REALITY CHECK: Gardner Stands With Trump “100%” & Is Mitch McConnell’s “Right Hand Man”

Gardner has voted with Trump 98% of the time, making him “one of the most partisan members of Congress”

Denver, CO - Senator Cory Gardner is once again up with a deceiving ad that hides his real record of standing with President Trump “100%” and being “Mitch McConnell’s right-hand man,” even providing them the “key vote” to ram through a likely anti-ACA and anti-choice Supreme Court appointee, making the Trump-backed lawsuit to overturn the health care law more likely to succeed.

“Senator Gardner has been a reliable ally to President Trump and Mitch McConnell, working in lockstep to try to repeal the Affordable Care Act and sell out our public lands while failing to deliver needed COVID relief for Colorado families,” said Colorado Democratic Party spokesperson Eli Rosen. “Instead of fighting for Coloradans, Senator Gardner sold us out for his party bosses and corporate special interests -- his deceiving ads won’t hide the truth.” 

Here are the facts on how Gardner has been a partisan warrior:

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 has voted for 98% of Trump’s judicial picks — rubber-stamping all but 4 of Trump’s 214 judicial nominees — and even voted for several judicial nominees deemed “not qualified” by the nonpartisan American Bar Association.
  
• Gardner gave McConnell the “key vote” to rush a likely anti-Obamacare and anti-choice nominee onto the U.S. Supreme Court, making the Trump-backed lawsuit to overturn the health care law more likely to succeed. 

• 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 SOLD OUT OUR PUBLIC LANDS

• A rubber stamp for Trump’s toxic environmental agenda, Gardner has a failing 11% lifetime score from the League of Conservation Voters, earning him a spot on their notorious “Dirty Dozen” list.
  
• Gardner refuses to support the bipartisan House-passed Colorado Outdoor Recreation and Economy (CORE) Act, a decade-in-the-making collaborative wilderness bill to protect 400,000 acres of public land like Thompson Divide and Camp Hale. Gardner is stonewalling the bill and even decried the legislation as “a partisan, political tool,” despite widespread grassroots support. 
  
• Despite a judge removing William Perry Pendley from the Bureau of Land Management for unlawfully serving, Gardner has refused to speak out against the illegal appointee and his support for selling off public lands and his long history of climate science denial and xenophobia.
  
• Gardner voted to virtually eliminate funding for the Land and Water Conservation Fund and supported Trump’s attempt to cut $16 million from the public lands program in 2018.
  
• Gardner has a long record of voting against Colorado’s public lands, even voting to block a measure to increase local input on land management.

CHOSE TRUMP OVER COLORADO’S MILITARY COMMUNITY

• In March, CPR reported the Trump administration “said it was completely restarting the search for a permanent home for Space Command” and no decision will be made on the permanent home until after the election.

• Gardner voted three times to let Trump raid military construction funding for his border wall and broke his promise to protect funding for Colorado’s bases as Peterson Air Force Base lost $8 million. Gardner apparently didn’t lift a finger to restore the funding.

• Twelve Republican senators broke with their party to oppose Trump’s sham border wall national emergency that cost Colorado funding — but not Gardner.
  

###