{"id":21841,"date":"2025-06-13T17:55:16","date_gmt":"2025-06-13T17:55:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/state-sen-cleave-simpson-picked-to-lead-colorados-senate-republicans\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T04:09:10","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T04:09:10","slug":"state-sen-cleave-simpson-picked-to-lead-colorados-senate-republicans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/state-sen-cleave-simpson-picked-to-lead-colorados-senate-republicans\/","title":{"rendered":"State Sen. Cleave Simpson picked to lead Colorado\u2019s Senate Republicans"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Republican
Republican Sen. Cleave Simpson speaks against proposed gun control measures, March 10, 2023, in the Senate. (Hart Van Denburg\/CPR News)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Republican state senators have selected Sen. Cleave Simpson of Alamosa<\/a> to replace former Sen. Paul Lundeen as their new Minority Leader. Lundeen resigned his office earlier this week to take a job leading a conservative nonprofit.<\/a><\/p>\n

Simpson was the only person nominated for the position and his selection didn\u2019t come as a surprise; he\u2019d previously served as the Assistant Minority Leader. The caucus chose Sen. Lisa Frizell of Douglas County to pick up that role.<\/p>\n

In a virtual meeting with his colleagues Thursday evening, Simpson said he wants to ensure the caucus is functional and effective and will make a difference for all Coloradans and focus on GOP priorities.<\/p>\n

He said that means working to make Colorado \u201can affordable place to live again (with) safe communities and a thriving business community.\u201d He said the state deserves a strong voice from a conservative perspective.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m looking forward to it,\u201d he said of leading the caucus. \u201cI look forward to just continuing what we\u2019ve been working on. The challenges are pretty immense and steep.\u201d<\/p>\n

Simpson was elected to the Senate in 2020 and has three years remaining in his second term. He serves on the Finance, Transportation & Energy and Legislative Council committees, but will likely reduce some of those commitments to focus on leading the caucus.<\/p>\n

GOP Sen. Barbara Kirkemeyer, who sits on the powerful joint budget committee, nominated Simpson for the leadership role and said she thinks he\u2019ll be a great leader for the 12-member caucus.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have worked very congenially and worked as a team. It’s a team effort in the Senate Republican caucus. And I don’t see that changing,\u201d she said in a recent interview.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s been prepping for this moment for a while. He\u2019s honest, he\u2019s thoughtful, he\u2019s fair.\u201d<\/p>\n

Simpson, like his predecessor, has a strong working relationship with Democratic Sen. President James Coleman. In an earlier interview with CPR News, Coleman referred to Simpson as one of his best friends; Simpson recently hosted Coleman\u2019s family for a visit at his home in Alamosa.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe stayed with him for a whole week and really got to understand his district and why he ran for office and what issues mattered most to him in the district he represents,\u201d Coleman said. He described Simpson as levelheaded, very professional, with good communication skills and a lot of patience.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of wisdom. He takes his time,\u201d said Coleman.<\/p>\n

To read more stories from Colorado Public Radio, visit www.cpr.org<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Republican Sen. Cleave Simpson speaks against proposed gun control measures, March 10, 2023, in the Senate. (Hart Van Denburg\/CPR News) Republican state senators have selected Sen. Cleave Simpson of Alamosa to replace former Sen. Paul Lundeen as their new Minority Leader. Lundeen resigned his office earlier this week to take a job leading a conservative […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":21842,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[94,15,28,1304,2293],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-21841","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-colorado-state-government","tag-colorado-state-senate","tag-headlines","tag-republican-party","tag-state-sen-cleave-simpson"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21841","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=21841"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21841\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":77482,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21841\/revisions\/77482"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21842"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21841"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21841"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21841"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=21841"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}