REALITY CHECK: Gardner Failed Colorado on COVID, But New Ad Brags About “Get[ting] Things Done”

Gardner is on a month-long vacation after failing to extend emergency unemployment insurance & pass urgent funding for schools, local governments & USPS

Denver, CO - Senator Cory Gardner has the audacity to brag that he “gets things done” in his latest campaign ad despite the fact that he left Washington empty-handed, failing to deliver emergency unemployment insurance and funding for our underprepared schools, hamstrung local governments, and USPS. Once again, Gardner’s new TV ad deceives Coloradans about his real record, suspiciously omitting his failure to stand up to President Trump and Mitch McConnell as they botch the nation’s response to COVID-19. 

“It’s unfathomable to see Senator Gardner take a victory lap after failing to deliver COVID relief and going on a month-long vacation while Coloradans struggle,” said Colorado Democratic Party spokesperson Eli Rosen. “Instead of fighting for Coloradans, Senator Gardner sold us out for President Trump and corporate special interests. We all know that Senator Gardner prefers $1,000 bottles of champagne over Colorado’s craft beer -- but if he wants to talk beer, it’s clear Gardner is nothing but foam.”

Gardner is currently in hot water after the Denver Post revealed his previous ad attempting to show bipartisanship and greenwash his abysmal environmental record features two Republican operatives and a “hollow shell” sham environmental group that no real environmental organizations had “ever heard of.” 

Here are the facts on how Gardner has failed Colorado:

GARDNER FAILED TO DELIVER COVID RELIEF

• Gardner left Washington for a month-long recess without passing COVID relief. It has been 98 days since Gardner said recess would be “unfathomable,” yet he folded to Mitch McConnell and left town anyway.

• Gardner is “fac[ing] pressure” from local leaders, workers, and veterans to extend emergency unemployment insurance and provide funding for local governments, schools, and the USPS.
  
• Gardner broke his promise that the Senate wouldn’t “drop the ball” and let emergency unemployment insurance expire, leaving 300,000 Coloradans in a “terrifying” position.
  
• Gardner threw his support behind Trump’s executive actions to give the wealthy a tax cut that could “permanently deplete” Social Security funding by 2023, leaving our aging Coloradans out to dry.

• While Colorado was facing a surge in coronavirus cases, Gardner and Trump were caught “playing political games with lives” as Colorado tried to secure much-needed supplies
  
• Even during the pandemic, Gardner is continuing to crusade against the Affordable Care Act, which has been a lifeline during the fight against COVID. But if Gardner and the GOP’s lawsuit to repeal the law is successful, 400,000+ Coloradans could lose Medicaid coverage and rural hospitals could shut down.

GARDNER IS “ONE OF THE MOST PARTISAN MEMBERS OF CONGRESS”

• Despite promising Coloradans he’d stand up to his party, as coronavirus spread earlier this year, Trump said Gardner has been “with us 100 percent ... no waver.” CQ found that Gardner votes with Trump 98% of the time.
  
• Gardner has confirmed nearly every one of Trump and McConnell’s right-wing appointees, supported partisan legislative tactics and political activity, and was labeled “one of the most partisan members of Congress.”

• Gardner’s definition of “bipartisanship” ignores his own votes. Last year Gardner even discredited his own metric, telling constituents that he won’t just put his “name on something” that won’t pass while using that same misleading measure to call himself bipartisan.
  
• Gardner is “Mitch McConnell’s right-hand man” -- voting with his party boss 95 percent of the time, running McConnell’s Senate Republican campaign arm, and folding like a cheap suit to McConnell after a failed political stunt that left Coloradans waiting for urgent relief from COVID-19.

• During Trump’s impeachment trial, Gardner stood by Trump every step of the way. 9News confirmed that “it is TRUE Gardner isn’t straying from President Trump and Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.” 

• The Denver Post revoked their 2014 Gardner endorsement, stating that the endorsement was a “mistake” and that Gardner has become “precisely what we said in our endorsement he would not be: ‘a political time-server interested only in professional security.’”

GARDNER PREFERS $1000 BOTTLE CHAMPAGNE, NOT COLORADO BEER

• Gardner appears to have violated campaign finance laws and Senate Ethics rules when he attended a “Palm Beach soirée” featuring “luxuriant bubbles, delectable foods and thoughtful performances” -- $1,000 bottles of champagne, a four-course dinner, and live musical performances designed to “pair sound with Champagne.”
  
• Gardner is also facing another FEC complaint for allegedly receiving illegal campaign contributions from Mitch McConnell’s super PAC, Senate Leadership Fund, and a second Senate Ethics complaint for including congressional footage in a campaign ad. 

• Gardner “turned his back” on survivors of sexual assault and was a deciding vote to confirm Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh -- who also likes beer.

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