July 12, 2022 02:23 PM UTC

Rose Pugliese: Smashing The Spin Like A Wrecking Ball

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• by: Colorado Pols

A story last week from the Colorado Springs Gazette’s veteran political reporter Marianne Goodland takes a look at the post-primary Colorado House Republican caucus, which has seen some significant changes as a slate of candidates supported by the notorious Rocky Mountain Gun Owners went down in defeat on June 28th, and incumbent members of the House GOP caucus who had proven especially–sometimes physically–troublesome for Minority Leader Hugh McKean are headed back to civilian life after losing their bids for higher office:

Term limits and decisions by caucus members in the Neville camp to pursue other opportunities, such as running for Congress, means that seven of the eight who voted against McKean won’t be back next year. The only member still aligned with the Neville camp who will likely come back in January is Rep. Stephanie Luck of Penrose.

“Voters rejected the more extreme candidates,” McKean told Colorado Politics. “This is the Republican Party the state of Colorado has been waiting for.”

McKean has every reason to celebrate the pending departure from office of Reps. Dave Williams and Ron Hanks after they both lost their primaries for federal office–not to mention McKean’s own victory over former House Minority Leader Patrick Neville’s former legislative aide Austin Hein. Minority Leader McKean’s long struggle to get control of the House minority he inherited from Neville after the disgrace of 2020 left Neville unable to continue has been a fraught affair, as basically none of Neville’s allies wanted to give McKean a chance to do his job. Now, with the exception of Rep. Stephanie Luck in House District 47, the RMGO/Neville cabal is on the sidelines.

But will this make House Republicans any more functional? That’s another question entirely:

Winners from safe Republican seats in Tuesday’s contested primaries include Douglas County Assessor Lisa Frizell, who won Neville’s seat; Anthony Hartsook, the primary winner for term-limited Rep. Kim Ransom’s Littleton seat; and, Rose Pugliese, who will likely succeed Rep. Shane Sandridge of Colorado Springs, who chose not to run for re-election.

The primary opponents of Frizell, Hartsook and Pugliese all received backing from RMGO…Pugliese is likely to take the position of caucus chair, according to [Rep. Colin] Larson.

HD-14 GOP nominee Rose Pugliese, who benefited from the intra-caucus battle this year over legislation to “crack down” on fentanyl trafficking that resulted in Rep. Shane Sandridge deciding elected office isn’t for him, may not be a Dudley Brown RMGO acolyte, but she’s set to anchor the extreme right of what’s expected to remain the GOP House minority in 2023. Pugliese, who was rumored to be interested in running for Secretary of State before Pugliese’s friend from Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters launched her own bid for stardom, was in need of a job after thinking twice about SoS–and what appears to have been an attempt to phone in the job of Mesa County Attorney went south.

From stone-age climate change denial to fighting unsuccessfully against Colorado’s participation in the National Popular Vote Compact during the same election the state’s voters turned out en masse to punish Donald Trump, Pugliese shares the damn-the-torpedoes immoderate inclinations of the outgoing far-right “Neville Clan” in every practical respect, and it won’t take long for her to prove that once in office. If Hugh McKean wants his final term to take a different path than the disorganized rage of the Neville years and McKean’s two sessions in Neville’s shadow, he may want to rethink Pugliese’s leadership role.

Pat Neville may be headed for the dustbin of history, but he never had a monopoly on crazy.