While once Republican strategists could count on north Jefferson County to turn their way on Election Day, the last decade has proven a bloodbath for the party, with Democrats now holding all but a single one of the region’s five state legislative seats.
A Face The State analysis of these legislative districts has found that while all five seats were held by Republicans in 1996, 12 years later, just one remains in GOP hands. And that seat, House District 25, is currently held by Republican Rob Witwer, a popular moderate and son of former state Rep. John Witwer, also a Republican, who previously held the seat. The younger Witwer has announced that he will not seek re-election, meaning that Republicans could have yet another tough race on their hands this fall.
GOP insiders offered multiple theories for why the shift has been so extreme.
REAPPORTIONMENT NOT TO BLAME?
Senate District 19
Map courtesy CoMaps.orgUnder state law, the General Assembly is required to evaluate the districts every ten years so that each represents the partisan makeup of the district within a few percentage points. As part of the process, district lines can be redrawn to more accurately reflect the party affiliation of the people who live there.
According to Mark Hillman, who served as Senate Majority Leader during the 2000 redistricting, the ultimate outcome resulted in slight gains for Democrats in Jefferson County, but not enough to explain the shift over the last decade. “In Jeffco, you can only use [reapportionment] so much to explain the changes,” he said. “It definitely tilted the landscape a bit, but the difference is only that would have had one or two districts that leaned Democrat that maybe would have gone Republican.”
Instead, Hillman believes the Democrats have been successful because they “have been really good about figuring out what really appeals to unaffiliated voters. In the long run it’s a much better strategy compared to the Republican one that has focused on preaching to the choir and turning out Republicans.”
AN UNEVEN PLAYING FIELD
According to Denver election law attorney John Zahkem, changes to state law have significantly aided Democrats in their Jefferson County efforts.
In May 1996, the Colorado legislature passed reforms that imposed the first statewide limits on candidate contributions. Specifically, individual contributions to gubernatorial candidates were limited to $5,000, while state Senate candidates could collect $1,000, and state House candidates could collect $500.
These limits didn’t last long, that November nearly 66 percent of voters approved Amendment 15, a campaign finance reform initiative stricter than that year’s legislative reforms. It limited state House and Senate contributions to just $100. In addition, it created voluntary spending limits, requiring that all candidates who declined to abide by the limits would be required to indicate such on their campaign materials.
The strict limits were quickly challenged in Federal District Court by a coalition that included the state’s Republican Party, with Judge Daniel Sparr striking down the contribution limits and the state legislature responding by gutting Amendment 15.
Finally, in 2002, amid the aftermath of a United States Supreme Court decision that upheld similar contribution limits in Missouri, a statewide coalition of liberal advocacy organizations, including Common Cause and the League of Women Voters, worked to pass Amendment 27, a constitutional amendment that was designed “to curb the influence of special interests.” The amendment set new caps, including a $400 limit on individual contributions to legislative candidates. In addition, it prohibited corporate and labor union contributions.
While Common Cause claims that the reform ensured that “politicians will have to build support from a broad base of voters, not just the few who write big checks,” Zakhem believes the amendment has empowered unions to take over the process while excluding traditional funding sources for Republicans, including small and medium-sized businesses. Corporate entities are, generally speaking, prohibited from contributing directly to candidate campaigns.
According to Zakhem, the new standards heavily benefited pro-union efforts specifically because they allowed for contributions from “small donor committees.” Under the new law, these committees could contribute up to $4,000 to a particular candidate through individual contributions of no more than $50, usually small monthly monthly or quarterly transfers from union dues.
In 2004, Democrats including Senate District 19 incumbent Sue Windels, benefited mightily from such union contributions. The state’s largest unions utilized a loophole in Colorado’s campaign finance laws that allows small donor contributions to remain anonymous. The Service Employees International Union pumped nearly $1 million into Colorado’s 2004 races.
Common Cause says the committees encourage “greater participation from ordinary citizens. . . [giving them] a greater voice in the electoral process through their strength in numbers.” Meanwhile, Zakhem believes they have had the opposite effect. “Small donor committees benefited Democrats because organizations with large membership organizations, like labor, could contribute in large numbers,” he said. “Meanwhile, there just wasn’t that existing infrastructure for the GOP, which had relied on small businesses and other individuals.”
Windels received tens of thousands in small donor committee contributions, coming almost exclusively from unions in sums of up to $4,000, with committees including the AFL-CIO and the Colorado Education Association. Meanwhile, Windels' opponent Jessica Corry (now a Face The State editorial contributor), was outspent more than four-to-one in the race, with Windels and her supporters pumping approximately $500,000 into the district as compared to Corry’s approximate $100,000, according to records with the Secretary of State. Almost none of Corry’s campaign contributions came from small donor committees, and none of her support came from unions.
“Toward the end of the campaign, people were getting two or three mail pieces in support of my opponent from unions or outside organizations every day," said Corry. “We depended heavily on the support of small businesses, and we just couldn’t keep up with that pace, which probably cost them up to $30,000 a day.”
THE UNION "TIPPING FACTOR"?
Former state Senate John Andrews, R-Centennial, was hesitant to attack unions, calling their significant small donor committee contributions to the region only “a tipping factor”. Andrews believes Republicans must also accept at least some responsibility for their losses.
“In recent years, where Jeffco and my home county of Arapahoe have gone from reliable red to purple or blue, we haven’t done a good enough of a job of appealing to Reagan Democrats,” he said. “I believe that Arapahoe and Jeffco are still very winnable for the right Republican candidate. We need to be able to get our message out there in a more common-sense and less ideological way than we have been doing in recent years.”
Under Andrews’s leadership in 2004, Republican losses were especially heavy, when for the first time in four decades Democrats took over both houses of the state legislature. In north Jeffco, in addition to Windels holding on to SD 19 with 53 percent of the vote, while her fellow Democrats also toppled incumbents to take House Districts 27 and 29.
“To the extent that unions have been eating our lunch in recent elections, it’s an indictment of the Republican support base and the other various interests that should be stepping up to take a stand for limited government,” Andrews said. “It’s not so much that unions are out of control, it’s that the countervailing forces that should be operating from our side aren’t."
A united Democrat establishment continued to prevail in 2006, helping Denver District Attorney Bill Ritter beat out then-Republican Congressman Bob Beauprez in that year's gubernatorial race.
2008 FORECAST
Jeffco incumbents now head full force toward this November’s election with Democrat Reps. Debbie Benefield and Sara Gagliardi preparing to defend House District 27 and 29, respectively.
All eyes are already turned toward Senate District 19, where Evie Hudak, a sitting member of the State Board of Education, faces longtime GOP activist Libby Szabo in the race to replace term-limited Sen. Sue Windels.
According to May 1 campaign finance filings, Szabo has $27,720 on hand, while Hudak trails with $18,208. Szabo benefits from extremely favorable registration numbers, with nearly 36 percent of all SD 19 registered as Republicans. Nearly 34 percent of district voters are unaffiliated and just under 30 percent are registered Democrats.
At least one independent mail piece supporting Hudak has already been to SD 19 voters, with Hudak also distributing her campaign literature door-to-door.
Despite the early activity, Szabo remains optimistic about her prospects. "I'm going to be a voice for the people of Arvada, and not yet another voice for Gov. Ritter's tax and fee increases," she said, "People are hurting right now and they want someone who understands that."
BY THE NUMBERS
House District 25
Current Rep. Rob Witwer (R) not runningRegistration: Republican 41.9%; Democrat 26.53%; Unaffiliated 31.17%
Cash on hand: Cheri Gerou (R) $24,763.70; Andrew Scripter (D) $7,027.58
House District 27
House District 29
Senate District 16
Senate District 19
Democratic Takeover over of North Jeffco
On May 21st, 2008 Troy Marshall says:
Another informative and important article. The theme that resonated most for me was not the campaign finance rules that we have allowed to be passed that in effect greatly favor Democrats to the disadvantage of Repulican, though that is important. It is simply that very large portions of these districts are unaffiliated, and those unaffiliated voters are voting Democratic time and time again. Certainly, part of the problem is that our message is not getting out which equates to dollars, but another part of the equation must be that our message is not resonating with unaffiliated voters. As Republicans we have to come to grips with something that is difficult for us to admit, and that is our rhetoric is not the problem as much as our actions. Talking about free enterprise, and enabling the individual, less government,fiscal responsibility, belief in private property rights, capitalism and the like do not have the immediate appeal of promised free hand outs and the like, but they certainly have appeal when properly presented. History and results are very much in support of the ideals of the Republican party on fiscal and regulatory issues, and lead to more true freedoms for the individual to succeed and to fullfill their dreams and aspirations.
The Reagan, Gingrich era did a great job of not only articulating these concepts and their promise, but in delivery on those concepts. Since then, we have embraced a new form of leadership. Since I'm not articulate enough to accurately describe it, I will call it pragmatic vs ideologic. When we were the majority, we acted as incumbents are inclined to do, delivery goodwill rather than substance, but of course what appeared at first to be a pragmatic approach was the exact opposite. We could never be as good of a Democrat as the Democrats and so we are being replaced by them -- and rightly so. If that is the choice we offer.
The Democratic party today is a coalition of a large number of one issue interest groups -- labor unions, education unions, environmental groups, pro-choice groups, anti-trade, minority groups, etc...while it is admittedly a fragile coalition, it is a coalition that can generate significant passion to the movement. The Republican party has failed to match this passion. Plus our message is directed towards the already converted while the Democrats present a them aligned towards attracting those without strong ideological leanings, but to those who are simply looking for government to respond to their given needs whatever they may be at the time. We must come to grips that the new campaign finance reform rules in Colorado and across the country were essentially designed to mute the voice of individuals and to concentrate them with these special interest groups (interestingly, they were sold almost exclusively as a way to mute special interests and give the say back to the individual.
The Republican party is at a distinct disadvantage in this environment. The only way to counteract it, is with the same sort of grassroot passion that the members of the Democratic coalition generate, and we are failing miserably in this regard. Our difficulties are fourfold: (1) Our inability to match with small individual contributions the financial power of the various special interest groups that make up the Democratic coalition. (2) Our inability to convey our message effectively and with equal passion (waiting for the next Ronald Reagan is not a recipe for electorial success); (3)Our disconnect between our message and our actual governance (we can't continue to advocate free enterprise, and fiscal responsibility while continuing to grow government and pursuing political expediency through appeasement); and (4) Failing to reach out to those without strong ideological leanings, with an effective message carried to it by an impassioned base.
Recent elections in LA and MS along with electoral projections on a national basis indicate that these problems are systemic and not isolated to CO. The harsh reality is that the Reagan led as he said he would. The Republican party as a whole were thus given the opportunity to lead and we failed to deliver. We are not a coalition of special interests like the Democratic party but rather we represent a set of values that not only made America great but will propel it to new heights. If we are not seen as being consistent with these ideals then we are destined to be the minority party not only in this state but nationally.