IN THE NEWS: Coloradans Call on Gardner to Oppose Trump’s Supreme Court Nomination

Colorado Sentinel: “The duplicity of their argument to rush through the appointment of Judge Amy Coney Barrett is raw and repugnant”

Over 17,000 Coloradans petition Gardner to oppose Barrett’s nomination

Sen. Bennet: Rushing this Supreme Court nomination is “institutional arson"

Denver, CO - As Senate Republicans rush the lifetime appointment of President Trump’s nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court, Coloradans across the state are calling on Senator Cory Gardner to stand up to Trump and reject Amy Coney Barrett’s nomination. Colorado Consumer Health Initiative, Planned Parenthood Rocky Mountain, the Colorado AFL-CIO, and the Colorado Sierra Club collected over 17,000 signatures to demand that Gardner oppose the “sham” nomination of Barrett as she poses a direct threat to our health care, clean land and water, a women’s right to choose, and worker’s rights. Simultaneously, the Colorado Sentinel editorial board wrote that “duplicity of [Gardner and Senate Republicans] argument to rush through the appointment of Judge Amy Coney Barrett is raw and repugnant” and called on Gardner to “do the right and honorable thing” and oppose this rushed nomination. 

But instead of working in good faith to pass pandemic relief as COVID spikes across the country, Gardner gave Mitch McConnell the “key vote” to rush the nomination through — despite Gardner taking a stand eight months before the election in 2016, saying that “our next election is too soon” and “the American people deserve a role” in the selection of the next Supreme Court justice.

The Colorado Sentinel writes that — if he is ousted from office — Gardner has one more chance to amend his legacy and conclude his single-term in office “on a note of honesty and righteousness” and “[play] a crucial part in preserving American democracy.” 

Gardner’s colleague, Senator Michael Bennet, took the Senate GOP to task for their “institutional arson in service of someone like Donald Trump” for opposing a Supreme Court nomination as too close to the election eight months out in 2016, but ramming through Trump’s pick just eight days prior to this year’s election.

While Bennet is listening to Coloradans, unfortunately it appears once again that Gardner is more interested in his loyalty to Trump.

Read the highlights below or Sentinel editorial HERE and the Colorado Politics articles HERE and HERE. 

Colorado Sentinel Editorial: Gardner and the GOP can walk the nation back by opposing Barrett’s nomination
By Editorial Board | October 25, 2020

• About four years ago, Republicans in the Senate employed their right to push back against President Barack Obama’s Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland. Rather than hear the case for Garland in the Senate and reject it on its merits, they dishonestly said, including Gardner, that no president should be allowed to nominate a Supreme Court justice in the final year of his term. Gardner and Republicans in the Senate were unequivocal that voters should weigh in on late-term nominations via the presidential election. They insisted that the stakes are too high, because the high court increasingly was being used as a new tool for legislating, or de-legislating, issues failed in the Senate.
  
• What matters is that Gardner and Republicans have reversed themselves. Now, just days from the growing likelihood of voters ending not only Trump’s tenure but that of Gardner and other complicit Republicans, they have a new demand.
  
• The duplicity of their argument to rush through the appointment of Judge Amy Coney Barrett is raw and repugnant.
  
• Republicans, for years, have been unable to successfully legislate banning a woman’s right to privacy. They seek justices who agree that the right to make decisions in regards to our own bodies is guaranteed only to men. Republicans seek justices who will ban the right to equality regardless of sexual orientation. They seek new justices who will ban the right of Congress to legislate insurance companies and the rights of states to ensure the voting rights of abused minorities.
  
• Gardner and other Republicans must at this moment in American history do the right and honorable thing by rejecting Barrett’s nomination. 

Colorado Politics: Groups on the left demand Gardner oppose Amy Coney Barrett
By Joey Bunch | October 25, 2020

• A handful of groups that are no friends to Republicans made a demand of U.S. Sen. Cory Gardner Sunday: back off on approving Amy Coney Barrett to the U.S. Supreme Court.
  
• The Colorado Consumer Health Initiative, Planned Parenthood Rocky Mountain, the Colorado AFL-CIO, and the Colorado Sierra Club said it had signatures from 17,026 people, as part of a nationwide campaign to sway determined Republicans.
  
• Officials from the advocacy organizations said Barrett would be a bad choice for worker's rights, access to health care and climate issues, with Alexis Schwartz, the Sierra Club Colorado's political organizer calling it a "sham Supreme Court nomination.”
  
• Michael Brune, the Sierra Club's executive director, provided a letter dated Oct. 8 that stated "As members for life of the highest court in the country, Supreme Court Justices have the solemn responsibility to be fair, even-handed, and uphold the sanctity of our laws and the values of our Constitution, and to keep faith with the letter and spirit of the nation’s core public health, environmental, civil rights, and labor laws. Barrett has failed to demonstrate these values, even outright rejecting them at times. The Supreme Court must protect the rights of women, workers, the LGBTQ community, immigrants, people of color, and other vulnerable communities."

Colorado Politics: WATCH: Colorado's Bennet charges Senate GOP with 'institutional arson' over Barrett
By Joey Bunch | October 25, 2020

• The Democrat from Denver, who's not on the ballot this year, delivered a 2,998-word, 28-minute speech on the Senate floor that charged she's the continuation of a long history of protecting powerful interest over self-government, his office said.
  
• “Judge Barrett’s nomination comes to this floor on a path cleared by the same deep-pocketed donors and corporations that have worked for decades to protect their power, regardless of the costs to the American people and their security, well-being, and civil rights,” Bennet said in his address. “And based on everything I’ve learned about Judge Barrett’s record, I fear she will become one more predictable vote for that agenda...Judge Barrett’s confirmation will cement a 6-3 majority on the Court that will allow the powerful to do what they want, while standing against the American people’s efforts to protect one another, to support one another, and to invest in each other through our democracy.”
  
• He seemed to acquiesce that Republicans have the vote, just as they denied one to President Obama's nominee four years ago, citing the proximity to the election then, ignoring now.

• "I can assure you that the same faction that was willing to enlist every parliamentary gimmick, or deploy any oratorical sleight of hand, or commit any act of institutional arson in service of someone like Donald Trump, will continue to do whatever they can get away with in this body," Bennet said

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9 Days Before Election, Gardner Votes in Lockstep With Trump to Ram Through Supreme Court Nominee

Cory Gardner’s vote threatens Coloradans’ health care, reproductive freedom, LGBTQ equality, civil rights and more

In 2016, Gardner said eight months from an election was “too soon” to vote on a Supreme Court nominee

Denver, CO - Moments ago, after 1.5 million Coloradans have already cast their ballots and just nine days before the election, Senator Cory Gardner voted in lockstep with his party yet again to advance President Trump’s anti-Affordable Care Act and anti-choice Supreme Court nominee closer to a lifetime appointment on the Court. 

Instead of working in good faith to pass pandemic relief as COVID rages, Gardner and the GOP are prioritizing rushing through a Supreme Court Justice — with Gardner giving Mitch McConnell the “key vote” — despite Gardner taking a stand eight months before the election in 2016, saying that “our next election is too soon” and “the American people deserve a role” in the selection of the next Supreme Court justice. While two GOP senators broke with their party to oppose Trump’s nomination this close to the election, Gardner once again fell in line with Trump. 

“Instead of abiding by his own rules and listening to Coloradans who want the President elected in November to pick the next Supreme Court Justice, Cory Gardner and Mitch McConnell are hell-bent on rushing through a nominee who could overturn the Affordable Care Act and put Roe v. Wade in jeopardy,” said Colorado Democratic Party spokesperson Eli Rosen. “More than a million and a half Coloradans have already voted and we are just over a week away from Election Day, but Gardner’s fealty to Mitch McConnell and President Trump knows no bounds -- especially when Gardner has a chance to cement his attacks on our health care and basic rights.”

Listen to Gardner’s own words from 2016, saying clearly that eight months from the election was too soon to fill a vacancy on the Supreme Court:



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DENVER POST ADDENDUM: “Cory Gardner, The Great Pretender, Can Fool Moderate Coloradans No More”

After endorsing Hickenlooper, The Denver Post editorial page editor writes that “there isn’t a single good reason a moderate or independent Colorado voter should support” Gardner

Denver, CO - The Denver Post’s editorial page editor Megan Schrader took Senator Cory Gardner to task in a new column, “Cory Gardner, the great pretender, can fool moderate Coloradans no more,” slamming the junior senator for his crusade against the Affordable Care Act, his anti-environmental votes, and his refusal to stand up to President Trump’s reckless — and possibly unconstitutional — actions. 

Despite Gardner’s attempts to deceive voters, Schrader concludes that “there isn’t a single good reason a moderate or independent Colorado voter should support a senator who has proven to be a great pretender at representing their interests but has betrayed them time and time again.”

The Denver Post editorial board recently endorsed John Hickenlooper, roasting Gardner for his allegiance to Trump and writing that he “had many opportunities to oppose the administration’s ‘burn it down’ approach to governance. Instead, he joined the enablers who turned a blind eye to Trump’s corruption.” Last year, the Denver Post editorial board rescinded their 2014 Gardner endorsement, saying that it was a “mistake” as he “has become precisely what we said in our endorsement he would not be: ‘a political time-server interested only in professional security.’” 

Read the highlights below or the full column HERE.

Denver Post: Schrader: Cory Gardner, the great pretender, can fool moderate Coloradans no more
By Megan Schrader, Editorial Page Editor | October 23, 2020

• Gardner hoodwinked me for years. I’ve wasted some ink defending my fellow Coloradan — one of the editorials I wrote for The Denver Post was used in a campaign ad for Gardner. And I feel added responsibility, with the election underway, to take a look back at the votes Gardner has cast when he had no place to hide his true allegiances.
  
• In 2017, Gardner was forced to cast a vote on whether oil and gas companies should be allowed to vent and flare methane, owned by Americans and extracted from federal land, into the atmosphere. The methane rules prevented companies from wasting precious natural resources, releasing a potent greenhouse gas and skirting royalties owed to taxpayers on the wasted gases.
  
• Gardner voted with the oil and gas industry. Then he had the gall to pretend that he hadn’t made up his mind but only voted to continue debate on the issue. It was other Republican senators’ good conscience that protected the Methane Waste Prevention Rule.
  
• I’m no leave-it-in-the-ground proponent, but I’m also not a vent-it-into the air advocate, and I wouldn’t have expected Gardner to be one either. Absent an explanation from the senator, I can only point out that Gardner has accepted money from corporate PACs funded by the oil and gas industry for years.
  
• Also in 2017, Gardner voted twice to repeal the Affordable Care Act, without any type of a replacement on the table, in the works or even lingering in the air. No matter how many times Gardner said “repeal and replace” on the campaign trail in 2015 — I covered the election, it was often — he can’t escape the fact that in six years he has never articulated a viable replacement.
  
• Let’s review how Gardner pretended to care about protecting Coloradan’s access to health insurance, only to turn heel on his principles and vote against our interests.
  
• Then Gardner didn’t voice opposition to the Graham-Cassidy bill that would have cut Medicaid to Colorado by an untold amount of money (the Congressional Budget Office hadn’t completed its analysis of the bill before senators voted on it). The bill would have forced states to make tough decisions about who to keep on Medicaid, who to kick off, and what health care coverage to eliminate. In essence, Republicans in Congress were too cowardly to make those cuts themselves and would have passed a bill that forced states to deal with the fall-out from their proposed cuts… It was an extraordinarily bad bill that would have done the exact thing that Gardner said he wanted to prevent in a toothless letter that sounded good to constituents. It was vocal opposition from moderate Republicans in other states that prevented a vote on the bill. Where was Gardner?
  
• Finally, Gardner refused to protect Congress’ power of the purse...But Gardner then refused to prevent Trump from ripping congressionally appropriated funds from the Department of Defense for his pet project using a sham emergency declaration.
  
• But there isn’t a single good reason a moderate or independent Colorado voter should support a senator who has proven to be a great pretender at representing their interests but has betrayed them time and time again.

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11 Days Before Election, Gardner Votes With McConnell to Ram Through Supreme Court Nominee

Cory Gardner, 8 Months Before the 2016 Election: “Our next election is too soon and the stakes are too high; the American people deserve a role in this process”

Denver, CO - Today, eleven days before the election, Senator Cory Gardner voted with Mitch McConnell to push President Trump’s anti-Affordable Care Act and anti-choice Supreme Court nominee one step closer to the bench. Despite saying that “our next election is too soon” and “the American people deserve a role” in the selection of the next Supreme Court justice eight months before the election in 2016, Gardner “flip-flopped” on his own commitment, caved to Trump’s pressure, and is the “key vote” to ram through Trump’s nominee even after a million Coloradans have already voted. 

Here are Gardner’s own words from 2016, laying a stake in the ground that eight months from the election was too soon to fill a vacancy on the Supreme Court — but apparently 11 days isn’t:

PBS: “Well, look, I think the next president ought to choose the Supreme Court nominee. And I think that is only fair to the nominee themselves. And I think that is only fair to the integrity of the Supreme Court. Now, this is a very serious issue...The next president ought to be making this decision.”

Gardner Press Release: “The next president of the United States should have the opportunity to fill the vacancy on the Supreme Court...Our next election is too soon and the stakes are too high; the American people deserve a role in this process as the next Supreme Court Justice will influence the direction of this country for years to come.”

Denver Post: “Asked his opinion about the high court vacancy, Gardner said the successor to the recently deceased Antonin Scalia ‘ought be chosen by the American people through the election of the next president’… ‘Again, I think we’re too close to the election. The president who is elected in November should be the one who makes this decision.’”

Plain and simple, Gardner has sold out Colorado to McConnell and Trump, and Coloradans are voting at a record pace because we deserve better. 

A final vote on Amy Coney Barrett’s nomination is expected on Monday.

Colorado Dems React to Final Presidential Debate

Denver, CO - Tonight, the Colorado Democratic Party released the following statement in response to tonight’s final presidential debate between Joe Biden and Donald Trump:

Chair of the Colorado Democratic Party Morgan Carroll: 

“The more the American people hear from Donald Trump, the more they are ready for new leadership. Tonight, we saw another disgraceful performance from Donald Trump filled with more lies and more empty rhetoric. Trump made it clear just this morning that his only plan for health care is to destroy the ACA, which would gut protections for 2.4 million Coloradans with pre-existing conditions, and tonight he doubled down. While Colorado families are still struggling due to Trump’s botched response to COVID-19, Trump continues to lie and only talk about himself.

“Meanwhile, what we heard from Joe Biden tonight is emblematic of why he is leading in Colorado and across the country, and why so many voters are turning out at record levels. Our country is ready for decency and competence at the federal level once again, and that’s why in 12 days, we will elect Joe Biden and Kamala Harris and we will kick Mitch McConnell out of the Senate majority.”

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Trump Says “I Hope That They End” the ACA As Gardner Pushes Through Anti-ACA SCOTUS Nominee Who Could Overturn the Law Next Month

Gardner supports the lawsuit that could rip health care away from millions of Coloradans & gut coverage for pre-existing conditions

Denver, CO - In a turbulent 60 Minutes interview, President Trump doubled down on his support for the lawsuit to overturn the Affordable Care Act, saying “I hope that [the Supreme Court] end[s] [the ACA].” Meanwhile, Senator Cory Gardner is ramming through the confirmation of a known critic of the ACA to the Court just in time to hear the lawsuit that threatens to rip away health care coverage from hundreds of thousands of Coloradans and gut protections for 2.4 million Coloradans with pre-existing conditions. 

The Supreme Court is set to take up the ACA lawsuit on November 10th, one week after Election Day.

Gardner desperately tried to dodge questions on the case earlier this year, but supports the GOP’s lawsuit, saying the health care law is “unconstitutional.” Gardner has (unsuccessfully) tried to paper over his record of opposing protections for people with pre-existing conditions and his 13 votes to repeal, gut, or defund the ACA with a “horse excrement” stunt bill, but Coloradans — including experts and independent fact-checkers — aren’t buying it.

Colorado Democratic Party spokesperson Eli Rosen:

“Despite facing a global health pandemic, Senator Gardner and President Trump are full speed ahead trying to rip health care away from hundreds of thousands of Coloradans and gut protections for millions with pre-existing conditions. If either truly cared to protect the 2.4 million Coloradans with pre-existing conditions, they would oppose this reckless lawsuit. As long as Gardner and Trump are in office, our health care is on the chopping block.”

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Gardner “Key Vote” As Senate Rams Through Trump’s Anti-ACA & Anti-Choice SCOTUS Pick

Instead of waiting for voters to have their say, Cory Gardner & Senate GOP are rushing Trump’s nominee onto the Court after 1 million Coloradans have already voted

Denver, CO - Today, the Senate Judiciary Committee advanced President Trump’s anti-ACA and anti-choice Supreme Court nominee to the Senate floor, in part thanks to Senator Cory Gardner giving Mitch McConnell the “key vote” — in McConnell’s own words — needed to rush through Amy Coney Barrett’s nomination before election day.

Despite saying the next Supreme Court Justice “ought to be chosen by the American people through the election of the next president” in 2016, Gardner “flip-flopped” on his word, caved to Trump’s pressure, and is putting his partisan politics ahead of the desires of Coloradans. Americans overwhelmingly believe the Senate should be prioritizing pandemic relief, but Gardner has remained deafeningly silent after reports revealed that McConnell instructed Trump to abandon negotiations on pandemic relief before the election for fear it would “disrupt the Senate’s plans to confirm Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court.”

With the Supreme Court slated to hear a lawsuit to overturn the Affordable Care Act next month, Gardner’s support for the anti-ACA nominee puts protections for the 2.4 million Coloradans with pre-existing conditions “in greater danger than ever.”

Colorado Democratic Party spokesperson Eli Rosen:

“Make no mistake, Senator Gardner is the ‘key’ reason that Mitch McConnell is able to ram through this anti-Affordable Care Act and anti-choice justice before election day. Instead of abiding by his own commitment to let the President elected by the voters in November pick the next Supreme Court Justice, Gardner caved to his party bosses and is continuing his crusade against the Affordable Care Act and reproductive freedoms. Coloradans deserve a Senator who will keep his word and protect our health care, and Senator Gardner certainly isn’t that guy.”

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NEW: Gardner Facing *Another* Senate Ethics Complaint

Gardner already facing numerous ethics & FEC complaints for attending a luxury champagne party, allegedly taking illegal campaign contributions & using official Congressional resources for his campaign

Denver, CO - A new complaint filed with the U.S. Senate Ethics Committee alleges that Senator Cory Gardner sent unsolicited robocalls for a tele-townhall from his Congressional office within 60 days of an election, a clear violation of Senate Ethics Rules that limit using official resources this close to an election. 

Gardner has already been at the center of several Senate Ethics complaints for using footage from a congressional hearing in a campaign ad and violating the Senate Ethics gift ban for attending a “by-invitation bacchanal” hosted by a luxury champagne company in Palm Beach — featuring $1,000 bottles of champagne, a four-course dinner, and live musical performances designed to “pair sound with Champagne.”

After Gardner claimed that his campaign picked up the tab for the luxury party at a Republican megadonor’s home, Gardner faced an FEC complaint for violating campaign finance laws by “converting campaign funds to personal use.” Gardner is facing another FEC complaint for allegedly taking illegal campaign contributions from Mitch McConnell’s super PAC. There are also several state ethics complaints pending against Gardner allies who started a group on taxpayer time that Gardner features in a campaign ad.

Gardner is using his potentially illegal tele-townhalls to try to paper over his record of being notoriously inaccessible, refusing to hold an in-person town hall for more than three years and dodging press and editorial boards. Community activist Dana Miller noted Gardner’s history of dogging townhalls, saying she “ha[s] been time and again frustrated by Senator Cory Gardner’s lack of availability and accountability to his constituents.”

Read the highlights below or the full article HERE.

Colorado Times Recorder: Complaint to Senate Ethics Committee Alleges Gardner’s Tele-Townhall Violated Rules
By Eric Maulbetsch | October 21, 2020

• A formal complaint filed last week with the U. S. Senate Select Committee on Ethics asks for an investigation into Colorado Sen. Cory Gardner’s use of unsolicited robocalls to promote a tele-townhall COVID-19 update within 60 days of the election.

• Election season limitations on Members of Congress conducting constituent communication are longstanding and well-understood restrictions.

• The complaint filed against Gardner, a Republican, argues that between the pre-selected robocalls to voters and Gardner’s talk of politics and non-COVID issues such as listing his bipartisan work with Sen. Michael Bennet (D-CO), the tele-townhall violated Internet Services and Technology Resources Usage Rules 6.2 and 6.3.
  
• His answer to the questions, which were presumably selected by his staff, covered a variety of issues well beyond COVID-19, including the Great American Outdoors Act, transportation projects, and wildfire funding.
  
• Denver resident and community activist Dana Miller filed the complaint on Oct. 12. Reached via email for comment, she wrote that she was “frustrated” with Gardner for not meeting with constituents in person.
  
  • “I have been time and again frustrated by Senator Cory Gardner’s lack of availability and accountability to his constituents,” wrote Miller in an email. “He has consistently refused to meet with constituents in person and in any sort of public town hall.  He continues to call his tele-town halls public events, but as they are pre-screened with a limited number of constituents even aware of their existence, they don’t serve as a substitute for direct contact with Colorado constituents.”

• Gardner’s office did not immediately return an email request for comment. This article will be updated with any response received.

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Gardner Refuses to Stand Up To McConnell After He Tells Trump to Abandon COVID Relief Negotiations, Votes for Another Partisan Stunt

Stunt vote today was for political cover, actually cut emergency unemployment benefits, shortchanges aid to local governments & fails to give real relief to struggling Coloradans

Denver, CO - After multiple reports revealed that Mitch McConnell told Senator Cory Gardner and his Republican colleagues that he instructed President Trump to abandon negotiations on any bipartisan pandemic relief package before the election, Gardner has stayed deafeningly silent despite Colorado entering a “dangerous third wave” of the pandemic. Gardner is refusing to stand up to his party bosses as Colorado’s unemployment claims spike, hospitalizations and infections rise, and Coloradans are struggling to make ends meet — instead, he’s voting with McConnell on stunt half-measures that do not provide the real relief Coloradans desperately need.

Despite Gardner’s political spin, McConnell has made it crystal clear that a bipartisan deal is off the table and he is laser-focused on ramming through Trump’s anti-ACA and anti-choice Supreme Court nominee. On brand, Gardner has fallen in line with his party bosses’ strategy. 

The GOP's stunt bill slashed emergency unemployment insurance in half, shortchanged aid for state and local governments, gave zero housing support to renters and homeowners, and would have failed our schools. Simply put, this was a political stunt that does not meet the moment — and is far less than the comprehensive relief package House Democrats passed with bipartisan support months ago. 

154 days ago, Gardner infamously said that it would be “unfathomable” for the Senate to leave Washington without further action, but has since let emergency unemployment expire and failed to take action on two comprehensive House-passed pandemic aid packages. Gardner has failed to deliver for Colorado. 

Colorado Democratic Party spokesperson Eli Rosen:

“Senator Gardner has abandoned thousands of Coloradans struggling to pay rent and put food on the table — all to stay in the good graces of his party bosses. Mitch McConnell spiked any chance of needed relief for Coloradans like a political football, and Senator Gardner’s silence is ensuring we will punt him from the Senate in two weeks. John Hickenlooper will actually stand up for Colorado and deliver the long-overdue relief we need.”

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FACT CHECK: Gardner Still Desperately Greenwashing His Toxic Environmental Record, Uses *The Only* Paper That Backed Him To Deceive Coloradans

FACT: Hickenlooper was endorsed by The Denver Post, Grand Junction Daily Sentinel, Pueblo Chieftain, Vail Daily, Durango Herald, Colorado Springs Independent, Aurora Sentinel, Greeley Tribune, El Semanario, & Boulder Weekly

Denver, CO - In a desperate final push, Senator Cory Gardner is up with yet *another* deceiving ad trying to greenwash his toxic environmental record that earned him a failing 11% lifetime score from the League of Conservation Voters and pulls quotes from the *only* newspaper that endorsed him. Gardner’s unwavering support for President Trump, selling out of our public lands, and failure to stand up for Colorado are among a litany of  reasons multiple newspapers have flipped their 2014 endorsements, resulting in John Hickenlooper racking up support from ten major outlets.

“Senator Cory Gardner’s deceptive greenwashing ads can’t hide his toxic environmental record and failure to stand up for Coloradans, and citing the lone news outlet that blindly supports him won’t help,” said Colorado Democratic Party spokesperson Eli Rosen. “Cory Gardner is no JFK, and Coloradans aren’t fooled by yet another cheesy greenwashing ad that ignores his real record of selling out our public lands and clear air to corporate polluters. Cory Gardner has nothing to run on because he sold Colorado out to Donald Trump and broke his promise to stand up to his party, and Coloradans are voting in record numbers to boot him out.” 

This latest greenwashing ad comes after Gardner’s last one, “Both Parties,” was shredded for featuring two registered Republicans -- a Parks official who was ousted for corruption and the founder of a “hollow shell” sham organization that was started by Gardner’s Big Oil allies on taxpayer time, leading to an ethics complaint for doing political work on the people’s dime. Leading environmental groups like the Sierra Club, League of Conservation Voters, and the NRDC Action Fund have all endorsed Hickenlooper. 

Here are the facts that Gardner willfully leaves out of his latest ad: 

TEN MAJOR NEWSPAPERS ENDORSE HICK, NOT GARDNER

• Newspapers across the state have almost unanimously thrown their support behind Hickenlooper, often citing his strong environmental credentials — and Gardner’s lack thereof — and Gardner's unwavering allegiance to Trump:
  
  • Denver Post: “For eight years, Gov. John Hickenlooper threaded the needle between working hard to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in Colorado as part of a global effort to slow global warming and lessen the effects of climate change on vulnerable regions.”
    
  • Vail Daily: “Gardner also wants you to believe that he’s a champion of public lands, but the truth is that he hasn’t gotten behind the Colorado Outdoor Recreation and Economy Act that passed the House last fall, despite its broad bipartisan support.”
    
  • Durango Herald: “...Hickenlooper would be a leader in moving the country toward more renewable fuels and conservation…”
    
  • Grand Junction Daily Sentinel: “[Hickenlooper] brought the oil and gas industry and environmental groups to the table to hash out the nation’s first methane-capture regulations.”
    
  • Pueblo Chieftain: “We find Gardner’s support of the Trump administration’s disastrous four years in office infinitely more egregious.”
    
  • Colorado Springs Independent: “Of course, Gardner loyally has supported Trump’s agenda the past four years.”
    
  • Aurora Sentinel: “Since elected, Gardner has repeatedly backed Trump’s Republican Party when it was wildly wrong on managing the pandemic, wrong on health care, wrong on gun control, wrong on immigration, wrong on global warming...wrong on endless issues that matter deeply to all of Colorado.”
    
  • Greeley Tribune: “In his time as Senator, Gardner has not adequately made himself available for his constituents...As such, failure to provide that accountability represents to us a failure at the most basic level of public service.”

GARDNER SOLD OUT COLORADO’S PUBLIC LANDS

• A rubber stamp for Trump’s toxic environmental agenda, Gardner has a failing 11% lifetime score from the League of Conservation Voters and earned a spot on their notorious “Dirty Dozen” list of most anti-environmental lawmakers.
  
• Gardner refuses to support the bipartisan House-passed CORE Act, a decade-in-the-making collaborative wilderness bill to protect 400,000 acres of public land. Gardner is stonewalling the bill and even decried the legislation as “a partisan, political tool,” despite widespread grassroots support.
  
• 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 voted to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling for the first time ever.

• Gardner pro-polluter votes include letting coal mines off the hook for stream pollution and to repeal methane emissions limits modeled after Colorado’s own — that Hickenlooper spearheaded. 

GARDNER DIDN’T SECURE SPACE COMMAND, BUT DID RAID MILLIONS FROM COLORADO MILITARY BASES FOR TRUMP

• In May, 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.

BLM MOVE “DISAPPOINTMENT”

• The BLM’s relocation to Grand Junction was met with disappointment among community leaders and concerns the city was left with nothing more than “a figurehead headquarters” with far fewer jobs than promised.
  

• Gardner refused to speak out against Trump’s anti-public lands head of the Bureau of Land Management, William Perry Pendley, despite his support for selling off public lands and his long history of climate science denial and xenophobia and even after a judge ruled Pendley was illegally running the agency without Senate confirmation.
  
• Gardner has touted the BLM’s move to Grand Junction on the campaign trail, but even The Grand Junction Daily Sentinel has come out against Trump’s pick to head the agency.
  

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Largest Wildfire in State History Rages, But Gardner Pledges to Ram Trump’s Climate Science Skeptic onto Supreme Court

Colorado Newsline: “Barrett’s climate change views are disqualifying”

Denver, CO - Colorado is currently battling the state’s worst wildfire on record — just weeks after the former record holder was extinguished — but Senator Cory Gardner is doubling down on his climate-denying record by pledging to support President Trump’s climate science skeptic Supreme Court nominee, Amy Coney Barrett. 

During her Senate hearing last week, Barrett refused to say she accepted climate change and called it “politically controversial.” Colorado Newsline editor Quentin Young slammed Barrett’s climate skepticism, writing that “Barrett’s primitive grasp of climate science is a flaw beyond the many others that mar her nomination and should be disqualifying.” Young also called on Gardner to oppose Barrett’s nomination if he is actually the environmentalist his election-year ads claim. But to no surprise, Gardner is still siding with his party bosses. 

Earlier this month, HuffPost unearthed a 2017 interview in which Gardner, like Barrett, repeatedly refused to say if humans cause climate change despite it being long settled science. 

In addition to putting the Affordable Care Act and reproductive freedoms in jeopardy, Gardner’s support for Trump’s Supreme Court nominee puts the country’s efforts to combat climate change and ensure clean air and water at further risk. 

See highlights from the Colorado Newsline’s column below or the full article HERE.

Colorado Newsline: Barrett’s climate change views are disqualifying
Judge’s primitive grasp of climate science poses danger
By Quenten Young | October 17, 2020

• Climate change is “a very contentious matter of public debate,” she asserted. “I will not express a view on a matter of public policy, especially one that is politically controversial.”
  
• Her views on the warming planet are much less discussed. But Barrett’s primitive grasp of climate science is a flaw beyond the many others that mar her nomination and should be disqualifying. . .But it is intolerable for a justice, whose whole job is to weigh the facts of a case against the law, to reject the most significant fact to which humanity must respond.

• The driver behind the increase in Colorado wildfire activity is no mystery. It’s climate change. No serious person disputes this.
  
• Climate change is not a “matter of public debate.” It is an urgent threat to the lives and livelihoods of every Coloradan. This is a fact.
  
• Sen. Cory Gardner has faced criticism for his apparent disdain for action on climate change and his reliability as a friend of the fossil fuel industry. As his first term in office comes to a close, he has made efforts to appear more concerned with the environment, such as the way he championed the Great American Outdoors Act. If his position on climate change has at all evolved, he will vote against Barrett’s confirmation, if only to protest her climate change denialism. There’s no expectation that Gardner is capable of taking such a principled stance, but a vote to confirm a climate change denier to the Supreme Court will also confirm that whatever environmentalism he espouses is little more than campaign posturing.

• No person who rejects the scientific reality of human-caused climate change is fit for public office of any kind... The court next year will hear a case in which Baltimore is suing oil companies for damages due to climate change. Other climate change-related cases will reach the court. A conservative majority could seek to overturn Massachusetts v. EPA, which with a 5-4 decision assigned responsibility for regulating greenhouse gas emissions to the Environmental Protection Agency. 

• The court will not be competent to decide such cases if justices are immune to the life-and-death facts of climate change. Coloradans need only look out their windows to understand that climate change is all too real.

SHOT/CHASER: Congresswoman Who Sponsored Measure to Slash LWCF in Colorado Campaigning for Gardner

REMINDER: This is one of Gardner’s multiple attempts to cut land and water conservation funding

SHOT: In 2011, then-Rep. Cory Gardner voted for a measure to slash the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF) by 90 percent sponsored by Wyoming Rep. Cynthia Lummis. This was one of Gardner’s multiple attempts to slash funding for the conservation program.

CHASER: Despite Gardner’s desperate attempt to greenwash his abysmal environmental record by campaigning on the Great American Outdoors Act, Gardner is doing himself no favors by bringing anti-conservation Lummis to Colorado to try to lift his flailing campaign. 

Facing an uphill election, Gardner is desperately trying to paper over his anti-conservation, Big Polluter agenda that earned him a failing 11% lifetime score from the League of Conservation Voters and a spot on their notorious “Dirty Dozen” list. Gardner’s greenwashing wasn’t fooling anyone, but bringing his anti-conservation pal to Colorado isn’t helping. 

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CPR Joins Five Other Fact Checkers to Debunk Gardner’s “Horse Excrement” Stunt Health Care Bill, Other Empty Talking Points

CPR fact check series rips apart Gardner’s health care lies, election-year greenwashing, & bogus bipartisanship measure   

Denver, CO - CPR became the sixth independent fact-checker to debunk Senator Cory Gardner’s “horse excrement” one sentence health care bill for being a disingenuous political document to try to cover up his decade of crusading against the Affordable Care Act and trying to gut protections for people with pre-existing conditions. In a series of fact-checking articles, the pillars of Gardner’s flailing campaign crumbled under scrutiny, calling out his toxic environmental record and partisan voting record of standing in lockstep with President Trump and Mitch McConnell in addition to his health care lies. 

See highlights from another round of scathing coverage calling out Gardner’s election-year stunts: 

CPR: Health Care May Be Key To Win Colorado’s Senate Seat. So Where Does Cory Gardner Stand?

• Republican incumbent Sen. Cory Gardner, who for much of his first term voted with his party in a years-long attempt to dismantle the Affordable Care Act...
  
• His critics say both the bill and his words are an empty gesture from someone who has long tried to repeal the law that created those protections.
   
• “You know what’s the cruelest lie of all? It’s the fact that Cory Gardner’s willing to sit here and say that he has a plan to protect people with pre-existing conditions,” Hickenlooper said during that debate.

• ...Gardner’s office wouldn’t say whether he wants Republicans to back away from the overall legal effort to invalidate the ACA.
  
• “It’s too little, too late. He’s had all this time over the decade since the Affordable Care Act was passed to stand up for it, and people like me. And now in the 11th hour, with his election in danger he wants to protect pre-existing conditions,” said Laura Packard, a cancer survivor and progressive health advocate.
  
• But three health policy experts interviewed by Colorado Public Radio said that the bill was short and vague, leaving questions about what it was meant to accomplish.

• “It's hard to say what (Gardner’s) intentions were with the bill, but it has a glaring loophole that would effectively mean that people with preexisting conditions could be denied health insurance, based on their health status,” Corlette said.

• It prevents insurers from charging people with preexisting conditions more but doesn’t guarantee that insurers have to sell them a policy in the first place.

• “You could see an insurance company saying, ‘We are simply going to walk away from providing insurance to these persons, period. We just have chosen not to insure them’,” said James Hodge, Center for Public Health Law and Policy at Arizona State University.
  
• “Health care is incredibly complex and to see such a tiny bill, that's only a few sentences long, is shocking. I mean, it makes you wonder how serious a bill is.”

CPR: Cory Gardner’s Conservation Credentials Stand On His Great Outdoors Bill. Is That Enough?

• “Being a conservation champion takes more than supporting one bill or pushing one bill through. . .said Mike Saccone, advisor to the National Wildlife Federation Action Fund.
  
• Many conservationists, however, say Gardner’s record is missing one big thing: he has not sponsored nor advocated for a Colorado wilderness bill — a first for a senator from the Centennial state.
  
• The bill Colorado conservationists have in mind, though, is the Colorado Outdoor Recreation and Economy Act, introduced by Bennet and Neguse, which started as separate local efforts across the Western Slope and gained strong local support in the affected communities over the years.
  
• He had been quiet about William Perry Pendley, who among other things called for the sale of public lands, leading the Bureau of Land Management for more than a year. . .This spring the BLM released a lands management plan for western Colorado which critics say could open 95 percent of the North Fork Valley to drilling. 

• Gardner also supported Coloradan David Bernhardt’s confirmation to be Secretary of the Interior and Andrew Wheeler to be the Environmental Protection Agency Administrator. Bernhard was a former lobbyist for the oil industry, while Wheeler was a coal lobbyist.

• Conservationists also point out that Gardner has done nothing to stop the Trump administration from rolling back clean air and water rules. And that he supported a procedural vote to start a debate on rolling back Obama-era rules on methane emissions. These and other votes have helped earn Gardner a League of Conservation Voters’ score of 36 percent in 2019 and a lifetime score of 11 percent.

CPR: More Signed Laws Than The Colorado Delegation? These Are Bills Cory Gardner Got Over The Finish Line

• The Luger Center derives the ranking based on the number of bills a lawmaker sponsors or co-sponsors with someone on the other side of the aisle.
  
• That bipartisanship isn’t necessarily reflected in Gardner’s voting record.
  
• According to FiveThirtyEight, over the course of the Trump administration, Gardner has voted in line with the president 89.1 percent of the time. Based on how Trump did in Colorado in 2016, the site predicted Gardner’s voting score should be 41.5 percent.
  
• Masket also notes “the number of bills passed depends a great deal on whether one is part of the majority party or not.”

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Colorado Dems to Boebert: Denounce Proud Boys or Drop Out

Days after Donald Trump set off a firestorm with telling the Proud Boys to “stand back and stand by” on national television, Congressional District 3 candidate Lauren Boebert is facing questions about her own admiration of the white supremacist group when it was revealed in a national story that her former campaign manager said “Thank God” for the Proud Boys.

Sherronna Bishop, a right-wing activist known as “America’s Mom” has openly bragged about her close relationship with the Proud Boys, tabbing them as “security” for the 2019 sham recall efforts against Governor Jared Polis. Bishop served as Boebert’s campaign manager as recently as July.

Boebert, who gained national notoriety for her open admiration for QAnon as a candidate, has campaigned alongside far-right militia groups. In a response to ABC about her recent campaign manager’s admiration of the Proud Boys, the Boebert campaign didn’t denounce the white supremacist group.

Colorado Democratic Party Chair Morgan Carroll released the following statement:

“Boebert’s closest advisor has been found to be an admirer of the Proud Boys, a white supremacist organization that Donald Trump instructed to ‘stand back and stand by’. Boebert’s response about her former campaign manager’s statements is not enough. People in Congressional District 3 are voting right now -- they deserve to know if Boebert will denounce the Proud Boys. If Lauren Boebert can’t unequivocally denounce white supremacists like the Proud Boys, she needs to drop out of the race. Full stop. No one who entertains support from white supremacist groups like the Proud Boys should be in government.”

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DUCK & DODGE: With Coloradans Voting, Gardner Refuses to Meet With Editorial Boards Or Answer Reporter Questions

Denver Post Reporter: “Cory Gardner made a rare public appearance a bit ago...Gardner declined to take any questions from press after the event”

Denver, CO - Today, Senator Cory Gardner refused to answer questions from the press at a “rare public appearance,” a common theme throughout Gardner’s career, even in the home-stretch of an uphill campaign. In just the past few weeks, “No Comment Cory” has avoided owning up to his failing record and has refused to meet with news outlets and editorial boards across the state — including Colorado Public Radio and editorial boards with the Denver Post, Vail Daily, and Grand Junction Daily Sentinel, two of which had endorsed his 2014 campaign. 

Gardner was also the lone Senator to refuse to hold a media availability as he met with President Trump’s anti-ACA and anti-choice SCOTUS nominee late last month.

Gardner’s avoidance of the press comes to no surprise to Coloradans, as he has avoided public events for years, including refusing to host an in-person town hall for more than three years which prompted Coloradans to create “Cardboard Cory” to replace our absent senator.

Here’s what Coloradans are reading about Gardner’s refusal to speak with reporters in the final stretch of the campaign:

Denver Post Editorial Board: “U.S. Sen. Cory Gardner is excellent at playing the political game, but he has proven to have terrible judgment and communicate poorly with his constituents. Gardner declined to meet with The Denver Post editorial board for our endorsement process.”

Grand Junction Daily Sentinel Editorial Board: “We can’t say we were surprised that Republican U.S. Sen. Cory Gardner declined to meet with the Sentinel’s editorial board because it’s part of a pattern… But Gardner’s unwillingness to answer tough questions leaves us empty and disturbed.”

Vail Daily Editorial Board: Gardner “turn[ed] down repeated requests for an interview with the Vail Daily. That’s not shocking, considering Gardner has earned a reputation for not bothering to hold town halls to hear from his constituents, instead opting for private events with hand-picked guests.”

CPR’s Ryan Warner: “Hickenlooper's Republican opponent, incumbent @CoryGardner, declined our request for an in-depth interview.”

Denver Post’s Alex Burness: “Cory Gardner made a rare public appearance a bit ago… Gardner declined to take any questions from press after the event.”

REALITY CHECK: Trump & His Billionaire GOP Megadonor Desperately Trying to Greenwash Gardner’s Toxic Environmental Record

Trump: “Cory Gardner’s doing a fantastic job… What he’s does with us for the environment in Colorado has been incredible”

FACT: Gardner & Trump have rolled back at least 100 protections for clean air and water, polluted Colorado’s environment & failed to protect public lands

Denver, CO - President Trump and another of his billionaire GOP megadonors are desperately trying to greenwash Senator Cory Gardner’s toxic environmental record that earned him a failing 11% lifetime score from the League of Conservation Voters and a spot on their notorious “Dirty Dozen” list. After Gardner played a “key role” pushing through the GOP tax scam that save the wealthiest like GOP megadonor Joe Ricketts billions of dollars, Ricketts is returning the favor with his shady Super PAC airing a deceptive new greenwashing ad to boost Gardner’s losing campaign with a new nearly million dollar ad buy. 

Simultaneously, Trump also tried to boost Gardner’s weak environmental credentials yesterday on a campaign call with QAnon conspiracy theory believer Lauren Boebert, saying “Cory Gardner’s doing a fantastic job” on the environment — which only makes sense if you’re Trump and think it’s “fantastic” to reverse a hundred protections for clean air and water.

“President Trump and billionaire-backed big money groups are working overtime to deceive voters and greenwash Senator Gardner’s trash environmental record of selling out our public lands and exacerbating climate change,” said Colorado Democratic Party spokesperson Eli Rosen. “Coloradans know that Senator Gardner’s record certainly isn’t ‘green,’ but the new cash his special interest billionaire allies are spending in a last-ditch attempt to save him is.”

Ricketts — who is one of Trump’s most ardent supporters, with a Super PAC and “one of the largest dark money organizations in the nation” to boost the president — and his family’s dark money group spent $15 million to support the GOP tax scam that Gardner played a crucial role in passing and it paid its dividends: the wealthiest like Ricketts save billions in dollars from the GOP tax bill. Now, Ricketts is throwing back some of his savings to his hard-working foot soldiers like Gardner with deceptive TV ads. 

Here are the facts that Gardner’s big money Super PAC allies leave out: 

GARDNER SOLD OUT COLORADO’S PUBLIC LANDS

• A rubber stamp for Trump’s toxic environmental agenda, Gardner has a failing 11% lifetime score from the League of Conservation Voters and a spot on their notorious “Dirty Dozen” list of most anti-environmental lawmakers.
  
• Gardner refuses to support the bipartisan House-passed CORE Act, a decade-in-the-making collaborative wilderness bill to protect 400,000 acres of public land. Gardner is stonewalling the bill and even decried the legislation as “a partisan, political tool,” despite widespread grassroots support.
  
• 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 refused to speak out against Trump’s anti-public lands head of the Bureau of Land Management, William Perry Pendley, despite his support for selling off public lands and his long history of climate science denial and xenophobia and even after a judge ruled Pendley was illegally running the agency without Senate confirmation.
  
• Gardner voted to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling for the first time ever.

• Gardner pro-polluter votes include letting coal mines off the hook for stream pollution and to repeal methane emissions limits modeled after Colorado’s own — that John Hickenlooper spearheaded. 

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ICYMI: Gardner Slammed for Thinking Trump is “Moral and Ethical”

Sentinel Colorado: “In that moment, Gardener’s entire six-year, non-partisan sham collapsed. Years of double-talk about ‘standing up to my party when my party is wrong,’ became his political death warrant.”

HuffPost: “Gardner has fully embraced a president who lies on a regular basis, amplifies racist tweets, insults minorities, attacks veterans, celebrates violence against reporters...among a long litany of other incendiary actions.”

Denver, CO - After Senator Cory Gardner reaffirmed his unwavering loyalty to President Trump -- saying he thinks the President is “moral and ethical” — Gardner faced swift condemnation from Coloradans and reporters, noting the senator’s response was “Reason No. 1 why Gardner has no business to continue to represent anyone but Trump and himself in the U.S. Senate.”

Despite claiming he would be an independent voice for Colorado, “Gardner’s entire six-year, non-partisan sham collapsed” as he “has fully embraced” Trump and the laundry list of the president’s immoral and unethical behaviors. Gardner has remained mum on Trump’s attacks on women, immigrants, our democracy, and the press, to name a few, leading to the inevitable conclusion that he “has no business to continue to represent anyone but Trump and himself in the U.S. Senate.”

Read the highlights below or the Sentinel column HERE or HuffPost article HERE.

Sentinel Colorado: PERRY: Gardner delivers a KO in final Senate debate — to himself, lauding Trump’s morality
By Dave Perry, Sentinel Editor | October 14, 2020

• For Gardner, his awkward moment of truth came Tuesday night when asked by 9News anchor Kyle Clark, “Do you believe that President Trump is a moral and ethical man?”

• Besides Trump, no one can realistically believe he is. Ethical and moral people don’t lie, every day, usually many times in a day. Ethical and moral people don’t try to blackmail other foreign leaders for personal political gain. Moral people don’t brag about sex assaults. They don’t cheat on their wives and taxes. They don’t wink at white supremacists. Upstanding guys don’t pay porn stars for sex and then throw hush money at them. They don’t slur women for being women or make fun of war heroes and disabled people.
  
• “Yes,” Gardner said about Trump’s moral compass. He said it lightning fast. Then he threw in, just as fast, “I wish he could be more specific in his communications with the American people.”
  
• Right there is Reason No. 1 why Gardner has no business to continue to represent anyone but Trump and himself in the U.S. Senate.

• If Gardner was being honest on Tuesday, telling all of Colorado that Trump behaves ethically in anything he does as president or in his personal life, then Gardner is either a stooge or as daft as Trump about how naive the American public is.

• In that moment, Gardener’s entire six-year, non-partisan sham collapsed. Years of double-talk about “standing up to my party when my party is wrong,” became his political death warrant. 

• Gardner’s problem, like Trump’s, is that they believe their own line of crap. They think you do, too. Gardner really does believe that he’s “the most bi-partisan” guy in the Senate. He really believes that he has worked hard to protect the Colorado environment. He sleeps at night thinking that he’s held Trump accountable for mishandling the pandemic, abusing immigrants and refugees, lying about, almost everything, wasting billions on a useless border wall, ignoring the global warming crisis, and the catalogue of lunacy that will become the Trump Presidential Library.

• The truth caught up with Gardner Monday. He exposed himself as the fraud he really is by having to answer simple questions and by Hicknelooper’s plain talk.

• Just because he says he represents Colorado, it doesn’t mean that most of what he’s done is representative of what Colorado residents want. Colorado never wanted this and certainly not now.

HuffPost: Sen. Cory Gardner Says He Thinks Trump Is An Ethical And Moral Man
The vulnerable Colorado Republican instead said Trump needs to be “more specific in his communications with the American people.”
By Igor Bobic | October 14, 2020

• Asked if he thinks President Donald Trump ― who disdains notions of virtue on a near daily basis ― is an ethical and moral man, Sen. Cory Gardner (R-Colo.) replied in the affirmative.

• “Yes,” Gardner said Tuesday during a debate in Colorado’s U.S. Senate race. 

• Gardner’s steadfast defense of Trump stands in sharp contrast to his condemnation of Trump’s morals in October 2016 following the release of the infamous “Access Hollywood” tape. At the time, Gardner said he could not vote for Trump because his flaws went “beyond mere moral shortcomings” and because he showed a “disdain for dignity unbecoming of the presidency.”
  
• Since then, Gardner has fully embraced a president who lies on a regular basis, amplifies racist tweets, insults minorities, attacks veterans, celebrates violence against reporters, enriches himself and his family with taxpayer funds, issues pardons to corrupt allies and officials, and encourages white supremacist groups, among a long litany of other incendiary actions.

• “Coloradans watching last night’s final debate were appalled but not surprised by Cory Gardner’s latest cowardly refusal to utter a single word of criticism about Donald Trump. ... The biggest joke of the night was Cory Gardner claiming he works for Colorado — we all know he sold us out for Trump years ago,” Hickenlooper spokesperson Alyssa Roberts said in a statement.

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NEW LOW: Gardner Compared His “Horse Excrement” Stunt Bill to the *First Amendment* as He Continues to Peddle Health Care Lie

Countless health care experts and fact-checkers have debunked Gardner’s bill as a political stunt that doesn’t actually protect people with pre-existing conditions

Denver, CO - In last night’s final U.S. Senate debate, Senator Cory Gardner took his lies about protecting people with pre-existing conditions to new lengths, this time laughably comparing his “horse excrement” 117-word health care bill to the First Amendment. Gardner’s “political statement” stunt bill has been debunked by five independent fact-checkers and shredded by experts as “not a legitimate piece of legislation” that “absolutely would not protect people with pre-existing conditions.”

Despite being roasted by reporters and experts in the first debate for pushing this same lie, Gardner doubled down on his sham last night and insisted that his opinion outweighed the experts. Coloradans will stick with the experts, not a desperate Senator facing an uphill reelection campaign.

Gardner’s health care lies come less than a month before the U.S. Supreme Court is slated to hear the lawsuit he and President Trump support that could overturn the Affordable Care Act and gut protections for the 2.4 million Coloradans with pre-existing conditions in the middle of a pandemic. Gardner’s support for Trump’s anti-ACA nominee stacks the odds against the health care law, yet another effort to dismantle the law to add to Gardner’s decade long crusade against the ACA.

The outlandish comparison may have only been overshadowed by Gardner solidifying his unwavering support for Trump, saying that he thinks Trump is “moral and ethical.”

Colorado Democratic Party spokesperson Eli Rosen:

“Senator Gardner has continually lied to Coloradans about his toxic record of trying to rip away Coloradans’ health care and gut protections for pre-existing conditions, but his latest stunt comparing his sham bill to the First Amendment is truly ‘unfathomable.’ Shame on Senator Gardner for trying to deceive the people of Colorado and comparing his desperate reelection stunt to a foundation of democracy.”

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YIKES: Gardner Thinks Trump is “Moral and Ethical”

Denver, CO - In last night’s final U.S. Senate debate, Senator Cory Gardner cemented his undying loyalty to President Trump, saying that he thinks Trump is “moral and ethical.” Despite an avalanche of evidence showing Trump has acted both unethically and immorally — downplaying a “deadly” virus, bragging about sexual assault, calling wounded soldiers “losers” and “suckers,” saying white supremacists were “very fine people,” and separating families at the border, just to name a few — Gardner refuses to criticize the president, a trope Coloradans have become accustomed to.

Take a look at the damning exchange for yourself:

In his 2014 campaign, Gardner notoriously said that he would call out his party when they were wrong, but chose to instead endorse the GOP and Trump’s unprecedented immoral and reprehensible behavior. We are sure it is just a matter of time until Gardner gets another signature Trump Twitter stamp of approval.  

Gardner’s glowing compliments of Trump caught the attention of reporters, who gave it a scathing review:

Sentinel Colorado: “Besides Trump, no one can realistically believe he is. Ethical and moral people don’t lie, every day, usually many times in a day. Ethical and moral people don’t try to blackmail other foreign leaders for personal political gain. Moral people don’t brag about sex assaults. They don’t cheat on their wives and taxes. They don’t wink at white supremacists. Upstanding guys don’t pay porn stars for sex and then throw hush money at them. They don’t slur women for being women or make fun of war heroes and disabled people.”

Colorado Politics: “Unfortunately for Gardner, the impression that could outlast most memories of Tuesday’s debate could be the simple ‘yes’ he offered when asked during a round of yes-no questions if he considers President Donald Trump to be a moral and ethical person.”

AP: “Gardner rescinded his endorsement of Trump in 2016 after the release of the Access Hollywood tape, saying he was ashamed of the then-candidate boasting of sexual assault. But he has endorsed Trump this time around, which has become a central issue in Gardner’s reelection campaign. At the close of the hourlong debate, Gardner was asked, as a yes or no question, whether he thought Trump was moral and ethical. ‘Yes,’ Gardner said, quickly adding ‘I wish he could be more specific in his communications with the American people.’”

CPR: “It was followed up with whether they believe President Donald Trump is a moral and ethical man. Hickenlooper answered ‘No.’ Gardner said, ‘Yes’ before continuing, ‘I wish he would be more specific in his communications to the American people.’”

Denver Post: “Faced with pointed questions about President Donald Trump, whom Gardner has endorsed, the senator said the president is moral and ethical but must do a better job communicating with the American people.”

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Hickenlooper Dominates Gardner in Final Debate

Denver, CO - Following the final Colorado U.S. Senate debate tonight, Colorado Democratic Party Chair Morgan Carroll released the following statement:

“Tonight’s final debate made crystal clear the choice Coloradans have this Senate election: an independent leader who brings people together to expand health care and protect our environment in John Hickenlooper, or Senator Cory Gardner, a partisan footsoldier for Donald Trump who is relentlessly trying to rip away our health care and sell out our public lands.

“Coloradans know John Hickenlooper. He has led our state out of economic recessions, rebuilt communities devastated by fires and floods, and is a fighter for all of us, regardless of you where you live, who you love, or your political affiliation. And that is the fighter we need today in Washington. 

“In three weeks, Coloradans will elect John Hickenlooper to the U.S. Senate to lead our country out of this crisis and fight for all of us.”

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