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November 08, 2018 09:42 AM UTC

Learning Nothing: Boy Neville Stays House Minority Leader

  • 14 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols

For any Republican hoping that Tuesday night’s historic electoral bloodbath for their party in Colorado, in which Republicans lost their last remaining chokehold on Colorado government as well as constitutional statewide offices they have held for many years, would result in a significant change of course–we’re sorry to bring you this news.

House Minority Leader Patrick Neville (R).

That’s right–with Republicans facing what could be their smallest minority in the Colorado House since Democrats “Blueprinted” the state in 2004 once three outstanding races narrowly favoring Democrats are resolved, House Republicans have re-elected Rep. Patrick “Boy” Neville as their Minority Leader. Along with his father, now-ousted Sen. Tim “Pa” Neville, the Neville clan has exercised disproportionate control over Republican caucuses in both the Senate and the House. In the Senate, nominal Republican Senate leadership found itself dependent on the “Neville faction” to move legislation–and when they were intractable, no progress could be made.

With the re-election of Patrick Neville as House Minority Leader, all the baggage Republicans brought with them into the 2018 elections, from covering for serial sexual harassers to non-mainstream positions on abortion, guns, vaccination of school-age children, and so many other issues will be front-and-center when the General Assembly convenes this January.

As Ed Sealover reports, avoiding “an intraparty fight” was the objective for House Republicans today. The problem is, an intraparty fight is exactly what Colorado Republicans need to have right now if they wish to alter their present trajectory toward permanent minority status.

As of now, it doesn’t look like they do.

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14 thoughts on “Learning Nothing: Boy Neville Stays House Minority Leader”

  3. Pols is being just a little dramatic in talking about Republicans headed towards permanent minority status. I recall the 2013 session where the Dems overreached big time with the gun laws, thus awakening the Dudster and his RMGO. I recall pickups full of red necks driving around the Capitol waving flags, banners, and blowing horns. Result was recall of two Dem senators and a third resigning to avoid a recall.

    My point: Dems overreached then. Even money on the hard left overruling common sense again and doing something more to wake up those sleeping R dogs.

      1. What do you propose, Mike W., short of confiscation?

        The "red flag" bill in the session earlier this year was a good idea, and not really that big of a step. Yet, Rep. Cole Wist, one of the R leaders in the House, was apparently purged for his support of that common sense bill ("purge" = a Dem won because some Rs stayed home).

        1. Aren't you just proving my point here? One Republican signs onto something we both agree would be common sense, and the Republican party disowns him and sends him packing. Had he proposed a giant golden statue of their god-king funded entirely on re-appropriated food-stamp funds he would've easily met his 2016 vote tally. 

          Yes, if there were fewer guns in this country it would unfuckingdoubtedly reduce the gun-homicide rate, but confiscation would get thousands of people killed because of how many soulless scumbags value their toys more than the lives of others. The whole point is stopping people from dying needlessly.

          The fact its a Republican talking point every time a Democrat brings up gun control sickens me to my fucking core, and last I checked it was Putin's boy toy who said: "take the guns, then do due process." So maybe you should refuckingconsider exactly which political party is going to go around unconstitutionally disarming the general populace. 

          *I had to edit this many, many times to make it seem like I’m not trying to redirect my rage at you, and to make sure I wasn’t insulting you. You conduct yourself admirably around here and you don’t deserve that. Sorry if it still seems like I’m coming off that way.

    3. I'm not certain what would qualify as a "permanent" minority status …

      But David Flaherty, of Magellan Strategies, said in a tweet about 2018 turnout:

      Colorado voter turnout by party. We basically had presidential turnout yesterday for mid-term election. #copolitics What do you think 2020 is going to look like when 800K more voters participate? 36% Dem / 36% unaf / 28% Rep?

      Ryan Winger, another Magellan Strategies person, summarized the election turnout this way:

      As of this morning there were 2,518,809 ballots returned, an increase of nearly 450,000 over our last midterm election in 2014, which was a mixed bag election for Republicans. To understand why last night was not a mixed bag and was, no matter how you splice it, a blue wave, here are the key observations:

      • 803,143 Republicans voted, an increase of only 28,000 over Republican turnout in 2014, which left Republicans at just 32% of statewide turnout. To understand why I say “only” and “just”, see below…
      • 822,230 Democrats voted, a significant increase – nearly 158,000 statewide – over 2014 that showed up even in Republican strongholds like El Paso (15,000 more Democrat voters) and Douglas (nearly 10,000 more). In Arapahoe and Jefferson Counties, the combined increase was nearly 40,000 more Democrats, enough to flip some Republican held State House seats and put some other races that were previously considered competitive out of reach.
      • The clear story of the cycle is the Unaffiliated voter. A huge total of 893,436 Unaffiliated (or other party) voters turned out, which was an increase of 259,000 over their 2014 turnout. For just some hint as to how they voted, we know that 274,220 (nearly 1/3) also voted in our June primaries, and 62.5% voted in the Democratic Primary compared to 37.5% in the Republican Primary. If those are close to where they broke in the General, it goes a long way toward explaining why Republicans had a brutal night.

  6. They will look at it this way:  they cleared the deck of squishy moderates (i.e., Cole the Mole) and will now have a more ideologically-pure caucus which will not have to pander to unaffiliates in swing districts like HD 27 and 37.

    And just for good measure, they elected that nut case Lori Saine their caucus chair: expect fertilized egg, religious bigotry, anti-labor and anti-environmental protection bills to be introduced only to die in the state affairs committee. And perhaps another musical tribute to Bill Armstrong and Jesus from the "Have Gun, Will Try to Fly" Saine.

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