Tag: Brandon Shaffer

Still more than a year from Election Day, Colorado Fourth District Republican Congressman Cory Gardner today reported to the Federal Election Commission that he hauled down a whopping $371,312 over the last three months. That tops his second-quarter take by more than $70,000 to bring his total this year to $896,176. Roughly 12 percent of Gardner's donations this quarter came from oil and gas companies or individuals and organizations tied to the oil and gas industry.

Colorado U.S. Senator Mark Udall at a gay-rights event this weekend in Denver said he supports marriage equality for all Americans. Udall joins a growing list of lawmakers who have gone on record in support of ending the era where the federal Defense of Marriage Act and where constitutional bans like Colorado's Amendment 43 blocked LGBT couples from the legal protections and advantages provided by the state through marriage. Udall is the 18th sitting U.S. Senator to state publicly that he supports efforts to make gay marriage legal.

It would be premature to label Colorado’s Fourth District one of the nation's swing districts, but that could change as a result of the 2012 election season. A court will decide the new outline of the district next month, but the district is undergoing a more profound transition. It is becoming the thing Iowa is supposed to be.

Freshman Republican Congressman Cory Gardner weathered a drawn out if ultimately not-close Tea Party caucus battle last year and rode the Republican wave to victory over Democrat Betsy Markey.* Less than a year later, he's again navigating the increasingly rocky electoral waters of Colorado's sprawling Fourth District.

The president of the Wilderness Society today skewered the current debt-ceiling compromise and budget-slashing deal worked out in Washington over the weekend, saying its reductions in spending on environmental and conservation policies “threaten to damage our water, our air and our lands beyond repair.”

Freshman U.S. Rep. Cory Gardner pulled in more campaign contributions than any other congressional candidate in the second quarter of the year, according to the Greeley Tribune, with more than 10 percent of the funds coming from mining, oil and gas companies. The Republican lawmaker in the mineral-rich 4th Congressional District of northeastern Colorado has been a consistent proponent of more domestic drilling and mining.

On the final day of the legislative session Wednesday, Colorado’s conservation community praised state lawmakers for staving off a slew of bills aimed at turning back the clock on the Ritter administration’s “New Energy Economy” and also for passing a handful of bills that actually advance the state’s reputation as a leader in clean energy policies.

In the end, it came to the sort of calculation payday lenders might understand. After spending political capital fast and furiously in the last hours of the legislative session Wednesday, Colorado House Republicans seemed to accept that spending any more in the service of the payday loan industry would end in more loss than gain. They did the smart thing and just stopped spending altogether. They decided to withdraw the amendment they had attached to the annual rules bill on Tuesday that would have rolled back payday fee regulations put in place last year.

DENVER-- It's closing time. The swing-state Colorado legislature has one day left in the regular session this year for Republicans and Democrats to come together and deliver a congressional redistricting plan to the governor. The Republican-controlled House managed to pass its version onto the Senate this morning and, after a stop-and-start filibuster that stretched into the wee hours last night, the Democratic-controlled Senate today moved its version forward for a final reading.

Democrats and Republicans held hearings on dueling redistricting maps at the Capitol Thursday while party leadership negotiated with the governor to find a solution to partisan gridlock.