Senate race. To this point, former Gov. John Hickenlooper is not fazed by ethics violations.
Opponents make issue of Hickenlooper’s violations, but ex-governor undaunted by scandal
John Hickenlooper’s ethics imbroglio this month has brought him plenty of political embarrassment, but Colorado political watchers say a key question remains unanswered in the U.S. Senate race.
In an election year painted by such stark dividing lines, will voters much care about the issue?
Republican allies of U.S. Sen. Cory Gardner certainly hope so.
They have made clear that as long as the Democratic former governor is in the race, they’re eager to make heavy political use of a state commission’s recent findings that he twice violated the state’s ethics law while in office. Fellow Democrat Andrew Romanoff also seized forcefully on the issue in two debates last week as he attempts to defeat Hickenlooper in the June 30 primary.
“Honestly, my impression was that this probably looks kind of minor to most voters — either primary or general election voters — to the extent they even know it’s going on at all,” said Seth Masket, a political science professor at the University of Denver.
He added: “The type of scandal that usually ends up really hurting a candidate and changing the outcome of a race are things where there’s substantial abuse of power, or where there’s physical violence … and I don’t really think this rises to that level.”
Still, in a year in which President Donald Trump is up for reelection — and Gardner, a key ally, is on the ropes — it’s anybody’s guess how the ethics scandal will play.
“At a time when the environment is so tumultuous, and there is so much divisiveness, voters are really seeking a candidate that they can trust,” said Cinamon Watson, a longtime Republican political strategist. “This is going to hurt (Hickenlooper) — it’s going to sting. And it definitely erodes his trustworthiness.”
The Colorado Independent
Ethics Commission, acting on a complaint filed by a Gop-affiliated group, found June 5 that Hickenlooper was wrong in 2018 to allow corporations to foot the bill for a private jet trip, expensive dinners and limousine rides on two trips out of state. He was representing Colorado in Connecticut at the commissioning ceremony for the USS Colorado, an attack submarine, and went to Italy for the Bilderberg Meetings, an annual gathering of the global
elite.
In an unusual series of events leading up to his eventual testimony June 5, Hickenlooper skipped out on a remote video ethics hearing he’d been subpoenaed to attend, resulting in the commission holding him in contempt. The former governor, who has received taxpayerfunded legal representation, unsuccessfully fought the subpoena in court, citing concerns that the setup would shortchange his due process rights.
Last week, Romanoff called for Hickenlooper to drop out of the race during a 9News debate, arguing the ethics issue was the latest easy attack the candidate — the establishment favorite in the primary — had handed to Republicans to use in the fall if he’s the nominee.
But Hickenlooper, while taking responsibility, shot back that he wasn’t daunted by what he considers “smear attacks” engineered by the Public Trust Institute, the group that filed the ethics complaint. He suggested the relationship he’d built with Colorado voters “through thick and thin” would survive.
Gardner also has been the target of ethics complaints — in his case made to the U.S. Senate Ethics Committee — one about his attendance at a ritzy party put on by Krug Champagne and the other about a campaign ad. His campaign says it reimbursed Gardner’s party cost and disputes the ad violates any rules.
Mindi Haddad, a Denver political strategist who has worked with Democrats, views the Hickenlooper ethics issue as “much ado about nothing, in the grand scheme” of 2020 politics. She supports Romanoff in the primary but isn’t working for him.
“I think with all of the garbage that we’ve been fed for the last four years, or since the (Trump) administration started running their campaign … it’s just been one long ethics violation,” she said. “It would be hypocritical to now say that what Hickenlooper did was correct, because it wasn’t. … (But) I think a lot worse has been done.”
She expects to see attack ads, but she’s skeptical the ethics issue will have legs.
“I don’t think it compromises his ability to be a senator,” Haddad said. “I just think it makes him part of the old boys’ club.”
Jeff Fard, a community activist in Five Points who’s known as Brother Jeff, isn’t so sure voters will shrug off Hickenlooper’s ethics case — in particular his decision to skip out on the first commission hearing.
“It’s frightening for me to hear any candidate who says, ‘I’m not going to court because the system’s not working,'” Fard said. “That’s a wonderful privilege to have,” given that criminal defendants typically face big consequences for ignoring a court date.
“This may resonate a little with black and brown communities,” he said — and not in a good way. Fard says he’s undecided in the primary, and that’s the election where he thinks the issue has more potential to be a small factor considered by voters as they decide between Romanoff and Hickenlooper.
Criminal justice issues are important, Fard said, particularly in light of the ongoing Black Lives Matter protests. He gives Hickenlooper some credit for good leadership in that area as governor, though Hickenlooper’s police strategies earlier, in the Denver mayor’s office, have come under renewed scrutiny. Fard noted that Romanoff also still is answering to some Latino voters for his past sponsorship of legislation seen as anti-immigrant.
Limited public polling for the November general election has shown Hickenlooper leading Gardner substantially, but first he needs to win the nomination. And the primary stage is where a similarly small-seeming scandal hampered another Colorado candidate a decade ago.
In 2010, Republican Scott Mcinnis, a former congressman, was running for governor when he faced accusations of plagiarism in writing he did as part of a $300,000 fellowship. He was the front-runner in the Republican primary but narrowly lost to a relative unknown, Dan Maes — who would go on to lose to Hickenlooper in a three-way race.
This time around, “Hickenlooper comes into the primary with pretty substantial advantages, with his name recognition and generally high approval ratings throughout his time as governor and his time as mayor,” Masket said, adding about the ethics issue: “It seems unlikely that this would really dismantle that.”