{"id":109459,"date":"2015-09-17T19:41:31","date_gmt":"2015-09-18T01:41:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/brown-faces-new-bid\/"},"modified":"2015-09-17T19:41:31","modified_gmt":"2015-09-18T01:41:31","slug":"brown-faces-new-bid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/brown-faces-new-bid\/","title":{"rendered":"Brown faces new bid"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

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DENVER \u2013 Retired Durango teacher Barbara McLachlan will try to take House District 59 back for Democrats after her husband lost the seat last year.<\/p>\n

McLachlan filed paperwork Friday in an effort to unseat Republican Rep. J. Paul Brown of Ignacio. The Democrat announced her campaign on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

The dynamics are interesting, given that her husband, Mike McLachlan, lost the seat to Brown less than a year ago. The race was plagued by nasty attacks from both sides, with a focus on Mike McLachlan\u2019s support for a package of gun-control measures backed by Democrats in 2013.<\/p>\n

Barbara McLachlan, 60, believes she can rise above the noise from her husband\u2019s failed bid, pointing to her award-winning career as a longtime educator.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor some people, it\u2019s going to be good for some people, it\u2019s going to be bad. And I think people need to just judge me on my own merits,\u201d McLachlan said of the family connection. \u201cI\u2019m very qualified, and if I changed my name, I would be the same person.\u201d<\/p>\n

The district is considered one of the toughest in the state, with elections swinging back and forth. Democrats hope to win it back to extend their slim House majority of 34-31. Brown held the seat from 2010 to 2012 before losing it to Mike McLachlan, who then lost the district to Brown.<\/p>\n

The latest voter-registration numbers for active and inactive voters indicate that the district is 36 percent unaffiliated, 34 percent Republican and 28 percent Democrat. McLachlan lost the race last year by 170 votes.<\/p>\n

While the election offers a chance to place the seat back under a McLachlan name, Barbara McLachlan said her run has nothing to do with redemption.<\/p>\n

\u201cMichael gave me a good introduction into what the process looks like,\u201d she said. \u201cI\u2019m a teacher, and I\u2019m a mother. I\u2019m a listener. I have great energy. I\u2019ve been a volunteer. I\u2019m a third-generation Coloradan and I\u2019ve lived in the area for 33 years.\u201d<\/p>\n

She already has the support of Durango Mayor Dean Brookie, a Democrat and longtime friend of 25 years.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been in a number of occasions with both Michael and Barbara, and I can guarantee that she speaks her own mind. I\u2019m not really concerned about it,\u201d Brookie said. \u201cI think she\u2019ll take the best of Michael and apply her own thinking.\u201d<\/p>\n

The race is certain to focus on Brown\u2019s record, which Democrats say has leaned far to the right. But Brown steered away from controversial issues during the past session, surprising Democrats and Republicans.<\/p>\n

Brown supported funding for a program that provides intrauterine birth-control devices to low-income women, despite his stanch pro-life platform.<\/p>\n

He also was one of only five Republicans to join Democrats in blocking a procedural move by a fellow House Republican that tried to force a vote to overturn the state\u2019s ban on high-capacity ammunition magazines.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Barbara McLachlan seeks his House seat<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":109460,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5736,5735],"tags":[266,13,308,4680,722],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-109459","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","category-news","tag-election","tag-frontpage-lead","tag-local-elections","tag-mike-mclachlan","tag-state-rep-j-paul-brown"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109459","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=109459"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109459\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/109460"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=109459"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=109459"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=109459"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=109459"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}