Colorado: Colorado's Polis faces feisty challenge in bid for 2nd term
Colorado’s Democratic governor, Jared Polis, has had to fend off spirited attacks by his Republican challenger, Heidi Ganahl, in his quest for a second term in Tuesday’s election.
By News Channel Nebraska
By JAMES ANDERSON
Associated Press
DENVER (AP) — In his campaign for a second term as Colorado’s governor, Democrat Jared Polis has had to fend off attacks by GOP challenger Heidi Ganahl on his pandemic record, surging crime and the fentanyl crisis -- topics that dominated clashes between the two in multiple forums and debates leading up to Tuesday’s midterm election.
Ganahl, who is trying to become Colorado’s first Republican governor since 2007, campaigned on the slogan “#MadMom” and tried painting an ominous portrait of the state. Polis countered by calling himself a “happy dad" of two kids who he is raising in what he called “the best state of all the states.”
Polis, a wealthy tech entrepreneur who’s largely self-funded his campaign, insists Colorado quickly emerged from the coronavirus shutdown poised for strong economic growth. He’s championed first-term successes in health care affordability, fully-funded kindergarten and preschool, and vows to continue his relentless pursuit to move Colorado’s electrical grid to renewable energy by 2040.
But Polis had to bolster those campaign points by highlighting his administration’s efforts to ease inflation’s burdens on Colorado families and address rampant car theft and other crimes that have soared in U.S. cities after the pandemic. He also came under withering criticism from Ganahl for opioid overdose rates that are taking their toll on Colorado’s children.
Polis countered by criticizing Ganahl for appointing a running mate who has claimed that Joe Biden was not legitimately elected president in 2020.
Ganahl, herself a business entrepreneur who as a University of Colorado regent is the only Republican statewide elected official, faced an uphill battle in a state that’s trended blue over the past decade thanks to an influx of college-educated residents in a growing metropolitan area where Democrats hold sway.
Seizing Republican campaign themes used across the country, Ganahl sought to hold Polis responsible for annual inflation surpassing 8%. She blamed Polis and fellow Democrats who control the Legislature for easing criminal penalties in laws signed before and after protests against George Floyd’s killing and racial injustice rocked Denver and other cities. A law signed this year leaving possession of one gram or less of deadly fentanyl a misdemeanor provided an easy opening for Ganahl’s attacks.
Ganahl said she’d eliminate Colorado’s income tax and cut state bureaucracy that’s grown under Polis. While Polis signed a new law codifying the right to abortion and vowed to protect non-Colorado residents seeking reproductive health care in the state, Ganahl, who opposes late-term abortions, vowed to put the issue to voters -- despite the failure of several ballot measures to restrict or ban abortion in recent years.
Ganahl described herself as a “mom on a mission,” and later as a “mad mom,” often citing the pain of parents who’d lost their kids to drug overdoses or who are still struggling with the loss of learning and social isolation wrought by pandemic school closures. Advocating school choice, she insisted parents are shut out of what their kids were learning in the classroom.
But she ran into trouble by repeatedly citing a hoax, echoed by other Republican candidates, that schoolkids were dressing up as cats in the classroom as an expression of the trauma inflicted during the pandemic. Colorado news outlets repeatedly discredited the claims.
After much prodding from the media, Ganahl belatedly acknowledged that Democrat Joe Biden won the presidential election. And she selected an election denier, Danny Moore, as her running mate, a choice celebrated by many Colorado Republicans. Both insisted in the late stages of the campaign that they each recognize Biden as the U.S. president.
Polis countered Ganahl’s dark casting of Colorado in crisis by ridiculing her references to “furries” in schools and blamed inflation on global factors such as supply chain and energy market disruptions.
He insisted first-term oil and gas industry regulations prioritizing public safety over production in Colorado hadn’t hamstringed the state’s multibillion-dollar industry, as Ganahl claimed. Lower in-state production reflects global markets, he argued.
Colorado’s Griswold, Anderson vie for secretary of state
By COLLEEN SLEVIN
Associated Press
DENVER (AP) — Colorado’s Democratic secretary of state, Jena Griswold, who has tangled with a local official charged with allowing unauthorized access to voting equipment, is seeking a second term against Republican Pam Anderson, a former county clerk, in the race to become the state’s top elections official.
While some Republicans trying to unseat secretaries of states elsewhere claim the 2020 presidential election was marred by fraud, Anderson believes Colorado’s largely vote-by-mail voting process, which she worked to expand, is secure, and she has a lot in common with Griswold when it comes to how elections should be run.
However, Anderson, the former head of the state’s clerks association, has accused Griswold of being too partisan, potentially alienating voters at a time when how U.S. elections are conducted are subject to skepticism. Anderson also suggested Griswold’s focus on politics has distracted her from overseeing the office.
Griswold is a vocal advocate for voting access and a frequent guest on cable news shows. In an October debate, she said her positions on issues including voting and abortion rights were not partisan but about standing up for fundamental rights.
In 2019, after Alabama passed a restrictive abortion law, Griswold said she would not pay to send employees for training at a national election center there and called on others to boycott the state.
Last year, Griswold worked to block Tina Peters, the Mesa County clerk charged with allegedly allowing outsiders to break into her election system, from overseeing elections there. She also went to court to get another clerk, Dallas Schroeder, in Elbert County, to turn over copies of election system hard drives.
Anderson defeated Peters in the Republican primary to challenge Griswold. She supported Griswold’s response to Peters but faulted Griswold for using the case in fundraising pitches to her supporters while it was still being investigated.
Griswold criticized Anderson, a nonpartisan municipal clerk in the Denver suburb of Wheat Ridge before being elected Jefferson County clerk, for not denouncing fellow Republicans on the Colorado ballot who have cast doubt on the 2020 presidential election results.
Anderson insisted she has and would continue to speak out against any candidate who spreads election misinformation. She dismissed Griswold’s call as too political.
As secretary, Griswold backed legislation to make tampering with election equipment a felony and to increase the number of ballot drop-off boxes and in-person voting centers. She also implemented a program where voters can track their ballots, getting notifications of their status by phone, email or text.
This fall, Griswold’s office mistakenly sent postcards to about 30,000 noncitizens encouraging them to register to vote, blaming the error on a database glitch related to the state’s list of residents with driver’s licenses. Colorado is one of over a dozen states in which noncitizens are able to get driver’s licenses. The notices did say people must be U.S. citizens to register to vote.
Anderson was recently featured on the front of Time magazine in a story about elections officials working to protect democracy. As county clerk, she helped pass legislation that required clerks to perform audits of election results.
Anderson promised, if elected, to start a citizen academy to help people understand how elections are conducted and to become involved in the process.
Colorado’s Boebert seeks reelection; new district a toss-up
By JESSE BEDAYN and JAMES ANDERSON
Associated Press
DENVER (AP) — U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert’s bid for a second term and a toss-up race in a new congressional district highlight the Republican party’s bid in Colorado to equalize — or even reverse — Democrats’ current 4-3 edge in the state’s delegation to the lower chamber of Congress.
From the get-go, Boebert established herself as a national lightning rod in assailing what she calls “the Biden regime” and inflation, crime, dependency on foreign oil and U.S. border policies under President Joe Biden’s watch. Her prospects in the mostly rural, energy-rich 3rd Congressional District that’s bigger than Pennsylvania were boosted by redistricting that made the western and southern Colorado district more Republican.
Boebert’s challenger, conservative Democrat and former Aspen city councilman Adam Frisch, contends the Donald Trump-aligned Boebert has sacrificed her district’s interests for what he calls unrelenting and divisive “angertainment.” He points to Boebert’s rhetoric on social media and sympathetic news outlets that accuses Biden and Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of seeking to destroy the soul of the nation.
Frisch vows, if elected, to join the bipartisan “Problem Solvers Caucus” in Congress, a sharp turn from Boebert’s repudiation of across-the-aisle census building.
Colorado’s GOP also hopes to pick up another seat in the new 8th Congressional District, created by redistricting from the state’s population growth. State Sen. Barbara Kirkmeyer, a former Weld County commissioner, pledges to get tough on crime, unleash the district’s oil and gas industry and rein in government spending. She once supported a blanket ban on abortion but now says she’d respect exceptions if the mother’s life is in danger.
Kirkmeyer faces Democratic state Rep. Yadira Caraveo, a pediatrician and defender of abortion rights who voted for police accountability after the George Floyd protests. Caraveo hopes her cultural lineage as the child of Mexican immigrants will attract support in a swing district where Latinos comprise nearly 40% of voters. The district stretching north of Denver to include Greeley is a mix of rapid metro expansion and agriculture and sits on one of the nation’s top oil and natural gas producing fields.
Republican Erik Aadland, an oil and gas industry veteran, faces liberal state Sen. Brittany Pettersen in suburban Denver’s 7th district. The seat is being vacated by eight-term Democratic Rep. Ed Perlmutter. Aadland received backlash after a video leaked of him questioning the results of the 2020 presidential election.
Four-term Republican U.S. Rep. Ken Buck in eastern Colorado and eight-term Republican Rep. Doug Lamborn in El Paso County faced little opposition.
Among Democrats, Denver Rep. Diana Degette, seeking a 14th term, and Reps. Jason Crow and Joe Neguse were heavily favored.
Colorado’s Bennet looks to fend off O’Dea in US Senate race
By NICHOLAS RICCARDI
Associated Press
DENVER (AP) — First-time candidate Joe O’Dea is testing whether a Republican can win a U.S. Senate race in blue-trending Colorado by supporting some abortion rights and feuding with former President Donald Trump.
It’s a bet that highlights the difficult position the GOP finds itself in these midterms in Colorado, a former competitive state that has swung sharply left since 2016. Only two Republicans have won two statewide races since 2004 — Cory Gardner’s 2014 victory for a U.S. Senate seat that he lost six years later, and Heidi Ganahl winning a spot on the University of Colorado Board of Regents before launching her underdog challenge to Democratic Gov. Jared Polis this year.
O’Dea is running against Sen. Michael Bennet, a Democrat who won reelection twice before with his outspoken defense of abortion rights. Bennet is hoping to claim a third victory, hammering O’Dea for not supporting abortion rights enough. The Republican businessman has said he backed the landmark Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade that conservatives on the court overturned this summer. But he also says he supports the same justices who overturned Roe and supports a ban on abortions after the 20th week of pregnancy.
O’Dea voted for Trump twice but has said he’d prefer someone else as his party’s 2024 nominee, citing Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott and others. That led Trump to slam O’Dea on the former president’s social network, Truth Social. “MAGA doesn’t Vote for stupid people with big mouths,” Trump wrote after O’Dea called for a different nominee on CNN.
Some Republicans hope the feud with Trump helps O’Dea lure back onetime conservative voters who were disgusted by the former president — not a trivial number in Colorado, which Trump lost by 13 percentage points in 2020. But Republicans are a shrinking share of the Colorado electorate and O’Dea already has had challenges uniting them behind his candidacy. His primary rival, state Rep. Ron Hanks, has called for conservatives to vote for Libertarian Brian Peotter, calling him “the only conservative on the ballot.”
Still, Republicans think O’Dea has a shot, albeit a long one. The son of a police officer, he’s insisted that voters don’t care about social issues right now and that inflation and crime are the real concerns. He promises he’ll be a GOP version of Sen. Joe Manchin, the conservative West Virginia Democrat who frequently bucks his own party in Washington.
Bennet, in contrast, has slammed the GOP for working to undermine democracy and women’s rights. He rarely mentions O’Dea’s name on the trail but rallies voters against him by implication. He’s also been helped by having a significant financial edge over the Republican novice. Bennet raised about $20 million as of the end of last month, while O’Dea only had $6.5 million.
Both candidates have gotten some help from outside groups, but Washington Republicans have spent sparingly to back O’Dea — a sign to most political insiders that they feel the seat may be just out of reach for the GOP.
Colorado voters weigh sweeping affordable housing measure
By JESSE BEDAYN
Associated Press
/Report for America
DENVER (AP) — As Colorado has emerged as a center of the nationwide housing crisis, voters are considering whether to take high rents and mortgages into their own hands with a sweeping ballot measure that would direct an estimated $300 million a year to affordable housing projects by rewriting the state’s tax law.
Proposition 123 is the only statewide affordable housing initiative in the country to make the ballot for the 2022 election, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
If the measure passes, it will direct 0.1% of Colorado’s taxable income every year to a number of programs that include helping essential workers buy homes, offering eviction defense and providing funding for local governments to address their housing troubles as they see fit.
Proponents say the measure could build 170,000 homes and rental units over two decades in this rapidly growing state. The U.S. Census Bureau estimates Colorado’s current shortage at 225,000 homes; supporters say Proposition 123 could help make up that deficit while avoiding a tax hike.
But the measure would also eat into tax refunds guaranteed to residents under a constitutional amendment called the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights, or TABOR — which Coloradans tend to favor. The amendment caps the amount of money the government can spend annually and mandates refunds of any revenue surpassing that cap.
For the 2021 tax year, Coloradan taxpayers each received $750 checks. And under TABOR, any tax increase, be it local or statewide, must be approved by voters.
Many past measures that would have affected state refunds have failed. In 2019, a ballot measure that would have allowed the state to keep excess revenue to spend on education and public transportation was defeated by 53% of voters.
Despite that history, advocates of the housing measure are optimistic, believing that sky-high rents and home values brought on by the pandemic will encourage Coloradans of all political persuasions to vote for it.
Opponents, including the conservative advocacy group Advance Colorado Action, argued there is no guarantee that the state-directed funds would produce the number of housing units promised.
Colorado votes on decriminalizing 'magic mushrooms'
DENVER (AP) — Colorado voters are deciding Tuesday whether theirs will become the second state, after Oregon, to create a legalized system for the use of psychedelic mushrooms.
A ballot initiative would decriminalize psychedelic mushrooms for those 21 and older and create state-regulated “healing centers” where participants can experience the drug under the supervision of a licensed “facilitator.” The measure would establish a regulated system for using substances like psilocybin and psilocin, the hallucinogenic chemicals found in some mushrooms. It also would allow private personal use of the drugs.
If passed, the initiative would take effect toward the end of 2024. It also would permit a state advisory board to add other plant-based psychedelic drugs to the program in 2026. Those include dimethyltryptamine, also known as DMT, ibogaine and mescaline not derived from peyote, which is considered sacred by some Native Americans.
Proponents argued that Colorado’s current approach to mental health has failed and that naturally occurring psychedelics, which have been used for hundreds of years, can treat depression, PTSD, anxiety, addiction and other conditions. They also said jailing people for the nonviolent offense of using naturally occurring substances costs taxpayers money.
But critics noted the Food and Drug Administration has not approved the substances as medicine. They also argued allowing healing centers to operate and permitting personal use would jeopardize public safety and send the wrong message to kids and adults alike that the substances are healthy.
The move comes a decade after Colorado voted to legalize recreational marijuana, which led to a multibillion-dollar industry with hundreds of dispensaries popping up across the state. Critics of the latest ballot initiative say the same deep-pocketed players who were involved in legalizing recreational marijuana are using a similar playbook to create a commercial market, and eventually recreational dispensaries, for dangerous substances.
The psychedelics that would be decriminalized are listed as schedule 1 controlled substances under state and federal law and are defined as drugs with no currently accepted medical use with a high potential for abuse.
Even so, the FDA has designated psilocybin a “breakthrough therapy” to treat major depressive disorder. The designation can expedite research, development and review of a drug if it might offer substantial improvements over existing treatments.
Colorado’s ballot initiative would allow those 21 and older to grow, possess and share the psychedelic substances but not sell them for personal use. It also would allow people who have been convicted of offenses involving the substances to have their criminal records sealed.
In 2020, Oregon became the first state in the nation to legalize the therapeutic, supervised use of psilocybin after 56% of voters approved Ballot Measure 109. But unlike the Colorado measure, Oregon allows counties to opt out of the program if their constituents vote to do so.
Oregon’s initiative is expected to take effect at the beginning of next year.
Washington, D.C., and Denver have partially decriminalized psychedelic mushrooms by requiring law enforcement officers to treat them as their lowest priority.