Why is Bernie Herpin Yelling at Students?

(Yikes! – Promoted by Colorado Pols)

We understand that drilling and fracking in Colorado is controversial and there are strident opinions on both sides.  We come down on the side that Colorado needs to seriously consider the impacts to our children’s health and on our communities as fracking booms in our State, but know others feel differently.  While we disagree we don’t have to be disagreeable right?

With passions high on both sides, we expect our elected officials to listen and then make reasoned rationale decisions that are, in their view, best for their communities or jurisdictions.

Unless your elected official is Colorado Springs City Councilman Bernie Herpin.

Check out this video of an exchange Councilman Herpin had with a well reasoned University of Colorado at Colorado Springs student. The City Council was conducting a hearing on the ongoing saga of Banning Lewis Ranch in East Colorado Springs.

The irony of the exchange is the student is actually offering up a free market solution to buy up the leases, a creative solution other communities are looking into.

One might think Bernie Herpin, a self described “supporter of free market principles that make our country great,” would embrace the students suggestion.  But the video shows he only hears what he wants to hear – and then is, frankly, outright rude to a young person trying to participate in our democracy.

The larger problem is that Bernie Herpin is running in the recall election to replace Senate President John Morse and presenting himself as a listener first, politician second.

For us, Bernie Herpin’s clumsy and tone deaf exchange with the student just reinforces the need to VOTE NO ON THE RECALL. There are enough self important State Senators currently under the dome – we don’t need more Bernie Herpins there.

Senator John Morse has been a conservation champion in the State legislature, earning 100% lifetime score in our Colorado Legislative Conservation Scorecard.  In addition, he was the legislative leader on SB 252, which expands clean wind and solar energy to more of Colorado.  Senator Morse and Senator Giron represent their Districts well and this recall effort is a waste of time, money, and resources.

So let’s keep hot head Bernie Herp?in and his tone deaf ways out of the State Capitol and make sure to get out and vote. VOTE NO ON THE RECALLS September 10.

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Thou Doth Protest Too Much, Bernie Herpin

A joint press release today from Colorado Springs GOP usual suspects Jeff Crank and Laura Carno, the latter being the head of a group that helped fund the recall attempt against Senate President John Morse, announces a complaint against the ad you see above, claiming the ad makes "reckless and false" statements about SD-11 recall successor candidate Bernie Herpin. Excerpt:

Jeff Crank and Laura Carno, with legal analysis in hand, today have asked four Colorado Springs television stations to remove television commercials that contain “false and reckless statements”.  These ads have been produced and paid for by “We Can Do Better”.

The ads in question contain false statements against Republican Candidate for Senate District 11, Bernie Herpin, stating that he supports the Personhood Amendment, when in fact, he does not.

“I’ve fought untruthful ads run by candidates from both political parties for many years now but it’s been a long time since I’ve seen such an absolute lie in a political ad.  People have little faith in politicians because of untrue, dishonest ads like this one.  The law is fairly clear that you cannot “knowingly” broadcast a lie,” said Jeff Crank.   “The group that put out this ad knows that there is no evidence that Bernie Herpin supported the Personhood Amendment yet they tied him to another candidate who does.  They lied and they knew they lied.  Under the law, these ads must be taken off the air and I call on John Morse and Angela Giron to have the guts to condemn these untruthful, despicable, exploitative ads.”

Laura Carno said, “This is about integrity in the public square. Politicians on both sides of the aisle, who lie in order to win, should reconsider their careers.  Voters want elected officials who tell the truth, and that includes telling the truth during their campaigns.”

This is an interesting development, but we don't think it was wise to challenge this ad for several reasons. First and foremost, as we discussed earlier this week, Herpin answered a Pikes Peak Citizens for Life candidate questionnaire just this past April, where he proudly claims to be pro-life, and says that we "become persons" at the "single cell" stage of development. As we noted, that's almost exactly the language of the "Personhood" amendments from 2008 and 2010. 2008's Amendment 48 stated that "the terms 'person' or 'persons' shall include any human being from the moment of fertilization." In 2010, Amendment 62's language was that "the term 'person' shall apply to every human being from the beginning of the biological development of that human being." The negative effects of the "Personhood" initiative as described in the ad above are not enumerated in the one-sentence language of the amendments, but would be the net effect of passage.

Secondly, Crank and Carno appear to jettison the other recall successor candidate, SD-3's George Rivera, by claiming this ad "tied" Herpin to "another candidate" who does support the "Personhood" initiatives. Angela Giron's SD-3 is a Democratic stronghold, where support for "Personhood" is likely to hurt even worse than it would in Morse's swing SD-11. But not only are Carno and Crank unconcerned about Rivera, they're actually triangulating off Rivera and his unabashed support for "Personhood" and banning abortion.

In short, you've got a dubious challenge to a claim that, even if it's flawed and we don't think it is, inevitably segues into a conversation about abortion that Bernie Herpin doesn't want to have. Once Herpin is forced to explain these candidate questionnaire responses, Crank and Carno's claim that this ad is "false and reckless" simply breaks down. And to "save" Herpin from an allegation that actually does have basis in fact, El Paso County Republicans are throwing the Pueblo Republican recall candidate under the wheels.

Bottom line: we think they are genuinely worried about this.

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