Politics and War

Beauprez Skips One Contentious Event for Another

By Howard Rothman, 11-20-05

	Holtzman vs. Beauprez

Where does Bob Beauprez, one of Colorado’s U.S. House representatives and a top 2006 GOP gubernatorial hopeful, stand on the Iraq war? We can guess, but we don’t know for sure. That's because Beauprez was one of only two Congresspeople from this region who did not cast a vote last Friday in the most contentious floor action on Iraq since the initial decision to invade. Beauprez and fellow Republican John B. Shandegg of Phoenix were among just 22 House members who did not officially voice their opinions in an emotional evening of high theatrics last Friday when Congress considered a late-night emergency resolution to immediately terminate U.S forces in Iraq. We don’t know where Shandegg was, but it seems Beauprez was in Colorado preparing for a state GOP powwow on Saturday — a party gathering so contentious Gov. Bill Owens made sure he was vacationing in Russia and unable to attend.

Described by Denver Post reporter Mark P. Couch as a “peace summit [that] turned into a war of words,� the weekend conclave exposed just how deeply the rift over Referenda C and D has fractured the state Republican party. Beauprez and rival Marc Holtzman continued their very public clash that began during the recent campaign over Colorado’s Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights, or TABOR, as other state and federal Republican officials tried desperately to stem the local blow-up at a time when there's already enough political acrimony on the national level.

Holtzman distanced himself from the sentiments of a majority of the state’s voters when he adopted a vocal anti-C&D position this fall, but he grabbed the attention of fiscally conservative party faithful with that position and didn’t hurt himself among that influential group with his performance this weekend. Gov. Owens, who incurred the wrath of this same wing of his party by taking a high-profile pro-C&D stand, decided there was nothing to be gained by attending the bash and flew off across the globe to avoid it. Beauprez took heat from practically everyone for straddling the middle ground on the TABOR vote, and now appears to have gained little by stirring the pot in Colorado this week while missing the chance to formalize his position on Iraq in D.C. — a decision that could come back to haunt him as the war increasingly overwhelms all political dialogue in coming months.

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