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September 11, 2017 01:16 PM UTC

Brauchler Surprised that "Water is a Huge Issue" in Colorado

  • 33 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols
So, tell me more about this…water.

Many of the 17 dozen candidates for Governor in Colorado descended on the annual “Club 20 Fall Conference” in Grand Junction over the weekend. Candidates from the Front Range may not be exposed to all of the issues that are critical to Colorado’s Western Slope, but Republican gubernatorial candidate George Brauchler was a bit too candid in his comments. As the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel reports:

As the current district attorney for the 18th Judicial District in the Denver metropolitan area, the Republican knows much about public safety issues, from the courts to law enforcement.

But being governor necessitates more than just a rudimentary understanding of other issues, something he’s learned while campaigning on the Western Slope in the crowded race for the GOP nomination for governor.

“The one issue that I did not anticipate, but appreciate more than any of the other (issues), is water,” Brauchler said Friday shortly after meeting with the Grand Junction Economic Partnership about business issues. “On the Front Range, the water issue is when I turn on my tap, is it there? Getting around the state as much as I have over the past five months, water is a huge issue.” Brauchler said his lack of understanding about water issues prompted him to meet with numerous water experts, including those with the Colorado River District. [Pols emphasis]

His main takeaway, which is still under development, is more storage and more conservation.

Whhaaatttt???

It’s hard to overstate the weirdness of Brauchler’s comments here. Water policy has been among the most important issues in Colorado since…well, since before Colorado became Colorado. We have a Statewide Water Plan in Colorado, for crying out loud. Water policy in Colorado is extremely complicated, as this briefing document from the State of Colorado outlines, so candidates can be forgiven for not knowing all of the details. But not knowing that water is a big issue in general is a flabbergasting acknowledgment from a serious gubernatorial candidate.

This bizarre admission is a terrible look for Brauchler — and no doubt something that will haunt him in the months to come. It is an inexcusable mistake that Brauchler was not better-briefed before he grabbed the microphone in Grand Junction.

If you’re not familiar with Colorado water issues, you probably shouldn’t show up at a “Club 20” event. For that matter, if you’re not familiar with water issues, you probably shouldn’t be running for governor of Colorado.

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33 thoughts on “Brauchler Surprised that “Water is a Huge Issue” in Colorado”

    1. Musings on Brocolli??? . . . 

      . . . I suppose it's our fault, though, if Colorado allowed for the death-penalty by drowning, this tool might be slightly less ignorant about water issues???

  5. What? they care on the West Slope about all the water we take  on the East Slope?

    And the question might come up as I stump for statewide office at the Club 20 meeting, chatting with water buffalos? 

    Never crossed my mind. 

    Western Slope water in good hands with GB… 

    C'mon Tom, you know you want to… 

     

  9. So then, to sum up, this Brauchler fellow, according to his campaign website, has been practicing law in Colorado for two decades, yet:

    1. Doesn't know that Colorado has something called Water Courts, and/or

    2. Doesn't have the mental wattage to surmise that the existence of courts created exclusively to adjudicate water rights means that water is kind of a big deal here.

    1. It sounds like he's never visited the Colorado Supreme Court library, either. There's a whole room just for water law. Bet he doesn't know the difference between whisky and water here, either.

  11. Because this blog is smarter than all the experts and knows everything. You'd never need to brush up on a single issue to be governor. That's why you NEVER make mistakes, right? Silly hypocrites!

    1. If he wants part of the GOP base on the western slope he probably does.  How big a rock was Broccoli under the last 15 years?

       

      Moldy you seem to need some water. 

    2. It wasn't a "mistake," Cochise. He was either lying about not knowing that "water is a huge issue," or he somehow managed to practice law in this state for over twenty years without knowing about even the existence of the water court system, in which case he's dumb-as-dog-shit oblivious. Either way, brohammer is singularly unqualified to run the executive branch of state government.

    3. He went to law school in Colorado, Moddy.  He has to be an absolute idiot to get out of law school in Colorado and not know of the importance of water and water rights in this state.  Then again, he's proven himself to be an absolute idiot

       

    4. Look, he only wants to be chief executive for the state that is headwaters of several of America's major river systems, responsible for watering tens and tens of millions of people, the western side being the headwaters of the Colorado River, subject to a nearly 100-year-old multi-state, bi-national agreement over-allocated in a drying climate…but yeah, he just needs to brush up on some of those tangential issues. 

    2. Do you realize that you say this exact thing about basically everything? I could write these for you.

      "I'm no fan of [Republican person or policy] but this [critic/story/blog] is [condescending statement]."

      It's lame AF. Update your routine, okay?

      1. Since the Passionate Prune left us, Elliot is what passes as diversity of opinion on this site. 

        Moderatus is a mindless shill. As you point out, Bullshit, Elliot is headed in that direction but hasn't reached the Moderatus Stage of brain dead. Yet.

  14. Not only did he not learn about water in law school or his 20 years of lawyering since then. He's overlooked reports and an official state plan on water. He apparently didn't connect the dots to a previous disaster of a campaign faux pas on a water policy paper. And, perhaps most insulting, he didn't look at any coverage of earlier “Club 20” events — iirc, most of them include pretty substantial mention of whatever the water issue of the year is (plus repetitious criticism of the Front Range stealing water and the United States over-regulating and not doing enough to keep water in Colorado).

  15. For all of you who expressed your knowledge of and concerns about water in Colorado and water knowledge in Colorado's leadership, check out my campaign for the Colorado House of Representatives. I have a 17-year background in water litigation, with the last ten years focused on restoring flows to Colorado's depleted rivers.  https://www.facebook.com/BeatieForCO/

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