June 18, 2019 10:40 AM UTC

GOP Activist Arrested For Brandishing Gun Has 2020 Statehouse Campaign Committee

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• by: Erik Maulbetsch

(Yikes! – Promoted by Colorado Pols)

UPDATE: Calef eventually returned the Colorado Times Recorder’s phone call. She informed the CTR that she does not intend to run again in 2020 and that she simply hadn’t figured out how to close out her campaign committee via the Secretary of State’s website. She had no further comment on the arrest and directed inquiries to her attorneys. 

Colorado state troopers arrested Colorado Springs GOP activist and current 4th Judicial Review Commissioner Kanda Calef, for allegedly flashing a handgun at a federal agent last week.

Calef, who lost the 2018 Republican primary to Rep. Shane Sandridge, (R-Colorado Springs), apparently intends to challenge him for that same seat next year. Calef has an active 2020 candidate committee for the same seat.

Calef did not answer a call to confirm her 2020 candidacy. Her voicemail box was full. Her committee, however, has already filed quarterly campaign finance reports for the first and second quarters of 2019.

According to the Colorado Springs Gazette’s Conrad Swanson, Calef was arrested on April 10, after brandishing a Smith & Wesson .38 Special revolver at an off-duty U.S. marshal while driving on I-25.

The marshal said Calef “did not point the gun directly at him, but flashed it in a way to ensure he could see it,” the affidavit says. It did not elaborate why Calef allegedly brandished the gun. The affidavit gives this account: The responding trooper caught up with Calef about 12 miles north on the interstate. She accelerated to about 90 mph and changed lanes multiple times. –“Republican activist and former Colorado candidate accused of flashing revolver at U.S. marshal,” Conrad Swanson, Colorado Springs Gazette, June 17, 2019  

Prior to her 2018 statehouse run, Calef served as a local precinct captain and as a member of the El Paso County Republican Party executive committee. She made headlines in 2016 as a Trump supporter who, angered by Republican Darryl Glenn’s denouncement of Trump’s bragging about sexual assault, switched her U.S. Senate support to Libertarian Lily Tang Williams.

Senate Minority Leader Chris Holbert appointed Calef to the 4th District Judicial Performance Commission on March 1 of this year. According to the Office of Judicial Performance Evaluation, commissioners are responsible for “reviewing the results of judicial performance surveys, reading opinions and decisions authored by the judges they are evaluating… conducting courtroom observations,” and ultimately [deciding] whether or not judges ‘meet performance standards’ or not.” This year was the first year the House and Senate Minority Leaders had the authority to appoint one (non-attorney) member to each of the district commissions.