House District 46

Joe Biden is one of the nation’s most experienced public servants, having served as a U.S. senator from Delaware for 36 years and the U.S. vice president for eight years. Biden is running on a comprehensive progressive platform.

Biden has championed individual rights throughout his career — from spearheading the Violence Against Women Act to passing laws that expanded the definition of hate crimes to include those based on gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, and disability. Biden led the fight to pass the Brady Bill, which established the national firearms background check system, and helped secure a 10-year ban on assault weapons from 1994-2004. As vice president, Biden oversaw the implementation of one of the largest economic recovery plans in American history in 2009, saving the American automobile industry and millions of American jobs in all sectors of the economy. During the Obama/Biden administration, the United States made significant progress toward a clean energy economy and provided health coverage to millions of Americans via the passage of the Affordable Care Act — a law Biden has vowed to expand and improve.

If elected president, Biden has pledged to work to reverse the damage from the last four years of partisan obstruction and executive branch policies solely benefiting the wealthy and well-connected. Biden supports a $15-per-hour minimum wage and 12 weeks of paid family and medical leave for all workers. He also seeks to address the country's racial wealth disparity, equal opportunity, and jobs gaps by empowering small-business creation and expansion in economically disadvantaged areas. On the climate crisis, Biden proposes net-zero CO2 emissions in the U.S. by 2050 and rejoining the Paris climate accords. On the immediate front, Biden has proposed a national crisis response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Biden’s experience handling the economic recovery with Obama after the Great Recession of 2009 will inform his actions to help individuals, families, small businesses, and local and state governments that are struggling badly as a result of the botched response to the pandemic. Biden will restore the long-standing precedent that public health decisions are best made by public health professionals.

Biden has pledged to defend abortion rights, expand and protect union membership, bring together an equitable and diverse group of experts to handle the nation’s institutional racism crisis, and restore dignity to the office of president of the United States.

Biden is the clear presidential choice for progressive voters.

In this election, he faces Donald Trump — considered by progressives to be the most corrupt, incompetent, anti-progressive president in recent memory and perhaps in American history. Trump’s biggest achievement as president was forcing through a massive tax cut that overwhelmingly favored the wealthiest Americans, making the nation’s historic income-disparity problem even worse. Trump unilaterally withdrew from the Paris Climate Accords, making the U.S. one of very few countries that are not signatories. Trump’s administration has encouraged repeated unsuccessful attempts by Congress to repeal the Affordable Care Act, which has provided health coverage to millions of Americans, including a federal court challenge in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic to dismantle the law. Trump has supported racist immigration practices that contravene international law on the treatment of refugees.

Trump’s decisions have trickled into even the most mundane things, affecting Americans on a daily basis. Trump scrapped a bill requiring airlines to disclose bag fees, blocked consumers from suing banks, ignored the growing crisis over student loans, lifted bans on transferring military equipment to local law enforcement which has exacerbated police-citizen conflicts, particularly in relation to Black Lives Matter protests, and has set off a trade war with China that has done tremendous economic damage to American agricultural producers and manufacturers.

Controversies involving Trump’s presidency are too numerous to list here but include lying about mail voting to such a degree that social media platforms have been forced to remove his misinformation, racist, sexist, and defamatory statements against his political opponents, dispatching federal police to attack protesters in unmarked vehicles, installing corrupt and incompetent tools of special interest into every level of government, nominating federal judges and Supreme Court justices who seek to overturn Roe v. Wade, banning transgender Americans from military service, helping spread baseless conspiracy theories, defending the actions of overt white supremacists and racist nationalists, downplaying the severity of the coronavirus pandemic to the public despite detailed foreknowledge of the coming disaster, pursuing diplomacy with dictators while scorning traditional American allies, and changing federal guidelines to undermine racial equality. For a more comprehensive list, we encourage you to visit the Wikipedia page for Trump administration controversies.

Evidence abounds showing that Trump never disassociated himself from his businesses and has used his office for personal enrichment. And let’s not forget he was impeached over revelations he first blocked military aid to Ukraine and then pushed its president to dig up damaging info on his political opponent as a “favor.”

Trump must not only be defeated, but the margin of victory must be so resounding as to prevent him from calling the results of the election into question as he has already pledged to do.

Former Colorado Gov. and incumbent U.S. Sen. John Hickenlooper did not take the usual path into public office. After being laid off from his job as a geologist, he opened a successful brewpub. But as a small-business owner, he became involved in his community, and he ran for office. He served two terms each as mayor of Denver and governor of Colorado, using his unique perspective to bring people together to get things done.

When Hickenlooper was sworn in as governor in 2010, Colorado ranked 40th among the states in job creation. By the time Hickenlooper left office eight years later, Colorado had the #1 economy in the nation. Under Hickenlooper, when he was governor, Colorado’s economy grew without leaving Coloradans behind. Hickenlooper expanded Medicaid to cover an additional 400,000 Coloradans and cut the uninsured rate by nearly two-thirds. He signed three landmark gun safety laws in 2013 that banned high-capacity magazines and required background checks for any firearm transfer. On the environment, Hickenlooper made Colorado the first state to limit methane pollution from oil and gas wells. Working with the General Assembly, Hickenlooper signed legislation to ensure every eligible registered voter in Colorado gets a mail-in ballot, made voter registration more accessible, and pushed for numerous other election reforms that have made Colorado a model for election innovation. He also signed historic legislation granting in-state tuition to DREAMers.

Hickenlooper has vowed to improve and build on the Affordable Care Act and supports a federally administered public health coverage option. Hickenlooper recognizes the existential threat of climate change and favors a bold, science-based approach. He supports commonsense policies on gun violence, including restoring an assault weapons ban. Hickenlooper was the first governor of Colorado to apologize for the Sand Creek Massacre and has committed to listening to the voices of marginalized communities and rooting out systemic racism where it lurks in our society, from police brutality to immigration laws to racial disparities in economic status to access to quality education.

Hickenlooper is the progressive voter’s best choice for U.S. senator.

He faces incumbent U.S. Sen. Cory Gardner in this election. While in the Senate, Gardner has been a reliable Republican vote on the overwhelming majority of issues. He has supported Donald Trump’s position on votes 89% of the time, and Politico notes that Gardner is “reliably conservative on most issues.” In 2014, Gardner promised in a campaign ad to speak out when his party is wrong and called on Donald Trump to pull out of the race for president in October of 2016. Since then, however, Gardner has fully embraced Trump and was one of the first senators to endorse Trump’s reelection.

From his earliest votes in Congress, Gardner has consistently sought to repeal the Affordable Care Act. He has voted to repeal the ACA and to replace it with a bill that would dramatically decrease health care coverage and increase the cost of coverage. He was quoted at a private luncheon that failing to repeal the ACA would result in fewer donations to Republicans, suggesting he is not motivated by the common good.

Gardner has rejected most gun safety legislation throughout his career and is a top recipient of donations from the National Rifle Association. He has voted against expanding background checks to include gun show sales, which has been the law in Colorado since just after the Columbine High School shooting in 1999. He even voted against banning gun sales to people on the terrorist watch list.

In a historic change of heart, The Denver Post editorial board declared in 2019 they made a mistake in their 2014 endorsement of Gardner, stating he “has been too busy walking a political tight rope to be a leader.”

This race also has a Libertarian candidate: Raymon Doane. Doane is a Denver native who currently works for the Colorado Department of Revenue as a property tax specialist and business analyst. He previously ran for the state senate in 2016 as a Republican, and in 2018, he first filed to run for state treasurer and then for Congress against Democrat Diana DeGette as a Libertarian.

Doane’s few public statements should give voters pause. While the country has been dealing with the coronavirus outbreak, Doane was quoted as saying, “The federal government should not have to intervene on behalf of local municipalities and states that make poor decisions during a pandemic.” He also has said he thinks public health mandates should be more like “suggestions.” Additionally, among the four policy positions Doane takes on his website, one statement endorsing an unregulated Second Amendment stands out: “The government should NEVER have a monopoly on force. The U.S. Senate must … refuse to vote for any legislation which limits an American’s right to self-defense.” These kinds of statements don’t represent Colorado progressives.

Diane Mitsch Bush, a former state representative, is now running for Congress. She is a retired sociology professor and previous Routt County commissioner who has lived in the Western Slope — a part of Colorado’s sprawling 3rd Congressional District — for over 43 years. She previously ran for this seat in 2018, when she came closer to winning than any Democrat had in the three prior elections.

Colleagues from her other tenures have commended Mitsch Bush’s extreme attention to detail, her pragmatism, and her willingness to work with all sides. She has shown an ability to lead calmly through disasters, including the Great Recession, wildfires, floods, drought, and the swine flu epidemic. While in the state legislature, Mitsch Bush was a leading advocate for family agriculture, sustainable water infrastructure, and small rural communities. She sponsored many critically important bills, including ones to protect the environment and hold polluters accountable, lower health care and health insurance costs, and increase funding for rural schools. Over 80% of her bills were co-prime sponsored with rural Republicans.

Mitsch Bush has said her family’s early struggles with financial insecurity taught her the importance of helping others through public service. Her goal is to have an America that provides opportunities for all, not just the wealthy and well-connected. She intends to fight to make health care affordable for everyone, to protect the environment for generations to come, and to bring more good-paying jobs to rural communities.

Mitsch Bush is an experienced lawmaker and local leader who, if elected to Congress, will be ready on day one to get to work on policies that will benefit her district.

Running against her is Republican Lauren Boebert. Boebert is the owner of Shooters Grill in Rifle, Colorado — a restaurant known mainly for the fact that the wait staff openly carry guns on their person. Guns are one of the few things Boebert talks about regularly. She once drove across the state to go to a rally for Beto O’Rourke just to confront him about his gun safety position.

What voters really need to know, however, is that Boebert is a strong proponent of the QAnon conspiracy theory: the wild idea that Donald Trump is waging a secret war against Democrats and movie stars who are running an international child trafficking ring. She has been quoted as saying, “I hope that this is real. … It only means America is getting stronger and better, and people are returning to conservative values and that’s what I’m for.” She later added, “Everything that I have heard of this movement is only motivating and encouraging and bringing people together stronger ... it could be really great for our country.”

Boebert hasn’t explained more of her own positions beyond generic talking points, but it seems clear she is very far from being a progressive choice.

Mayling Simpson is a retired public and environmental health professional in Steamboat Springs. Simpson spent her career educating people on public health and helping set up health education in public schools across the world. Having been a teacher at both the high school and college levels, she has a lot of experience in and around education. Someone who knows directly how classrooms work is somebody who can really help on the state school board and is the progressive voter’s best choice in this race.

Republican candidate Joyce Rankin is a former teacher and small-business owner. She supports using public taxpayer funds for private school education, taking much-needed funds away from public schools that really need the money. We recommend giving support instead to Simpson.

Serving District 46 since 2015, State Rep. Daneya Esgar is an established leader in the Colorado House and a tireless advocate for Pueblo. Her work as a legislator, news producer, and community organizer demonstrates she will continue to fight for her community.

Esgar is an outspoken supporter of expanding access to health care, increasing funding for education, promoting economic development, especially in southern Colorado, and fighting for worker’s rights. Her efforts as a member of the Joint Budget Committee helped bring jobs back to the local steel mill. Recent bills include a measure that establishes a Food Pantry Assistance Grant Program and numerous pieces of legislation that address the 2020 budget crisis and fallout from the coronavirus pandemic. As the chair of the legislature’s powerful Joint Budget Committee, Esgar has given Pueblo a strong voice at the table in the state budget-writing process.

Well known for her work on equality, justice, and fighting poverty, Esgar is a strong advocate for worker and LGBTQ rights. A member of the LGBTQ Caucus, she helped pass critical legislation that decriminalized HIV and addressed the gaps between marriage and civil unions. Her organizing work in Pueblo and work as legislator shows that she will continue to pave the path forward and stand defiantly for progressive values.

Esgar is clearly the progressive voter’s choice for District 46.

Tossing in bids against her for the seat are Republican Jonathan Ambler and Libertarian John Pickerill. Ambler is a former school administrator who is currently self-employed. His campaign website compares gun safety laws to Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia, claims health care reform is “a socialist dream,” spreads misinformation about women’s health, and engages in fear-mongering about the nonexistent “tsunami of socialism.” Ambler seems, across all aspects, to be much more willing to be a Donald Trump bullhorn than a good legislator or leader. Send Ambler and his conspiracy theories home, not to the Statehouse.

Pickerill is a recent transplant from Indiana and is a columnist for The Pueblo Chieftain. He is against providing mental health services in schools and red-flag laws that protect domestic abuse survivors. He’s also more concerned with emergency executive orders from the governor’s office than he is in seeing Coloradoans protected from the coronavirus. He is also no match for Esgar.

Jeff Chostner, the unopposed Democratic candidate in this race, is the current district attorney for District 10. Having served in this capacity since 2013, Chostner has maintained good relationships with law enforcement to prosecute domestic violence cases and also making his office more transparent and approachable to the community. That is what the vast majority of voters want from their district attorney, making Chostner a recommended candidate.