[ad_1]
If years earned grades, 2023 might get an incomplete.
Punctuated by a slew of off-year elections — congressional, municipal, party leadership and statewide — Colorado’s political news was marked by interim steps, open-ended solutions and plenty of unfinished business.
The year also saw fresh starts and new beginnings as more than a few pages turned, setting the stage for what promises to be a barnburner of a 2024 presidential election.
In roughly chronological order, here are 10 stories that defined a decidedly off-kilter political year.
House Republicans finally elect a speaker
After winning a narrow majority in last year’s election, House Republicans headed to Washington prepared to hit the ground running — and promptly stalled.
It took a historic 15 roll call votes for GOP lawmakers to elect Kevin McCarthy as speaker, foreshadowing difficulties the California Republican would encounter trying to run the chamber.
Among McCarthy’s chief skeptics, Colorado’s Lauren Boebert voted for rival speaker candidates more than a dozen times over four days before the Silt Republican helped elect him by switching her vote to “present” — but not until reportedly extracting massive concessions in exchange for the gavel.
Those concessions included the seeds of McCarthy’s eventual ouster in October, when eight Republicans — including U.S. Rep. Ken Buck of Windsor — voted along with every Democrat to fire the speaker, setting off more turmoil.
“I want to get to work, too,” Boebert said before McCarthy clinched the deal in January, in a speech nominating another Republican for the top job. “Americans are tired of rhetoric and they want results.”
U.S. Rep. Joe Neguse, the fifth-ranking Democrat in House leadership, took a more critical view in a speech placing the name of his party’s leader, Hakeem Jeffries of New York, into nomination for speaker.
“The last several days have been difficult for the country and for the American people as they have watched what has unfolded in this chamber, as they have seen the dysfunction laid bare on the other side of the aisle,” said Neguse, a Lafayette Democrat.
Colorado GOP picks new leadership
Following years of complaints that they lacked a voice in the state party, grassroots Republicans took control of the Colorado GOP in its biennial leadership election in March.
Dave Williams, a former state representative and failed congressional candidate, won the party’s chairmanship in a crowded field that included former Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters and political newcomer Erik Aadland, who also lost a congressional race last year.
On the heels of a seeping defeat by Democrats in 2022 — the state GOP’s third straight trouncing in a general election, leaving Republicans without any statewide offices and historically tiny minorities in the legislature — Williams pledged to lead a more aggressive and unapologetic party.
Blaming the GOP’s losses on “feckless leaders who are ashamed of you and ashamed of our principles,” Williams said he intended to paint in “bold colors, not pastels.”
Under Williams, the party has sued to overturn the state’s voter-approved semi-open primary system, which allows unaffiliated voters to cast ballots in Democratic or Republican primaries. In a related move, the party fell short in its efforts to cancel the 2024 GOP primary, arguing that only Republicans should be able to pick the party’s nominees.
Additionally, the state GOP has repeatedly rained down criticism on the state’s few remaining Republican officials, including Buck, who chaired the state party from 2019 to 2021, and U.S. Rep. Doug Lamborn, the Colorado Springs lawmaker who fended off a challenge from Williams in last year’s primary.
Fox News settles with Dominon over false claims
In a case with widespread implications, Fox News agreed in April to pay Colorado-based Dominion Voting Systems nearly $800 million, settling a lawsuit over the company’s allegations that the network knowingly promoted false claims about the 2020 presidential election.
The stunning settlement came on the eve of a trial in Delaware, where Dominion was prepared to argue that the news outlet damaged its reputation by airing lies promulgated by former President Donald Trump and his allies, including that its voting equipment switched votes, throwing the election to Democrat Joe Biden.
According to internal Fox documents released by Dominion, the news organization’s executives and talent admitted that Trump’s claims were untrue but continued to air them anyway.
“The truth matters,” Dominion lawyer Justin Nelson told the Associated Press outside the courthouse. “Lies have consequences.”
Multiple defamation lawsuits brought by Dominion against conservative operatives, influencers and news outlets are pending.
Colorado Springs elects Yemi Mobolade as mayor
The state’s second-largest city elected a political newcomer and unaffiliated candidate as mayor in May, ending a decades-long run of GOP mayors in heavily Republican Colorado Springs.
Yemi Mobolade, a nonprofit leader, business owner and pastor, became the city’s first elected Black mayor by defeating City Councilman Wayne Williams, a Republican former secretary of state and county commissioner, in a runoff by a wide margin.
The Nigerian immigrant took over from term-limited Mayor John Suthers, a former Colorado attorney general, after winning support across the political spectrum — including from members of a sharply divided GOP.
Williams, who took flack throughout the campaign from fellow Republicans for some of his bipartisan gestures, congratulated his victorious rival and vowed to work with Mobolade going forward.
Mike Johnston wins runoff in Denver mayoral race
Denver voters elected Mike Johnston as the city’s 46th mayor in June, handing the Democratic former state senator, school principal and philanthropic chief the keys amid widespread concerns over housing, homelessness and crime.
Long considered a rising star, the 48-year-old emerged from a record-setting 16-candidate field to defeated former Metro Denver Chamber of Commerce CEO Kelly Brough, a fellow Democrat, in the runoff.
“Denver has always been a city that dreamed that we can find a way when nobody else believed that we could,” Johnston told a packed Union Station after the race was declared. “And that believed it was our opportunity not to be the victims of our own story, but to be the authors of our own story. So, tonight, we started a chapter about a city that is going to be big enough to care for all of us, to support all of us, to house all of us. That is our dream of Denver.”
As Johnston’s administration attempts to fulfill his pledge to provide housing — if only temporarily — to 1,000 homeless residents by year’s end, Denver has also been confronted with thousands of immigrants, increasing costs and straining available shelters.
Space Command headquarters lands in Colorado
In the year’s rare conclusive political news, the Biden administration announced in July that Colorado would be the permanent home of Space Command, ending years of limbo.
The verdict reversed a last-minute decision made by Trump in the waning days of his administration to relocate the military’s newest command from its temporary headquarters in Colorado Springs to Huntsville, Alabama.
Led by Lamborn and the state’s two U.S. senators, Democrats Michael Bennet and John Hickenlooper, state officials and organizations urged Biden to reconsider the move, suggesting that Trump made the ruling purely for political reasons. In the end, the Air Force sided with arguments made by Colorado advocates that uprooting Space Command would be costly, take too long and endanger national security.
Separate from the military’s Space Force branch, the command, which supports the Pentagon’s myriad operations in space, announced in December that it had reached full operational capability
“Our entire state fought to keep Space Command in Colorado so we could achieve full operating capability as quickly as humanly possible!” Hickenlooper said, reacting to the news. “The dedication of the service members and civilians at USSPACECOM made it happen and our country and the world will be safer for it.”
Lamborn also weighed in.
“This achievement continues to show that Colorado Springs is the right location for USSPACECOM for our nation’s readiness,” he said.
Lauren Boebert ejected from Beetlejuice performance
Boebert cemented her status as the state’s most prominent Republican politician in September when she generated international headlines for weeks after being escorted by security from a performance of “Beetlejuice: The Musical” in Denver for “causing a disturbance.”
Although the lawmaker initially shrugged it off — admitting only to snapping a photo with her cell phone and “laughing and singing too loud!” — Boebert later issued an apology after surveillance video obtained by 9News showed her vaping during the performance and wagging her finger at theater staff on the way out.
Additional footage showed Boebert and her date — the co-owner of a bar in Aspen — groping each other, spawning further criticism, and The Denver Post reported that Boebert had refused to stop vaping when asked by a pregnant woman who was seated behind her.
When late night comedians returned to the air in October, following resolution of the Hollywood writers’ strike, Boebert’s antics proved irresistible fodder. Not only did Saturday Night Live lampoon the lawmaker in its Oct. 21 show, but CBS’s Stephen Colbert deadpanned on The Late Show that Boebert was “yanking her date’s crank at a family-friendly show,” and “trying to start him like a lawnmower.”
Closer to home, several of the Republican elected officials who endorsed Jeff Hurd, the leading Republican challenging Boebert before she switched districts, cited the incident as a reason to abandon the incumbent.
Ken Buck declines to seek reelection
Weeks after insisting that he was indeed running for a sixth term, Republican U.S. Rep. Ken Buck announced in early November that he wasn’t.
Panning the GOP for abandoning conservative principles for “self-serving lies,” Buck said he’d had enough of Congress, where, he warned, “tough votes are being replaced by social media status.”
Once considered among the Colorado GOP’s most rock-ribbed stalwarts, the former state party chairman was already facing a handful of primary challengers in the heavily Republican, Douglas County-based 4th Congressional District, which includes parts of Larimer and Weld counties and most of the Eastern Plains.
“Too many Republican leaders are lying to America, claiming that the 2020 election was stolen, describing Jan. 6 as an unguided tour of the Capitol and asserting that the ensuing prosecutions are a weaponization of our justice system,” the former federal and state prosecutor said in his announcement. “These insidious narratives breed widespread cynicism and erode Americans confidence in the rule of law.”
The news followed a recent New York Post story that said Buck’s regular appearances on cable news channels this year pointed to his imminent departure from Congress. Other signs included Buck’s repeated breaks from the GOP’s party line, questioning everything from House Republicans’ enthusiasm for impeaching President Biden to knocking Trump and other Republicans for continuing to insist that the 2020 election was rigged.
By mid-December, at least eight Republican candidates had either declared or were actively considering runs for the seat, including House Minority Leader Mike Lynch, former state Sens. Jerry Sonnenberg and Ted Harvey, state Rep. Richard Holtorf, former talk radio host Deborah Flora and former Fort Collins City Councilman Gino Campana, with others in the wings.
Voters reject Democrats’ property tax ballot measure
With Coloradans facing soaring residential property tax increases in 2024 on the heels of an exploding housing market, voters in November resoundingly rejected Proposition HH, the statewide ballot question crafted by statehouse Democrats to soften the blow.
The complicated measure would have paid for lower property taxes by reducing future Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights refunds, or TABOR, while at the same time redirecting money to rental assistance and K-12 education, among numerous other provisions.
Described by supporters as a “nuanced, balanced policy,” the measure went down hard — losing by just under 20 points — following steady attacks from opponents who focused on its impact on TABOR refunds, suggesting that state voters are still open to hearing arguments from the out-of-power party when it comes to pocketbook issues.
Democratic Gov. Jared Polis, who championed the failed referendum, called a special legislative session in the wake of its defeat. Wielding their supermajority, Democrats passed a bill that duplicated some elements of HH, including equalizing TABOR refunds regardless of residents’ income, but taxpayers are still bracing for their bills, since the legislature can’t impose changes as sweeping or long-term as voters.
State releases wolves on Western Slope
Wildlife officers set off a firestorm highlighting tensions between rural and urban Colorado in late December when they released 10 gray wolves in the state, kicking off the voter-approved reintroduction of the predators.
Imported from Oregon, the wolves have drawn howls of protest from ranchers, who failed to block the program in federal court just days before it commenced. Colorado wildlife officials say they anticipate releasing five more wolves by late winter, with an ultimate goal of introducing 30 to 50 over the next five years.
In 2020, Colorado voters approved a ballot measure authorizing the program, which is meant to fill one of the last remaining major gaps in the Western U.S., where the species once ranged from north of the Canadian border to the desert southwest. While city and suburban residents favored the measure, rural voters — including residents of the Western Slope counties where the wolves are expected to roam — balked at it.
[ad_2]
Source link
