DENVER – Former congressman Bob Beauprez started campaigning for governor Tuesday, hoping to rise above a crowded field of Republicans who want the job.
It will be his second run for the post. He lost to former Gov. Bill Ritter in 2006.
Beauprez had harsh words for Gov. John Hickenlooper, accusing him of lax oversight of state agencies.
“If he won’t lead, I will. That’s why I’m in,” Beauprez said.
He cited the state’s troubled computer system for welfare benefits, which officials say needs another $35 million fix, and heavy traffic jams on Interstate 70 nearly every weekend this year.
He also criticized new air-quality standards on the gas and oil industry, which regulators adopted last week at Hickenlooper’s urging.
“When you implement the toughest regulations in the nation on our energy industry, that doesn’t create jobs. It might be a good talking point for your radical constituency,” Beauprez said.
He suggested Colorado would have been better off with average regulations, or even tougher-than-average among the states.
“Do you really think toughest-in-the-nation is the way to go?” he said.
Beauprez filed his paperwork to launch his candidacy Monday from Washington, where he was making the case to Republican officials to bring the 2016 Republican National Convention to Denver.
He stepped down as head of the Denver RNC effort and turned the job over to Pete Coors, of the Coors brewing family.
Beauprez is the second big name to jump into a statewide Republican primary in less than a week. U.S. Rep. Cory Gardner announced last week that he would run for Senate.
However, unlike Gardner’s entry into the Senate race, candidates are not leaving the governor’s race to make room for Beauprez.
State Sen. Greg Brophy, R-Wray, said he never considered dropping out for Beauprez.
“Oh, Lord no,” Brophy said.
“We have the opportunity to rebrand our party with fresh faces and new ideas – the fiscally responsible, live-and-let-live party. Or, we can choose to go back to the party of the mid-2000s,” Brophy said.
In a written statement, former state Sen. Mike Kopp said Coloradans are ready to turn the page on the past.
“Bob Beauprez is welcome to join the race, but we’ve seen this movie before, and it doesn’t end well,” Kopp said.
Beauprez said he isn’t bothered that other candidates are staying in the race. He won his first congressional primary after getting in late and beating a field of seven, he said.
“I think folks are looking for a candidate they can rally around, not only to win the Republican nomination, but to defeat John Hickenlooper,” Beauprez said.
Other candidates include former U.S. Rep. Tom Tancredo, Secretary of State Scott Gessler, Adams County businessman Steve House and Weld County rancher Roni Sylvester.
Unlike the other Republican candidates, Beauprez is wealthy enough to fund much of his campaign.
Using financial disclosures from 2006, his last year in the U.S. House, Opensecrets.org pegged his net worth between $9.4 million and $55.4 million, which ranked him as the 12th wealthiest member of the House in 2006. The range is wide because of the way federal financial disclosure forms are written.
Beauprez began his career running the family’s Boulder County dairy farm. He made money developing land and bought a small bank, which he built up into the multibranch Heritage Bank. He sold the bank in 2006.
He served as chairman of the Colorado Republican Party and was the first congressman elected from the state’s new 7th Congressional District in the Denver suburbs in 2002. He stepped down from Congress in 2006 to run for governor.
Beauprez said he plans a statewide campaign tour in April that will include Southwest Colorado.
The first formal event of the gubernatorial campaign is tonight, when Republicans go to their neighborhood caucus meetings. Through the caucuses and later at county conventions, party activists can get elected as delegates to the state convention April 12 in Boulder. State delegates will elect candidates for the June 24 primary election, when Republican voters will pick one candidate to take on Hickenlooper in November.
Beauprez and others can skip the convention process and gather petition signatures to place their names on the June primary ballot.
jhanel@durangoherald.com
