2013′s Top Ten #9: How Colorado Republicans Became “Persona Non Grata” in New York City

Reps. Cory Gardner, Mike Coffman, Scott Tipton, and Doug Lamborn.

Last September, the Front Range urban region of Colorado was hit by the worst flooding in a generation. A freak storm parked over the mountains immediately west of Denver and Boulder, dropping over a year's worth of precipitation in a matter of days. Thousands of homes were damaged or destroyed, whole towns were cut off from assistance, and residents were evacuated by helicopter in a massive rescue effort by the Colorado National Guard.

The damage done by the late September floods along the Front Range dwarfed the resources available to the state of Colorado to respond, and very early on in the disaster it became obvious that a large infusion of federal disaster relief would be necessary to recover. Every member of Colorado's congressional delegation, Republican and Democrat, joined together in requesting emergency disaster relief funding.

Unfortunately, past votes by Republican members of Colorado's congressional delegation came back to haunt the entire state. Early this year, Colorado Republican Reps. Cory Gardner, Scott Tipton, Mike Coffman, and Doug Lamborn all voted against relief legislation for victims of a much greater disaster in terms of property damage and loss of life. Hurricane Sandy, which hit the East Coast just before the 2012 presidential elections, killed nearly 300 people in seven nations and did an estimated $65 billion in damage in the United States. Some of the worst-affected areas were coastal New Jersey and New York City.

After the request for federal disaster relief by Colorado became public, elected officials in New Jersey and New York exploded in public criticism of the "hypocrisy" demonstrated by Colorado Republicans. New Jersey GOP Rep. Frank LoBiondo denounced Colorado's congressional Republicans as the "Hypocrisy Caucus." Rep. Joseph Crowley of New York told the Daily News, "I hope New Yorkers make clear these members are persona non grata in our town." In a shocking twist, it was revealed that the disaster relief funding in question would actually come from funds approved as part of the Hurricane Sandy legislation Colorado Republicans had voted against. Republican Gov. Chris Christie's response was carried by the Washington Post:

"They're hypocrites. That's what they are," Christie said of the Colorado Republicans during a telephone town hall meeting Thursday night, in comments first reported by the Newark Star-Ledger. But, he added: "We can't be vindictive. Because we have to be concerned about the actual people that are being hurt."

In the end, principally through the work of Democratic Colorado Senators Mark Udall and Michael Bennet, Colorado received the federal disaster relief money needed, and Gov. John Hickenlooper has proudly overseen a recovery that is moving along ahead of schedule. Rep. Peter King, Republican of Long Island, said of his colleagues from Colorado, "They should just thank God, we didn't use the same tactics against them that they used against us." Even so, New Jersey Sen. Jeff Chiesa placed put a hold on Colorado's aid request until transportation officials assured him that they could get the money from a funding source other than the Hurricane Sandy legislation that Colorado Republicans had opposed.

In contrast to the headlines this incident made in New York and New Jersey, local Colorado press downplayed the story, and focused on the petulant response Rep. Cory Gardner that he had voted against the Hurricane Sandy aid bill because it didn't contain enough for Colorado flood relief. Never mind that other Colorado Republicans like Rep. Doug Lamborn simply thought the bill was loaded with "pork," or that Colorado Democrats nonetheless supported the bill. Perhaps there was a collective judgment in the local media that, with the state gripped by a major disaster, this unpleasant political sidebar just wasn't what Coloradans wanted to read about.

But be assured, New York and New Jersey aren't going to forget.

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Discuss: 2013′s Top Ten Stories in Colorado Politics

‘Tis the season for Top Ten lists.

Our custom for most of our years blogging about Colorado politics, we're starting work on 2013's recap of the top ten stories. For good and/or ill, 2013 was one of the most tumultuous years not just in our time covering Colorado politics, but the history of the state itself. Sorting the numerous interweaving storylines of this year into ten blog posts is a daunting challenge, but we promise to do our level best.

Help us out: use this space to give us your list of the top ten stories in Colorado politics this year, and why you think so. And look for our recap of this crazy/epic/unforgettable year starting the day after Christmas.

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2013′s Top Ten #10: Rep. Libby Szabo vs. Common Decency

?Colorado House Speaker Mark Ferrandino took control of the state House of Representatives after the 2012 general elections, in which Republicans were resoundingly swept from their one-seat House majority. One of the biggest reasons for that multiple-seat pickup victory in 2012 was the conduct of GOP legislative leadership at the end of the 2012 session. Legislation to create civil unions for LGBT couples in Colorado stood at the brink of passage with bipartisan support, only to be killed by GOP House leadership using extraordinary legislative tactics to prevent a vote on the bill.

After retaking the House in 2012, Colorado Democrats found themselves with two years of stymied and backlogged agenda items, at the top of the list of which was civil unions. The signing into law of this year's civil unions bill was hailed not just by Ferrandino, who happens to be gay, but a host of Republican officials and activists eager to turn a new page and walk back their party's intolerant image.

As we'll discuss in other 2013 recap posts, Republicans fought back in 2013 with a fury not seen since they began reliably losing elections in Colorado in 2004. One of the major message vehicles used by the GOP was legislation known as "Jessica's Law," named after a young Florida girl murdered by a previously convicted sex offender, and mandating long sentences for sex crimes even on a first offense. Although this law is on the books in many states, Colorado already has very severe sentences for such crimes. Law enforcement and advocates such as the Colorado District Attorneys' Council and the Colorado Coalition Against Sexual Assault opposed the bill as unnecessary. Being a political weapon first and foremost, GOP backers of a Colorado "Jessica's Law" were undeterred.

And then last February, Bill O'Reilly of the FOX News Channel took it a step further.

In an interview with GOP Colorado Rep. Libby Szabo, O'Reilly openly linked Speaker Ferrandino's sexuality to the failure to pass "Jessica's Law." Rep. Szabo asserted on national television that Ferrandino was "obviously protecting someone" by sending the bill to the State Affairs Committee where it died. In our nearly a decade of covering Colorado politics, this is quite likely the most deplorable accusation we've ever seen made by one sitting lawmaker against another.

Those who know Speaker Ferrandino know he has no interest in taking personal offense to such accusations, even to the extent of missing a powerful political opportunity. We will not debate his judgment here, but this horrible spectacle on the O'Reilly Factor prompted others to respond on his behalf. Chief among them was former Denver Post editor Curtis Hubbard, who wrote a column soon afterward saying "O'Reilly's fear-mongering should offend all Coloradans. He was saying 'gay,' but what he wanted his listeners to hear was 'pervert-pedophile.'" Hubbard even appeared on the O'Reilly Factor, commendably holding his own while O'Reilly tiraded against him for daring to imply what any viewer of the original segment would find patently obvious.

Unfortunately, and for reasons we still don't understand, Rep. Szabo has largely escaped criticism over what we would think was a huge breach of decorum. Hubbard was more interested in shaming Bill O'Reilly, and we suppose that makes sense. But non-editorial news coverage of this story was severely lacking, and only defensively mentioned Szabo as some kind of innocent bystander–which is of course ridiculous.

Since this story, Hubbard has moved on to a public relations job, and the Denver Post's editorial board has moved steadily rightward under the leadership of avowed conservative Vincent Carroll. As we said, the newsroom at the Post was inexplicably deferential in sparing Rep. Szabo from scrutiny over her outrageous comments. Given the present state of political news coverage in Colorado, a subject we'll be revisiting in a future 2013 recap post, we're not sure if O'Reilly's and Rep. Szabo's shameful and baseless accusations would be responded to anywhere near as vigorously. Or even at all.

But they should be, folks. In the name of simple decency, they always should be.

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