Tuesday’s virtual debate between the candidates running for the statehouse to represent Southwest Colorado hearkened back to a less divisive time in politics, and was unlike anything viewers saw during last week’s presidential debate.
The candidates were candid and respectful with one another; they bucked titles in favor of first names, and were honest about when they agreed with their opponent or didn’t know enough on a specific policy to comment.
During a 90-minute video call hosted by the La Plata County Democratic Party, the Democratic and Republican nominees for House District 59 and Senate District 6 took questions submitted live to the chat on a range of topics, from energy production to abortion access to local control.
About 30 people attended the midday event, which was recorded.
Sen. Cleave Simpson, a Republican from Alamosa, is running for reelection in Senate District 6. In 2020, Simpson was elected to represent Senate District 35 but redistricting changed the shape of the district and the counties he represents. As a result, Simpson is now running for reelection in Senate District 6 for the first time.
Simpson is a farmer and a rancher in the San Luis Valley and the general manager of the Rio Grande Water Conservation District.
His opponent in November is Democrat Vivian Smotherman, also a farmer, who spent 20 years working in offshore oil and gas extraction.
Both candidates indicated they hold relatively moderate stances on most of the issues that divide voters, at least by modern political standards.
Smotherman and Simpson both say they recognize the dire impact of climate change – Simpson noted that his surface water rights were no longer producing an adequate supply for irrigation – but that a transition away from fossil fuels needed to happen in a thoughtfully paced manner.
“We cannot turn off all of the gas wells or oil wells tomorrow and just go with wind and solar – it's not going to work,” Smotherman said. “It has to be done intelligently.”
Simpson, in response, noted that he and Smotherman are “pretty closely aligned in that area.”
In response to a question about a ban on assault weapons (the question did not define the often ill-defined term), both candidates indicated they would likely not support such a measure, although Smotherman hedged some and said her support would hinge on the exact wording.
Simpson said he was a believer in Second Amendment rights, but also noted the impracticality of pursuing such a law at the state level, and said that if it were to happen, federal regulation would make more sense.
“I don’t think anybody has need for an incredibly deadly weapon,” she said. “At the same time, I’m not going to take that right away because I don’t believe in taking rights away.”
She did indicate support for background checks and some sort of registry.
Voters in November will be asked to weigh in on Initiative 50, which proposes an annual 4% cap on the increase in statewide property tax revenue. Elected officials at the local and regional level have expressed fear over the impact that could have on their ability to provide mandatory services.
Smotherman pivoted her answer to talking about how to reframe the government’s use of taxpayer dollars and recognized that systemic overhaul is needed to ensure that the wealthy are paying their fair share.
“Ballot Initiative 50 is pretty problematic,” Simpson said. “I think when people understand the full impact of that initiative, I am predicting that it will not pass.”
The Taxpayer Bill of Rights, known as TABOR, abortion and single-payer health care were the three issues where the candidates seemed to diverge more from one another.
Smotherman indicated total support for looking into the viability and impacts of single-payer health care, otherwise known as universal health care, in Colorado. Simpson said he would likely support a study into the matter, but his personal experience with similar systems in Australia (where he worked for a time) had not convinced him of its efficacy.
Voters in November will also be asked to weigh in on Initiative 89, which proposes an amendment to the state’s constitution enshrining the unfettered right to an abortion.
“I believe life starts at conception, but I also recognize I serve as a representative of the entire community, and trying to find the balance – that’s pretty hard in this space,” Simpson said.
He called the broad nature of the ballot question “problematic” and said he would not support it, but said he has struggled to figure out how to best represent the entire electorate on this matter.
Smotherman was more blunt.
“I’m 100% against taking away women’s rights,” she said in support of the question.
Rep. Barbara McLachlan is term-limited this year. Democrat Katie Stewart and Republican Clark Craig are both running for the seat.
Craig is serving his first term as the mayor of Ignacio, has a background in the oil and gas industry, and serves on various boards and commissions.
Stewart is in her second term on the Durango School District 9-R Board of Education and works as an organizing director for the political advocacy group Rocky Mountain Values.
The two candidates were asked a similar set of questions as their counterparts running for the Senate.
On the topic of gun safety, Craig pivoted to placing emphasis on training courses and laws that targeted illegal gun use, rather than legal gun owners.
“Guns are tools here in rural Colorado,” Stewart said. “… I do support common-sense legislation such as red flag laws.”
She did not offer much in the way of specific gun safety-related measures she favored other than to say that most of the community held shared values around public safety.
The two sounded relatively aligned on the question of rank-choice voting. If the question makes it to ballot in November, voters would be asked to change the way the state votes. Voters would rank all the candidates on a ballot, rather than choosing one; if your top-choice is unpopular, your vote would go to toward your second-place choice until one candidate secured more than 50% of the vote.
Both Stewart and Craig said they wanted to better understand the broad and long-term impacts of rank-choice voting before they fully endorsed a position on the matter.
One issue where the two came down on different sides was the manner in which county commissioners are elected.
State lawmakers have unsuccessfully tried in the past to change the election system so that commissioners in smaller counties were elected only by the voters of a particular district, rather than at large. In a left-leaning county like La Plata County, where Durango’s liberal voters tend to out-vote the typically more conservative voters in rural parts of the county, that shift could mean Republicans would have an easier time getting elected to the Board of County Commissioners.
Craig said he would support such a change; Stewart indicated that she would not.
The two also hold different stances on the issue of abortion.
“Its important that we enshrine and codify those rights in Colorado for women and those who can get pregnant,” Stewart said. “I very much support Initiative 89 because everyone deserves access to reproductive health care in all corners of Colorado.”
Craig said he and his wife are “very much pro life” and did not support Initiative 89.
“I feel like we tend to get too far into this one-topic item, which is abortion, when we really need to say, ‘What if we spent this much energy talking about abortion, talking about family planning and reproduction?’” he said. “Because to me, that’s where the true value is.”
Craig and Stewart, both elected officials at a local level, seemed to mostly agree on the issue of unfunded mandates and other state actions that can squeeze local governments. Craig came out firmly in support of charter schools and school choice, while Stewart also highlighted the positive attitude of the school district toward charter schools.
The four candidates will face off in the Nov. 5 election.
rschafir@durangoherald.com
