February 26, 2025 03:04 PM UTC

Colorado GOP Speaks Ill Of Likely Gubernatorial Candidate, Recently Departed Colleague

• 0 Comments
• by: Colorado Pols

We’ve written a couple of times since the start of the legislative session in January about the branding initiative from the GOP minority in the Colorado General Assembly around a package of dead-on-arrival bills that would supposedly “save Coloradans $4,500” through a variety of means, including construction deregulation and the repeal of various fees passed as TABOR workarounds in recent years. The latter included a call to repeal fees for important functions like background checks for childcare workers and combating invasive species, which like the federal Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) rampage through the federal government workforce doesn’t sound as promising once the consequences are fully apparent.

It’s a campaign that the House GOP minority has nonetheless kept up throughout the month of February, highlighting legislation passed in recent years they say is the product of the Democratic majority’s “disregard” for the increasing cost of living and doing business in the state. But in doing so, on at least two recent occasions their attacks have amounted to, as they refer to it in the Army, friendly fire:

“Dems increasing your baby bills” is a good soundbite, but is it an accurate description of what happened in 2018 with the passage of House Bill 18-1006? Considering the bill had Republican primary sponsors in the House and the Senate and passed the Senate by a vote of 34-0, the answer is obviously no. Both Republicans and Democrats decided together that screening all babies born in the state for hearing problems was worth $4 per baby.

But our second example from the Colorado House GOP of “Democrats increasing your bills” could be a much bigger political headache for them in the long term:

Here we have another bill being laid entirely at the feet of Colorado Democrats, but just like the bill above for newborn hearing screenings, Senate Bill 23-240 had Republican prime sponsors in the House and Senate that passed the Senate near-unanimously. This is a bill shoring up the state’s dairy protection cash fund to fund sampling and testing of dairy products, which for those of us who don’t want coffee with e. coli in our creamer sounds acceptable.

Just like it did to the bill’s Republican House and Senate sponsors:

In one misguided Tweet/X, the Colorado GOP House minority took a swipe at one of their own former members who recently passed away, Rep. Rod Bockenfeld, as well as a likely though as-yet unannounced candidate for governor, Sen. Barb Kirkmeyer. It’s worth noting that one of Kirkmeyer’s expected Republican primary opponents is Rep. Scott “There Is No” Bottoms of Colorado Springs, and it’s reasonable to speculate whether House GOP comms staff were okay with some collateral damage.

Either way, it’s deceptive in the extreme to call either of these bills “Democratic bills”–and in at least one case, disrespectful to a recently deceased former Republican lawmaker.

If there aren’t better ways to make your case than this kind of sloppy dishonesty, it’s time to try something else.