VOTER GUIDE 2020 | Gardner, Hickenlooper provide clear contrasts on urgent points | 2020-election

Colorado’s U.S. Senate race pits the state’s two most well-known politicians towards one another in a battle that would decide which celebration controls the chamber after the November election.

Republican U.S. Sen. Cory Gardner is in search of a second time period in a state whose political panorama has moved to the left since he unseated Democrat Mark Udall six years in the past in one of many closest races within the nation that yr.

After serving eight years as governor and a quick White Home bid, Hickenlooper joined a major discipline of greater than a dozen Democrats hoping to problem Gardner final summer season. He received the June major over former state Home Speaker Andrew Romanoff, who ran towards Hickenlooper from the left. In a race that Romanoff his opponent was too cautious and average on difficulty starting from well being care reform.

Early polls confirmed Hickenlooper with a double-digit lead over Gardner, although more moderen polls have discovered a tighter race, probably as a result of hundreds of thousands spent by Gardner and nationwide Republicans airing blistering assault adverts blasting Hickenlooper. Amongst different prices, the Republicans have highlighted findings by the state’s impartial ethics fee that the Democrat twice violated a state present ban and a ruling that held Hickenlooper in contempt for snubbing a subpoena to testify earlier than the panel.

Hickenlooper, who constructed his model as a politician partially by pledging he wouldn’t run damaging adverts, reversed the long-held place in September when he launched a collection of TV adverts attacking Gardner over extra pandemic reduction laws and the Republicans’ efforts to overturn the Inexpensive Care Act. Nationwide Democrats and outdoors teams have poured hundreds of thousands extra into adverts blasting Gardner and portraying the incumbent as a dependable ally of President Donald Trump.

Democrats must internet 4 seats to win the gavel, or three seats if Joe Biden and Kamala Harris win, giving Harris the tie-breaking vote within the Senate.

The 2 candidates are set to debate 4 instances in October. Two have already occurred: in Pueblo final Friday at a debate sponsored by the Pueblo Chieftain newspaper; and a debate that was dubbed into Spanish that aired Tuesday on Telemundo. Up subsequent: in Denver this coming Friday at a televised debate sponsored by Channel 7, The Denver Submit and different information organizations; and on Oct. 13 in Fort Collins at a televised debate sponsored by 9News and Colorado Politics, together with different information organizations.

Ballots begin going out to Colorado voters on Oct. 9 and are due again to county clerks by 7 p.m. Nov. 3.

The 2 candidates maintain positions in step with their events on most points, they usually’ve every staked out areas of experience — Gardner, who sits on the Senate Overseas Relations Committee, is taken into account an knowledgeable on America’s relationships with nations in Asia, whereas Hickenlooper, a geologist-turned-founder of Colorado’s brewpub business, brings a small enterprise perspective to just about each matter — however provide sharp contrasts on various subjects which have been central to their campaigns.

Right here’s a have a look at the place Hickenlooper and Gardner stand on a number of key points:

Trump looms over all the things

No topic is predicted to affect voters this fall a lot as Trump and reactions to the president’s document after practically 4 years in workplace.

Trump, who misplaced Colorado by about 5 share factors in 2016, has trailed Democrat Joe Biden in polls all yr and isn’t anticipated to do any higher this time, creating each a problem and a chance for Gardner.

Whereas he broke with Trump 4 years in the past earlier than the 2016 election within the wake of the “Entry Hollywood” tape and wrote in Mike Pence’s title moderately than vote for Trump, Gardner quickly turned one of many president’s staunchest supporters and was one of many first GOP senators to endorse Trump for re-election. Trump returned the favor and embraced Gardner on stage at a February rally in Colorado Springs, declaring that the Coloradan has been with the administration “100%.”

Earlier this yr, Gardner voted towards calling witnesses throughout Trump’s impeachment trial after which voted to acquit the president on prices he held up international support in an try to convey down a political opponent. Hickenlooper, however, made clear he would have voted the opposite manner on witnesses, proof and whether or not to convict Trump in what the Democrat known as “a sham of a trial.”

Though Colorado’s citizens hasn’t lived as much as its fame for splitting tickets a lot recently, Gardner’s marketing campaign and Republican strategists consider he has a path to victory if he can persuade sufficient unaffiliated voters to verify off his title whereas casting their ballots for Democrat Joe Biden — as a result of they suppose Gardner has finished a very good job delivering for Colorado or as a result of they need a Republican Senate to maintain a verify on a Democratic president.

Well being care

Whereas Hickenlooper and Gardner each say they assist insurance policies that can yield reasonably priced well being care that covers preexisting situations, their information on what may very well be the hot-button difficulty this cycle couldn’t be extra completely different.

On essentially the most salient query, their positions on the Inexpensive Care Act, referred to as Obamacare, the candidates are at polar opposites.

Hickenlooper boasts that he carried out the federal laws’s Medicaid growth in Colorado when he was governor, bringing protection to some 400,000 extra state residents, and put in place a state medical health insurance change. Gardner, however, has opposed the laws since his first marketing campaign for federal workplace and voted to weaken, defund or repeal the laws quite a few instances.

Hickenlooper opposes a lawsuit pending earlier than the U.S. Supreme Court docket meaning to strike down the ACA, introduced by the Texas lawyer basic and supported by the Trump administration. The excessive courtroom is scheduled to listen to arguments within the case per week after Election Day, elevating the stakes even additional

Gardner hasn’t taken an express place on the lawsuit — which hinges on the Republicans’ tax laws eradicating the ACA’s particular person mandate — however stated final yr, “If the Democrats need to stand for an unconstitutional regulation, I assume that’s their selection.”

Hickenlooper maintains that the ACA ought to be strengthened, one thing that didn’t occur after its passage as a result of Republican lawmakers have been intent on killing it moderately than enhancing it.

Whereas he helps making a public medical health insurance possibility to extend competitors and assist scale back prices, Hickenlooper has taken warmth from his celebration’s left wing for opposing “Medicare for All,” the single-payer well being care plan supported by Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and different Democrats.

Regardless, Gardner has repeatedly leveled a false cost towards Hickenlooper, claiming the Democrat helps a coverage he truly opposes — Hickenlooper was booed by Democrats in California when he argued towards “Medicare for All” on the presidential marketing campaign path — and can usher in socialized drugs.

Gardner says he helps well-liked parts of the ACA, together with guaranteeing protection to individuals with preexisting situations — totaling 2.5 million Coloradans, by some counts — and earlier this summer season launched a 117-word invoice he says would accomplish that. Democrats and well being care specialists, nevertheless, say Gardner’s invoice, which doesn’t have a single co-sponsor, lacks sure key provisions and wouldn’t accomplish what he guarantees.

Alongside along with his efforts to repeal the ACA, Gardner helped Colorado’s state authorities get hold of a federal waiver to implement a reinsurance program designed to decrease prices for some customers and has labored to extend worth transparency for pharmaceuticals. He additionally helps permitting insurance coverage corporations to promote plans throughout state strains to decrease prices and enhance competitors.

Surroundings and public lands

Gardner factors to Trump’s signature this summer season enacting the Nice American Outdoor Act as a significant bipartisan achievement and a cause for Colorado voters to ship him again to Washington for an additional time period.

The invoice, which establishes everlasting funding for the Land and Water Conservation Fund from fossil gasoline royalties, additionally directs $9.5 billion over 5 years to fund long-deferred upkeep on Nationwide Park Service properties.

The laws received near-universal reward from environmental and conservation organizations, together with ones which can be sometimes casting Gardner as an opponent of their agendas. “Congress coming collectively to cross this act would deal with two elementary crises the world faces without delay — catastrophic local weather change and the lack of biodiversity,” stated Sharon Buccino, senior director of the lands division on the Pure Sources Protection Council.

Hickenlooper helps the Gardner invoice however in any other case faults his opponent on practically each entrance involving conservation and public lands.

Gardner helped create Canyons of the Ancients Nationwide Monument and handed laws authorizing a research to find out whether or not Camp Amache in Southeastern Colorado ought to be added to the Nationwide Park System.

Each candidates have been named a “Good friend of the Out of doors Trade” by the Out of doors Trade Affiliation — Gardner for sponsoring the bipartisan Out of doors Recreation Jobs and Financial Affect Act, which helps authorities quantify the financial affect of the business, and Hickenlooper for his work rising the state’s recreation economic system, establishing Public Lands Day as a state vacation and his aggressive response to the Trump administration’s rollback of climate-related insurance policies.

Hickenlooper is a powerful supporter of the Colorado Out of doors Recreation & Economic system Act — referred to as the CORE Act — meant to guard 400,000 acres of public lands in Colorado, whereas Gardner has been noncommittal concerning the proposal, successfully stalling it, although Trump has additionally threatened to veto the invoice, ought to it make it to his desk.

Gardner additionally didn’t take a place on William Perry Pendley’s controversial tenure working the Bureau of Land Administration. Pendley was ousted after serving for greater than a yr as performing director of the company by a federal decide in late September, who dominated that the previous oil and gasoline lawyer with a historical past of advocating for the sale of public lands had been filling the place illegally.

One of many accomplishments touted by Gardner was the choice final yr by the Division of Inside to maneuver BLM’s headquarters to Grand Junction, bringing “federal decision-makers nearer to our public lands,” Gardner says on his marketing campaign web site, “as a result of he believes authorities operates greatest when its closest to the individuals it serves.”

Critics complained the transfer didn’t convey various dozen jobs to town on the Western Slope, and that it was a part of a Trump administration effort to hole out some federal companies by requiring key personnel to uproot and transfer throughout the nation on quick discover.

Local weather change and vitality

Each candidates have bucked their events’ conventional positions on vitality issues, although neither stakes out positions a lot at odds with their celebration line.

Garner sponsored legislature when he was within the state Normal Meeting to the Colorado Clear Vitality Improvement Authority; when he was working for the Senate in 2014 he filmed a marketing campaign business in a windmill farm for considered one of his first adverts, in a nod towards his assist for wind manufacturing tax credit to bolster the renewable business.

Hickenlooper, who spent his early years in Colorado working as a petroleum geologist, was cozier than many Democrats appreciated with the state’s oil and gasoline business and routinely sung the praises of fracking, together with famously ingesting fracking fluid throughout a congressional listening to to show its security.

Gardner is likely one of the few Senate Republicans who acknowledges that local weather change exists and is attributable to human exercise, although Democrats say his votes in Congress don’t replicate a way of urgency concerning the disaster.

At a subcommittee listening to he was chairing in 2019, Gardner said: “I consider in local weather change. I consider within the consensus inside the scientific neighborhood. I consider people are contributing to local weather change, and I consider now we have work to do collectively to unravel it.”

Gardner voted in favor of a 2015 modification declaring that local weather change isn’t a hoax, and the identical yr supported extending the wind manufacturing tax credit score. He’s additionally been amongst a minority of Republican lawmakers against GOP efforts to kill funding for analysis into renewable vitality and lowering emissions.

Hickenlooper calls local weather change “the defining problem of our instances” and says the nation should deal with it with “a fierce sense of urgency.”

He’s laid out a purpose of transitioning to a 100% renewable vitality economic system, with net-zero emissions, by 2050, and an interim purpose of slicing greenhouse gases 43% beneath 2005 ranges by 2030. Hickenlooper desires america to rejoin the Paris Local weather Accord and reverse Trump administration insurance policies on local weather, together with establishing a fund to assist growing nations curb emissions require that local weather targets are a part of commerce agreements.

Whereas Hickenlooper doesn’t assist the Inexperienced New Deal — regardless of Gardner regularly attacking him for supporting the sweeping legislative proposal — the Democrat has a protracted record of proposals, together with large funding in sensible grid expertise and analysis into carbon seize, vitality storage and renewable vitality. He helps shifting towards a wholly electrified car fleet and enhancing vitality effectivity in buildings.

Hickenlooper additionally helps a plan to cost carbon emissions to make use of market incentives to cut back greenhouse gases, in addition to create a program just like the Peace Corps to encourage careers tackling local weather change.

Second Modification, gun security

Hickenlooper signed state laws — handed within the wake of the 2012 shootings at an Aurora movie show and an elementary college in Newtown, Conn. — to require background checks on all firearms gross sales within the state, make purchasers pay for their very own background checks and ban magazines that maintain greater than 15 rounds of ammunition.

His critics level out Hickenlooper instructed a gaggle of sheriffs that he solely signed the journal ban as a result of a workers member had dedicated him to it, however nationwide gun security organizations Brady PAC, Giffords, Everytown for Gun Security and Mothers Demand Motion are throwing their assist behind the Democrat, citing the previous governor’s assist for gun-safety legal guidelines on the state and federal stage.

Hickenlooper helps establishing excessive threat safety orders just like the “red-flag” invoice handed by Colorado and different states that permits authorities to take away firearm briefly from these judged to be in danger to themselves or others.

Amongst Hickenlooper’s different national-level proposals: common background checks on gun gross sales, set up nationwide journal restrict, restore assault weapons ban, strengthen enforcement towards sellers who promote firearms illegally and straw purchasers and ban manufacturing of “ghost weapons” assembled from elements ordered on-line or made on 3D printers.

Gardner, one of many high recipients of marketing campaign assist from the Nationwide Rifle Affiliation over his profession, has opposed federal variations of gun-control legal guidelines adopted in Colorado.

A agency defender of the Second Modification, Gardner has sponsored a number of items of laws aimed toward selling psychological well being consciousness to cut back youth suicides and stopping college violence.

Accessibility

It’s been three years since Gardner final held a standard, in-person city corridor that was open to the general public and publicized prematurely — the necessities the nonpartisan City Corridor Venture lays out as important parts for elected officers who need to hold open strains of communication with their constituents. Gardner has as an alternative held tele-town halls that his aides say attain many extra Coloradans.

Because the state shut down in March to sluggish the unfold of the brand new coronavirus, Hickenlooper, like Gardner, has been campaigning principally remotely and at small gatherings round Colorado with invited company and restricted press entry. Hickenlooper has, nevertheless, signed the City Corridor Venture’s pledge, committing to carry at the very least 4 city halls yearly that meet the group’s standards, if elected. Gardner’s marketing campaign didn’t reply to an inquiry concerning the pledge.