{"id":37517,"date":"2022-11-03T12:54:14","date_gmt":"2022-11-03T18:54:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/republican-candidate-in-colorado-claims-planned-parenthood-sells-body-parts-fbi-instigated-capitol-riot\/"},"modified":"2022-11-03T18:54:14","modified_gmt":"2022-11-03T18:54:14","slug":"republican-candidate-in-colorado-claims-planned-parenthood-sells-body-parts-fbi-instigated","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/republican-candidate-in-colorado-claims-planned-parenthood-sells-body-parts-fbi-instigated\/","title":{"rendered":"Republican candidate in Colorado claims Planned Parenthood sells body parts, FBI instigated Capitol riot"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Ballot
Ballot boxes at the Arapahoe County elections facility, June 9 in Littleton. (Hugh Carey\/The Colorado Sun)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

A Republican candidate for a state House district in Colorado Springs falsely says Planned Parenthood sells the body parts of aborted fetuses and that the FBI instigated the deadly riot at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.<\/p>\n

Pastor Scott Bottoms, who calls himself anti-establishment and part of the \u201cfar right,\u201d is expected to cruise to victory Tuesday in the GOP-leaning House District 15, which takes in eastern Colorado Springs and the communities of eastern El Paso County. According to a nonpartisan analysis of election results in the district dating back to 2016, the district favors Republicans by 26 percentage points.<\/p>\n

If Bottoms wins, he\u2019ll follow a line of controversial predecessors into the House District 15 seat, including former Rep. Gordon Klingenschmitt, a Republican who said homosexuality is a sin and compared President Barack Obama to a demon. The office is now held by Rep. Dave Williams, who has cast doubt on the legitimacy of the 2020 presidential election and mounted an unsuccessful GOP primary challenge this year to U.S. House Rep. Doug Lamborn.<\/p>\n

Before Klingenschmitt, the district was represented by Douglas Bruce, a Republican as famous for his authorship of Colorado\u2019s Taxpayer\u2019s Bill of Rights, which limits government growth and requires voter approval for all tax increases, as for his bombast in office. In 2008, Bruce was censured by the Colorado legislature after he kicked a photographer for the now-defunct Rocky Mountain News during the legislature\u2019s morning prayer.<\/p>\n

In an interview with The Colorado Sun, Bottoms characterized a law passed in April affirming access to abortion and contraception in Colorado as \u201cdemonic.\u201d He used the same term to describe transgender people and gender-affirming care.<\/p>\n

Bottoms previously told The Colorado Springs Independent he would pursue legislation to prosecute school administrators and teachers if they were to encourage students to seek gender-affirming care. He also described critical race theory, which he claims is shaping school curricula, as demonic. The theory, which holds that racism is systemic in the U.S. and inherent in institutions like the courts and broader criminal justice system, is generally taught in higher education, and many K-12 schools across the state and U.S. have denied teaching the concept.<\/p>\n

The staunchly anti-abortion Bottoms, in his interview with The Sun, also repeated debunked claims that Planned Parenthood profits from selling body parts of aborted fetuses. Investigations in multiple states have found no evidence the organization sells fetal tissue. Planned Parenthood has said in the past that a small number of their affiliates have donated fetal tissue for medical research, but did not accept payment.<\/p>\n

Bottoms claimed the FBI helped foment the breach of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and that federal agents \u201clured\u201d people into the Capitol building. In reality, supporters of former President Donald Trump invaded the Capitol as a joint session of Congress was in the process of certifying the results of the 2020 presidential election.<\/p>\n

The Republican candidate also said, without providing factual support, the country is seeing human trafficking at \u201cthe highest levels of Washington, D.C.,\u201d and he claimed without evidence that former President Bill Clinton has committed crimes against children.<\/p>\n

The accusations echo those of QAnon, a conspiracy theory that pushes false claims about politicians and celebrities engaged in secret child sex rings. When asked about the QAnon conspiracy, Bottoms said he wasn\u2019t aware of it and asked for it to be explained to him. Told the conspiracy involves claims of a child sex ring run by elites, Bottoms said \u201cit would be naive to assume that there\u2019s no child molesters in Washington, D.C.\u201d<\/p>\n

Since 2014, no Democratic candidate has won more than 39% of the vote in House District 15.<\/p>\n

Bottoms\u2019 Democratic challenger is Alvin Sexton, a first-time candidate and mechanic who is hopeful he\u2019ll win the Republican-leaning district. \u201cNinety-nine percent of the comments that my opponent has said, it\u2019s just manufactured outrage,\u201d Sexton said. \u201cThe things that he\u2019s upset about and talking about are not happening.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bottoms\u2019 candidacy comes as Republicans hope to build a more unified GOP caucus in the House now that \u201cinternal dissidents\u201d like Williams are out of office. Then-House Minority Leader Hugh McKean, R-Loveland, told The Denver Post earlier this month that he thinks this will be the \u201cmost cohesive, cooperative and just dynamic group of people\u201d in the House in a while. McKean died Sunday of a heart attack. He didn\u2019t respond to Colorado Sun messages seeking comment about Bottoms before his death.<\/p>\n

The Colorado Republican Party did not respond to requests for comment on Bottoms\u2019 candidacy and his beliefs.<\/p>\n

The party unity McKean hoped for may be challenged, though, by a candidate such as Bottoms, who speaks witheringly of his political opponents \u2013 often in stark, biblical terms \u2013 and accuses them of harboring dark motives.<\/p>\n

\u201cI will never, ever work alongside anyone that thinks that murdering babies is OK,\u201d Bottoms told The Sun, referring to abortion. \u201cAnybody that does not see that is immoral, ungodly, demonic, destructive. \u2026 I will never, ever, ever work with those people. That is not going to be something I compromise on. It\u2019s not going to be something I cave on, under any circumstance.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bottoms said he would work only with those politicians who agreed to back what he called \u201csane legislation,\u201d citing traditional Republican concerns such as shrinking government and cutting taxes.<\/p>\n

Democrats hold a significant advantage in the Colorado House, and while their majority in the chamber is expected to shrink after the November election, Bottoms would still have to work with Democrats to pass any legislation.<\/p>\n

Read more at The Colorado Sun<\/div>\n

The Colorado Sun is a reader-supported, nonpartisan news organization dedicated to covering Colorado issues. To learn more, go to coloradosun.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bottoms is expected to cruise to victory Tuesday in the GOP-leaning House District 15 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":37425,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[233,266,28],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-37517","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-coloradosun-com","tag-election","tag-headlines"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37517","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=37517"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37517\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37425"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37517"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37517"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37517"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=37517"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}