January 13, 2014 12:32 PM UTC

Progressives Celebrate Mike Coffman, Colorado's Longest-Serving Career Politician

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• by: ProgressNow Colorado

Today, ProgressNow Colorado, the state’s largest online progressive advocacy organization, celebrated Mike Coffman’s 25 years as a career politician with a cake to share with the Colorado Capitol press corps and local elected officials.

“There is no politician in office today in the state of Colorado who has been on the public dole longer than Mike Coffman,” said ProgressNow Colorado executive director Amy Runyon-Harms. “When Coffman says he knows how the ‘system’ works, he means it–because no one in our state is more of a creature of the political system than Coffman is.”

In honor of Coffman’s 25 years in office as an elected politician, here are just a few of the highlights from his long, long career:

1989: Mike Coffman first elected to the Colorado House of Representatives. Bobby Brown, Poison, and Milli Vanilli top the Billboard charts.

1990: Coffman has a state lien filed against him for failing to pay his taxes. Tax lien not satisfied until two years later.  [Notice of Lien for State Taxes, Arapahoe County Clerk, 5/31/90]  [Release of Lien, Arapahoe County Clerk, 2/14/92]

1992: Coffman supports Obamacare-like ideas such as a ban on pre-existing conditions and an employer mandate for healthcare as part of the GOP’s alternative to “Hillarycare.” [Colorado House Bill 93-1922]

1995: Coffman sponsors a bill to stop sending disability checks to recipients suffering from drug addiction or alcoholism. [Colorado Senate Bill 95-063]

1998: Now a state senator, Coffman sponsors a resolution praising a controversial men-only Christian group, Promise Keepers, which was quickly voted down with help from fellow Republican women. [Denver Post, 4/30/98]

2004: The Colorado Supreme Court upheld a lower court ruling that Coffman had misused public resources campaigning against a 2000 school finance ballot initiative and violated the Fair Campaign Practices Act. [Colorado Media Matters, 10/23/06]

2007: As Secretary of State, a major controversy erupts when a high-level elections official in Coffman’s office is caught running a “voter data” business on the side. [Denver Post, 5/9/07]

2008: Now a candidate for Congress, Coffman clarifies to a radio host that he is an ardent supporter of the Personhood amendment, opposing abortion "in all cases of rape and incest." [Denver Post, 10/11/12]

2008: Secretary of State Coffman illegally purges thousands of voters from the rolls just before the elections, eventually agreeing to allow those voters to cast ballots after being sued in federal court. [New York Times, 10/30/08]

2011: Now a member of Congress, Coffman joins with Rep. Todd “Legitimate Rape” Akin to sponsor the No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act, H.R. 3, which attempted to redefine the crime of rape to restrict coverage for abortions for rape victims. [Library of Congress records]

2011: As a backer of extremist Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry, Coffman agrees that Social Security is a “Ponzi scheme.” [POLITICO, 9/20/11]

2012: Speaking at an Elbert County GOP fundraiser, Coffman asserts that President Barack Obama is “just not an American.” [9NEWS, 5/16/12]

2013: Coffman joins fellow Colorado Republicans in voting against relief for victims of Hurricane Sandy, only to be denounced as hypocrites by fellow Republicans in New York and New Jersey when massive floods strike Colorado later that year. [New York Daily News, 10/1/13]

2013: Coffman votes to shut down the federal government. Later claims that Coffman is working to end the highly unpopular shutdown prove false. [Denver Post, 10/9/13]

“For over 25 years, Mike Coffman has been a role model for aspiring career politicians in Colorado by saying and doing whatever it takes to stay in office,” said Runyon-Harms. “Unfortunately for Congressman Coffman, his long political career is about to end. Coffman’s decades of far right extremism, corruption, and most recently his desperate pandering to the voters are finally catching up with him. The voters in Coffman’s district will soon decide that 25 years is enough.”