<\/p>\n
DENVER \u2013 A gun-safety group founded by former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg endorsed Gov. John Hickenlooper and U.S. Sen. Mark Udall for re-election Tuesday.<\/p>\n
Republicans are using the endorsements as fodder, suggesting that Hickenlooper and Udall are in lockstep with Bloomberg\u2019s liberal policies.<\/p>\n
The endorsements came from Everytown for Gun Safety, a coalition including Mayors Against Illegal Guns, which Bloomberg co-founded, and Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America.<\/p>\n
\u201cColoradans have repeatedly rejected Michael Bloomberg\u2019s radical gun-control agenda, and they will reject Sen. Udall in November,\u201d said Alex Siciliano, a campaign spokesman for U.S. Rep. Cory Gardner, the Republican challenger in the U.S. Senate race.<\/p>\n
The politics around Bloomberg stem from his involvement during two recall elections in Colorado after the 2013 Democratic-controlled Legislature\u2019s push for gun control.<\/p>\n
Hickenlooper signed bills that year that banned high-capacity ammunition magazines of more than 15 rounds and required universal background checks.<\/p>\n
Hickenlooper is facing off against Republican challenger Bob Beauprez, a former congressman who has placed a spotlight on the gun-control issue.<\/p>\n
The laws angered the Second Amendment crowd, and recall elections were organized against two state lawmakers. Both lawmakers were stunningly recalled from office, a first in Colorado history.<\/p>\n
Bloomberg wrote a personal check for $350,000 to support opposition to the recall efforts.<\/p>\n
This summer, Bloomberg made headlines after an interview with Rolling Stone magazine when he suggested that the two Colorado communities in which the recalls took place are roadless.<\/p>\n
The East Coast billionaire was quickly attacked by the right, who pointed out that Colorado Springs and Pueblo clearly have roads.<\/p>\n
Bloomberg also became involved in another Colorado issue in 2013, the campaign for a nearly $1 billion tax increase to fund K-12 education. Bloomberg Philanthropies donated $1.05 million to proponents, but Amendment 66 still failed.<\/p>\n
Udall\u2019s campaign said Republicans are focusing on gimmicks, rather than issues.<\/p>\n
\u201cCongressman Gardner will say and do anything to distract Coloradans from that pesky signature of his on the personhood bill in Congress,\u201d said Udall spokeswoman Kristin Lynch, referring to a pro-life federal measure sponsored by Gardner.<\/p>\n
Eddie Stern, a spokesman for the Hickenlooper campaign, said, \u201cThe governor signed gun-safety legislation in 2013, including a bill mandating background checks on private sales to keep guns out of the hands of criminals, domestic-violence abusers and dangerous people. Coloradans support this legislation, and it is no surprise that people across the country agree with the governor on how important it is to keep our citizens safe.\u201d<\/p>\n
Democratic strategist Rick Ridder does not place too much weight in the attacks on Bloomberg.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s so much information about the U.S. Senate race and governor race, this gets lost in the cloud,\u201d Ridder said. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t make any difference. No one is waking up in the morning saying, \u2018Boy, Bloomberg endorsed Mark Udall, therefore, that\u2019s who I\u2019m going to vote for.\u2019 Or the other way around.\u201d<\/p>\n
But Republicans continue to play the Bloomberg card.<\/p>\n
\u201cBloomberg has spent millions to sway Colorado politics, resulting in spectacular failures at every turn,\u201d said Kelly Maher, executive director of Compass Colorado. \u201cEverything Bloomberg touches in the state goes the opposite way. He\u2019s like the King Midas of losing instead of gold.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
criticizes Bloomberg group<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":117600,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5736,5735],"tags":[13,481,307],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-117599","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","category-news","tag-frontpage-lead","tag-gov-john-hickenlooper","tag-u-s-sen-mark-udall"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117599","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=117599"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117599\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/117600"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=117599"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=117599"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=117599"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=117599"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}