UNITED
Congressional candidate
BOEBERT'S COMMENTS
ON FAMILY SEPARATION
COMMUNITY EDITORIAL
BOARDS REVEAL THEIR
EXPERIENCES
Though many Colorado voters have seen the blitzkrieg of Lauren Boebert's TV ads and mailbox stuffing, few have gotten to sit down with her in person and size her up.
The community editorial boards of our newspapers in Grand Junction, Pueblo, Durango, and Aspen have. More on their stories in a moment.
Recently, Boebert sat down with the Aspen Daily News. In the course of that conversation, Boebert was asked about October's breaking news that the federal government has orphaned 545 separated children of asylum seekers and migrant workers as a result of its family separation policies - with no current means of reuniting them with their parents.
Boebert compared these victims of family separation to her detention for an unpaid traffic ticket. As the newspaper reports:
She went on to liken a nearly 10% alleged failure to effectively track the parents of children separated at the border, even amid asylum requests, to her anecdotal experience following an arrest for an unpaid parking ticket.
“When I didn’t pay my $100 traffic ticket, I was separated from my kids for about an hour until I got it taken care of,” she said.
Boebert replied that “when parents break the laws, sometimes things happen.”
It is legal for families fleeing dangerous situations to apply for asylum consideration under U.S. law. It has only recently become federal government policy to deliberately and punitively separate them from their children, where forced hysterectomies of women and sexual violence against children is occuring.
In the same interview, Boebert was asked about J-1 Visas, which provide a vital source of seasonal labor to the 3rd Congressional's winter tourism economies. She stated she is unfamiliar with the topic.
A HISTORY OF OFFENSES INVOLVING CHILDREN
This comment comes on the heels of revelations that Boebert has fabricated much of her origin story and obtained her GED just this spring, was cited multiple times for failure to secure her children in her car and tail-gaiting other families, broke Colorado gun laws by encouraging minors to carry firearms among patrons in her restaurant, encouraged the underage drinking children of other families to flee law enforcement at Country Jam, and failed to qualify for a liquor license after offenses including selling alcohol to minors.
OTHER RECENT REVELATIONS
Since the Aspen Daily interview, it has come to light that Boebert is 6 months late in reporting a campaign financial disclosure of how she raises and spends supporters' money and two months beyond the extended filing date for reporting her personal finances, which might indicate how her restaurant is continuing to operate despite a $242,347 loss last reported in 2018.
The average newspaper invites candidates for a dozen races or more to speak with their editorial board each election season. Editorial boards are sourced from community members of various political affiliations and walks of life and supplemented by local news reporters familiar with current issues.
For a candidate hoping to win a coveted newspaper endorsement, it's a chance to tell their story and make a case for their qualifications and ideas.
Here's what the three largest 3rd Congressional papers experienced with Lauren Boebert:
"We thought that speaking to the candidates would help us better understand their policy differences. We were wrong — primarily because Lauren Boebert stonewalled the Sentinel’s editorial board and eluded virtually all of our questions.
Boebert, the GOP candidate, failed the first test of public service, which is to be accountable to the people. If she wants to represent us in Washington, D.C., she has to be willing to answer questions. She wants to tell us who she is and what she stands for by serving up platitudes instead of delving into policy specifics. Perhaps this is intentional because she’s never held elected office and she just doesn’t know her stuff.
Indeed, when the editorial board asked for some clarity on her contention that “free and open markets” would help solve the health-care dilemma, she turned to a campaign staffer for an answer. In another instance she said, “No one has fought more for water than I have,” because she helped gather signatures to get Proposition 113 on the ballot. That proposition concerns Colorado’s participation in an interstate compact to ensure that the presidential election is decided by the outcome of the national popular vote. It’s politically naïve to conflate a voting compact with interstate water compacts, which are authorized by Congress.
She refused to say whether she would vote to repeal the Affordable Care Act. She’s against a single-payer system, but we could never pin her down on specifics of what an ACA alternative would look like if she were to play a role in crafting one."
"The leap from citizen to being a member of Congress with no experience in other elected government service is astronomical. Few pull it off. Boebert has no such experience; Mitsch Bush does.
And for sure, even fewer make it work when they go in with guns blazing, promising to stand up and fight against the leaders of the opposite party, as Boebert has pledged to do as she swaggers across a Colorado field and our TV screens with a gun strapped to her leg.
We are dismayed at the naivete that attitude displays, an attitude that is sure to land a freshman congresswoman on the Sub-Committee for Study of Extinction of the Large Red Fire Ant in the American West.
Sure, Boebert can hold news conferences and be a darling on Fox News, but she would be ineffectual in Congress with that attitude. And that’s where we need success. Air time on conservative networks doesn’t help Colorado
.
Mitsch Bush, on the other hand, would be well-respected from day one, drawing significant committee assignments and she would begin working her way up the seniority ladder. That’s how the system works, and that’s how Colorado would benefit in terms of representation and legislation that helps our state."
Boebert has made quite the name for herself in far-right circles, especially in opening her Shooters Grill in Rifle, where men and women dress up like cowboys and cowgirls, strap on their guns and wish they could have been extras in 'Tombstone.'
Fine with us. We think that’s where she should continue to hold court. She has no business in Congress."
"...the Herald’s editorial board believes experiences build on one another, that to expect to advocate for legislation in office building hallways, to participate in Congressional hearings, to go to the microphone in the House chamber, requires some time in community and state decision-making positions, even very local ones. A term on a school board can be a significant learning experience.
Boebert has had none of that while wanting to be one of Colorado’s seven House members.
.
Diane Mitsch Bush also has been a small-business owner and manager, and she has been a Routt County commissioner and served three terms in Colorado’s House of Representatives.
She has debated and shaped issues of land use and population growth, water availability now and in the future, and the support of preK-12 and higher education. She knows budgets and the mix of taxation necessary to support them.
And Mitsch Bush has not just had to negotiate within the Democratic Party to achieve the desired outcomes for her constituents, but across the aisle, often between rural and urban interests. Identifying the middle and bringing both sides together is what D.C. needs.
The 3rd Congressional District is varied in its regions and citizenry, and Mitsch Bush has the background to do the best to benefit that diversity. She deserves a vote for the 3rd Congressional seat."