September 16, 2016 01:28 PM UTC

Conservationists Launch Big Campaign Against Laura Woods

• 3 Comments
• by: Colorado Pols

Remember last weekend when we noted with no small amount of surprise a new ad campaign from far-right GOP Sen. Laura Waters Woods of Arvada, in which she claimed with (literally) no factual basis that she has “consistently supported public lands?”

It looks like that was a bigger mistake than even we imagined. A press release from Conservation Colorado today:

Conservation Colorado, the state’s largest environmental organization, today announced that it will be making an investment of hundreds of thousands of dollars in Jefferson County’s Senate District 19 to educate voters about incumbent Senator Laura Woods’ dismal record on protecting Colorado’s open spaces, public lands, and way of life before they cast their votes this fall. The campaign spending will come in the form of mailers, digital ads, and canvassers.

Pete Maysmith, Executive Director of Conservation Colorado, stated:

“When it comes to protecting our open spaces and landscapes, Laura Woods is flat out wrong. She is trying to convince voters that she supports protecting our public lands. But the reality is that she has repeatedly thrown her weight behind Cliven Bundy-style efforts to turn our lands over to private interests, which could make it easier for them to be split up and sold off to out-of-state oil companies. Woods is not being straight with her constituents; her voting record is out of touch with our values as people who enjoy all that our amazing state has to offer. Former Senator Rachel Zenzinger, on the other hand, understands that the outdoors are part of our Colorado way of life and must be protected for future generations. Zenzinger will once again represent the citizens of Arvada and Jefferson County well in the state Senate in 2017.”

John Gale, a hunter and angler from SD-19, echoed:

“Sportsmen and women in Colorado know that our wild public lands and waters support the most robust populations of fish and wildlife we have. They provide quality access to every American for hunting and fishing and other recreational opportunities. But Laura Woods has let hunters and anglers in our district down by aligning with special interests operating on the fringes of popular opinion to comprise our outdoor heritage and take away western traditions like hunting and fishing that mean so much to our families. I urge sportsmen and women to cast their vote for someone who supports their values– and that person is not Laura Woods.”

Woods recently has been scrambling to defend herself on public lands by paying to promote ads on social media touting her “solid” voting record on the issue, despite offering absolutely no proof for her claims. In fact, she has voted the wrong way on every single bill that would protect public lands that Conservation Colorado has scored in its annual scorecard since she has been in office (for reference, here are the 2016 and 2015 scorecards).

Hunters, hikers, families, and everyone in SD-19 who enjoys the outdoors deserve to know what, exactly, Woods believes is her “solid” record on protecting our lands when all of the evidence points to the contrary.

As the state’s most competitive state senate race, SD-19 was always going to get a lot of attention from both sides. With that said, Woods did herself no favors by trying to claim without even an attempt to factually demonstrate that she is a supporter of public lands. If anything, Woods’ far-out right wing politics put her much closer to the Cliven Bundy “sagebrush rebel” side of the public lands debate: that is, so far from the position of true conservationists it’s simply laughable.

Or it should be. As it stands now, conservationists will have to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars just to set the record straight with the voters in Sen. Woods’ district. And that’s no laughing matter. If there’s an upside, it’s that Woods has given conservationists a wealth of material to work with.

And enough to be highly motivated to see her defeated.