Hugh McKean was elected to represent Colorado House District 51 on November 6, 2016. He has sponsored bills to improve transportation in Northern Colorado, help County governments in natural disaster recovery efforts, apply necessary corrections to statute where County Sheriff training requirements were concerned in addition to many other bills. One of the highlights of the session was co-sponsorship of HB1248 making available $90 million in loans for the Chimney Hollow Reservoir as part of the Windy Gap Firming Project, a vital water infrastructure project that will ensure water security for generations of Front Range Coloradans. Having lived in Loveland for over twenty years he is most proud of raising his children with a “western ethic”, teaching them self-reliance and personal responsibility.
The lies told by my opponent do not really even merit a response but I will say that I HAVE NEVER VOTED TO DEFUND THE POLICE. Letters of support from our state Fraternal Order of Police and the support I have from our State Troopers and our own police department tells the tale of how vigorously I support our men and women on the front lines.
Crime is out of control. From historic increases in property crimes, over a 50% increase in homicides in Denver and auto theft at rates over 100% of the national average we are all feeling the drastic difference in our communities and neighborhoods. Bill after bill theses last two legislative sessions have eviscerated policing in our state, have let suspected criminals out of jail with little or no bond and eliminated penalties for drug possession. Does that sound like good policy for the families and businesses of Colorado? Nope. Not even close. In fact these policies have made things less safe and have led to part of the increased cost of living in Colorado. With over a $4 billion in cost to the people of this state, we all feel the pain and need real answers.
Recently one of my Democrat colleagues spoke against my endorsement of the “broken window theory” of policing. This is the idea of making the enforcement of ALL our laws a central tenet to making sure that our communities are safe. If you prosecute the lesser crimes of vandalism and property damage then the focus on all other crimes follows naturally. In Loveland we have focused on restitution for crime victims, the proper way to make sure that we don’t just lock people up, rather making sure that victims are made whole.
This year I was very active in the space of making sure that law enforcement has the tools they need to do their job. We added money to grant programs to make sure that the body cams, mandated by law, do not take dollars from putting officers on the street. Additionally we will add Crisis Intervention Training as part of the POST curriculum so that every officer is fully aware of various co-responder options available to help folks, many of whom they see on their worst day.
There are ways to compassionately enforce our laws and make sure that people get the help they need. That should be our focus.
If the last two years of COVID have shown us anything, it’s that it’s had a dramatic effect on our kids. Their schools have shut down, gone to hybrid classes and finally come back with in-person classes. The problem is that it has left a dramatic gap in learning. While Colorado students were already behind in reading comprehension and math and science scores the gaps increased, especially in minority neighborhoods.
Parents and teachers felt the brunt of the changes due to COVID. Teachers were faced with finding ways to communicate with their students and had problems getting the materials and technology rolled out in ways unfamiliar. We owe a debt to all our teachers who went over and above to help every student find ways to learn and grow, albeit through ways that were less than optimal.
The real heroes this past year were our parents. With kids in and out of school, asking for help with geometry and genetics, parents stepped up and stepped in. They modified their work schedules, made school spaces in their living rooms and struggled with wi-fi and bandwidth. What they really did was engage more than ever in the education of their kids. What a remarkable blessing in the middle of dark times. But they haven’t been lauded for their sacrifice by a whole lot of people, in fact parents have been told that they are not part of their kids educations, they’ve been told that they are domestic terrorists. That’s not OK. Parents need to be at the very core of the education and educational choices of their children. So many folks in Thompson School District already are but we need to make sure that we see that all across the state. We need to make sure that parents are given the information they need about curricula and also are given the whole breadth of educational options available to their children. The days of singular focus on college preparatory tracks and AP classes needs to end, kids need to know that there are equal paths to success, through academic rigor as well as vocational education and entrepreneurship.
Hard times sometimes reveal great truths. We have remarkable tools available to help our kids succeed and parents should be armed with that choice.
Contrary to what the dozens of postcards are saying I DID NOT GIVE THE GOVERNOR HIS EMERGENCY POWERS during COVID.
I DID NOT sponsor the bill that shut Colorado down during COVID. I am not in the pocket of Big Pharma and I do not know Dr Fauci. In fact, no one sponsored such a bill during COVID. Those powers were given to the Governor way back in 1947 and are nearly unchanged today. The truth is that I fought against the mandates just like all of you. In fact I sponsored a resolution with Senator Paul Lundeen, removing the blanket powers the Governor has used, returning the approval of any such “disaster emergency” to the legislature on an ongoing basis. The bill I did get passed into law was one that put public health officials on the Governor’s Disaster Advisory Board. We found out after the floods in 2013 when there was a great deal of e-coli contamination that it posed a public health question that no one had answered before. It made sense to include the very departments that test for these contaminants so that recovery could be more streamlined. When the bill was written they took the original language that created the Department of Public Health in 1947 and moved it into that newly created section. The emergency powers of the Governor were put into law way back in 1947 and have only changed once, when State Senator Wayne Allard ran a bill in 2004 amidst the SARS epidemic. I sent my opponent the explanation of why his accusation was untrue. I sent him the original citation from 1947 and even described what our state legal staff shared with me, the original language, the changes in 2004 and then the move of the UNCHANGED language in my bill. He answered with an off the cuff dismissal and no discussion of what was true and what was a lie. Accusations carry a responsibility and they effect the reputation of one individual or the other. In this case there is no question. This bill did not do what my opponent alleges, he was given the entire history of the issue and still refused to comprehend. That means one of two things. Either he is not willing or able to dig in to the research and educate himself or he just refuses to admit that he made something up for political gain.
COVID-19 is here to stay. It’s going to be a fact of our lives and those of our kids and our grandkids. The division created by mask mandates and vaccine requirements has left an indelible mark on our society. We need to heal and they should not be allowed to continue. I have been steadfast in advocating for our nurses and frontline health care workers in dropping the 100% vaccine requirement, instead following the federal guidelines long established for influenza A&B, at 90%.I continue to push Governor Polis to discontinue all Executive Orders and return our lives to normal.
I am a tireless supporter of TABOR. In fact, seems like everyone is this year, even the Democrats. Colorado families will get $1500 of their hard earned dollars back in a TABOR refund. This is because of the hard fight we bring to budget discussions and the pressure to keep government in check.
One of the foundational considerations for Republicans is that government does have a job to do but it should be limited and efficient. The taxes that the citizens pay should always be considered as the fair cost of providing the service that only government can provide. As Larimer County Commissioner Steve Johnson used to say, “Government should only do what you cannot find in the yellow pages.” Colorado is fortunate to have the Taxpayers Bill of Rights enshrined in Article X of the State Constitution. That gives the authority to the voters to approve tax increases. What we have seen in recent years, however, is a game of words. What were once “taxes” are now called “fees” and there seems to be no end to them in the last several years. There are now “fees” on your Amazon deliveries, on your Uber rides and when someone delivers food from GrubHub. There was an increase to the gas “tax” but it was specifically called a “fee” to get around the voters consent until the Governor made a little mistake in a press conference and talked about delaying that “tax”. Words matter and playing tricksy with the will of the voters is never ok. The State Constitution makes it very clear that government must ascertain the consent of the voters to raise their taxes. It is only proper for the financing of the public institutions to be this kind of an agreement between the people and their government.
The last few years have included a tremendous amount of talk about and a whole lot of work on our roads and bridges. It has come with our backs against the wall, too many cars in too few lanes, too many accidents and too many bridges that were failing. That is not the place you want to be when trying to make good, long-term policy for the transportation needs for our state. The problem isn’t solved. Even though we see lots of cones and construction workers we have a desperate need to make sure that our roads are built to capacity.
You may have also noticed that all these improvements include tolls. We are told that there is no other way to get the work done, that we don’t have enough money to build the lane miles we all need. But in 2021 the Democrats passed a transportation funding plan that increased the gas tax (a violation of our Constitution), added a fee to Grub Hub and Door Dash, to Amazon deliveries and Uber. Now, less than a year later, we are being told that those taxes won’t actually do what they promised, that there have to be mandatory reductions in employees commuting. It seems it’s a problem without a solution, not enough money without tolls, tax after tax and now social engineering from a Department called the Colorado Department of Transportation. We can do better and we must. We need to audit CDOT and make sure that we are getting our money’s worth on the projects we need to get to work and get to school. We need to demand that our tax dollars go to pay for the capacity we need so we aren’t subjecting our citizens to the endless lane changes and cone zones that result in far too many accidents.
We will work with our Departments to prioritize budgets that make historic investments in concrete and asphalt. There is no other way to keep our state moving forward and giving parents back the time spent in endless traffic.
I believe life begins at conception and I am unequivocally Pro Life.
A big question this year is about what will happen with Roe v Wade in the United States Supreme Court. I simply do not know. Whatever the Court decides there will be time to distill what the decision means and the effect it has on State laws.
What I do know is that we need to focus on things where we all agree. We need to do better in how we protect those among us who are least able to protect themselves. From the youngest to the oldest we need to do better. It’s not fair that it’s difficult and expensive to adopt a child, it’s not fair that only 17% of foster kids go on to higher education or vocational training and it’s not fair that senior citizens are often faced to decide between living where it will be best for them or living where they can get the services they need. Instead of conjecture we should act. This year we will pass a bill allowing foster kids to go to Colorado schools of higher education without cost. This year we will take budget dollars and help seniors repair and retrofit their homes to help them age in place. We should do better, and we will.
Do not believe the lies about my support of the 2nd Amendment. I PROUDLY SUPPORT OUR RIGHT TO KEEP AND BEAR ARMS and fight tirelessly that it NOT BE INFRINGED.
In fact I fight so hard I actually win. I passed the very first pro-2nd Amendment bill this last year, HB 22-1168, returning Hunter Education to our 7th Grade classrooms. This was the first pro-2nd Amendment bill passed in Colorado in almost two decades. That work earned me the endorsement of the National Rifle Association of which I am a Life Member, the National Shooting Sports Association and the Colorado Shooting Sports Association.
I have earned the respect of these organizations because I show my commitment every day. I am a Concealed Carry Instructor, a Basic Pistol and Firearms Safety Instructor and a member of a competitive three-gun shooting team. This isn’t some political issue for me, it’s a way of life that started with my first .22 when I was just a farm kid.
I am a proud:
• 100 percent Second Amendment supporter
• Lifetime Member of the NRA
• Frontline Defender for the National Association of Gun Rights
• Concealed Carry Instructor
• An avid hunter and competitive three-gun team shooter
There may have never been more of a focus on the natural resources of our state. Gas prices cresting the $5 mark have put that focus front and center on how we are managing the incredible energy resources we have right here at home. We have to change the focus on how to help families survive. We have already called on the Governor to release all permits approved by the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission within 90 days. We have to demand that the State do all it can to help access those minerals safely and effectively and start to solve the supply side of this equation.
This year as we discuss the things that should be on the minds of Colorado one of those that rises to the top of the list is water. There have been a lot of years where it hasn’t been on the minds of folks. When they brush their teeth it’s there, when they water their lawn it’s there, when they want to quench their thirst it’s simply there and seldom is there much of a thought about how it got there, how much is needed or what it takes to make sure that it doesn’t run out. Many of us, however, can’t even pass a puddle without thinking about all those things.
This year something big happened. We began construction on Chimney Hollow Reservoir. The Windy Gap Firming Project has been a labor of love for a small army of folks for over twenty years and this past year we finally had a ground breaking on the construction of what will be the second tallest dam in Colorado and the second asphalt core dam in North America. The eventual reservoir will provide much needed “firm” water for many communities in northern Colorado, for Loveland nearly 35 years of water, deliverable 365 days a year. That’s a big deal.