illustrious Coors family, you can start with top-shelf conservative organizations like the Heritage Foundation, for whom Coors family members and foundations provided startup capital […]
( – promoted by Colorado Pols) I recently opined that Judge Rappaport’s Lobato ruling was a yawner. I still think the long run outcome and analysis will demonstrate that it is a yawner, especially given the storied history of education finance litigation nationally. Nevertheless, elements of this litigation hit upon an utterly fascinating question of […]
Colorado progressives demand real accountability from Romney, shades of Scott McInnis FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Tuesday, January 24th, 2012 DENVER: Responding to the limited release of former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney’s tax returns for 2010 and 2011, ProgressNow Colorado, the state’s largest online progressive advocacy organization, demanded that Romney immediately disclose years of tax returns and […]
We wrote last week that House Republicans got off to a rough start in the first days of the Colorado legislative session by demanding a vote on a Constitutional Convention that was never going to happen; the move was entirely political — intended to get folks like Rep. Sal Pace and Joe Miklosi on the […]
Noted in yesterday’s Pueblo Chieftain: “Yes, character issues are still important to voters,” said Dick Wadhams, veteran GOP campaign strategist and former chairman of the Colorado Republican Party. “But this information about Newt isn’t new. Everyone knows he’s on his third marriage and they’ve already figured that into their thinking about him as a candidate. […]
( – promoted by Colorado Pols) Sometimes one media outlet says one thing, another says something else, and you’re left saying, WTF. That’s what happened last week when we heard different news about whether Rep. Robert Ramirez would back legislation this year reducing college tuition for some children of illegal immigrants. The bill is often […]
Politico–relax, it’s not plagiarism (that we know of): Mitt Romney said at Thursday’s debate he’ll release his tax returns in April – but the booing that drew suggests Republican primary voters don’t appear willing to wait. It’s not that they have problems with his record at Bain Capital – Romney has effectively neutralized many of […]
(So what you’re saying is they’ll never be totally sure if Santorum is #1 or #2? – promoted by ProgressiveCowgirl) A two-week recount and certification of the Iowa caucus has, for the time being, rendered Rick Santorum the winner. From the Washington Times: After a two-week recount the state GOP, which runs the caucuses, announced […]
(As long as nobody’s actually glowing… – promoted by Colorado Pols) Rep. Scott Tipton said in a radio interview last week that Japan’s Fukushima nuclear reactors “held up reasonably well” after being struck by an earthquake and Tsunami. So they could have been flattened, yes. But did they really hold up reasonably well? It’s widely […]
Lynn Bartels at the Denver paper is reporting that Democratic Senators Brandon Shaffer and John Morse are both considering running in CD-6, where Joe Miklosi and some dude named Perry Haney are already seeking the Democratic nomination. We’re not terribly surprised to read this, as we have heard rumors for awhile that Shaffer may ultimately […]
That’s the headline, at least, from the All-America City Quilt’s recent visit to Lakewood, Colorado.
From 9News and and the National Civic League:
Lakewood, Colorado rolled out the red carpet for the arrival of the All-America City Quilt this week. In fact, the quilt was given a police escort.
NCL President Gloria Rubio-Cortés was on hand to congratulate Mayor Bob Murphy and a group of community leaders.
The quilt has been making rounds of cities that were finalists in the 2011 All-America City Awards. Lakewood was named a 2011 All-America City last June at an award ceremony and celebration in Kansas City, Missouri.
The fact that Lakewood won the 2011 All-America City Award – as well as the first ever “diversity” award – from the National Civic League is testament to the work Bob Murphy and his allies on City Council have done in making Lakewood an “inclusive community” as well as revitalizing West Colfax and the city as a whole. Still, there’s something delightfully campy about the whole process that just screams “small town America.”
A police escort? For a quilt? Well, the All-America quilt is incredibly valuable. Perhaps Murphy was cold and couldn’t wait to cozy up his office. Or perhaps Lakewood was worried about Arvada or Sheridan getting their dirty hands on such a coveted tapestry. Better safe than sorry, right?
Not to mention the presentation Lakewood made to win both the All-America and the right to steward the accompanying quilt. If you haven’t seen it – and you really should – Murphy, some members of City Council, and other community leaders march up on stage wearing matching white t-shirts and talk about what makes Lakewood great while a light guitar ballad plays in the background. It’s a beautiful “kumbaya” moment, with little kids talking about playground inclusiveness and other speakers extolling Lakewood’s values in Spanish.
It’s almost a cliche – when someone says “presentation to the National Civic League,” we can’t imagine them meaning anything other than a song and dance number about some town in Colorado.
Still, in the NCL presentation, you can tell that Murphy and his companions really believe everything that they’re singing (or chanting). They believe that Lakewood really is a thriving economic destination notable for its diversity, inclusiveness, and responsive government. Perhaps that’s exactly why Lakewood deserved the award, and why Murphy has been such a successful mayor. With Lakewood, what you see is what you get. The city’s elected officials really do believe in making their home a great place to live. There are no ulterior motives.
So yes, it’s ridiculous. A quilt probably shouldn’t have a police escort. But Murphy and the rest can be proud of winning the All-America City award. Even if its cliche or campy, they deserve their moment: superfluous police sirens and all.
(What say ye? – promoted by Pita) The SOPA/PIPA legislation is a horrible bill. It basically would seriously damage the Internet in a heavy handed, and ultimately ineffective attempt to reduce piracy of Hollywood content. It would spell the end of Pols because people do post links to copyrighted material here (usually inadvertently). Congress: […]
Our friends at the Washington Post report: Both former House speaker Newt Gingrich and Texas Gov. Rick Perry have argued that Romney destroyed jobs and lives at the venture firm Bain Capital by buying up and then shuttering struggling companies. A super PAC supporting Gingrich is airing ads in South Carolina attacking Romney’s record, using […]
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