After losing a bitter primary race to fellow Republican Don Bendell last year, former state House Rep. Judy Reyher has thrown her hat into the contest to displace Democrat Bri Buentello, who defeated Bendell in a close race last November for the House District 47 seat.
“You all remember when I posted a few months ago I was stepping away from politics to do something else,” wrote Reyher on Facebook this week, stating that she’d “officially filed” her paperwork to enter the race for the Pueblo-area House seat. “I can tell you it broke my heart to post that sentiment. Should have known better.”
Reyher thanked “Republican House leaders” and others for “all of the approval and confidence I have received.”
Bendell challenged Reyher in the GOP primary in 2018 for the seat, in part because of, as he put it, “mistakes” she’d made.
Asked at the time why he was challenging Reyher, Bendell said:
“I had been asked by a few people privately to get involved because they felt like there had been a few mistakes made that are going to be used by the Democrats against us,” Bendell said. “And we can’t lose that seat. And they felt like I would have a better chance to beat the liberal they are running from Pueblo in the general election.”
Reyher’s “mistakes” apparently included Facebook posts, which were first spotlighted by the Colorado Times Recorder, with comments such as, black people are “hatred filled beings.”
Reyer raised eyebrows when she said, after losing the primary to Bendell, that Bendell couldn’t win the general election, due to allegations from his children that Bendell failed to pay child support for 17 years.
Reyher was appointed to the Legislature in 2017 amid a cloud of controversy, narrowly beating GOP activist Tamra Axworthy in a vote by members of a GOP vacancy committee.
The seat had become vacant in 2017 after former State Rep. Clarice Navarro (R-Pueblo) resigned to join the Trump Administration.
Reyher, who did not immediately return a call for comment, lost to Bendell the following year.
Correction: This post has been updated to correct the name of Reyher’s successor in Colorado House of Representatives District 47. Rep. Bri Buentello currently holds the seat, not Rep Brianna Titone who represents House District 27.
