In El Paso County’s Senate District 12, Colorado Rep. Marc Snyder (D-Manitou Springs) is running against El Paso County Commissioner Stan VanderWerf to replace Sen. Bob Gardner (R-Colorado Springs).
“It is an essential race,” said VanderWerf during the Aug. 28 Capitol Club luncheon where radio host Kim Monson railed against mail-in ballots and asked for donations to help a convicted felon file lawsuits against the Colorado Secretary of State. “Because if I lose this race and all the other seats stay the same, the Democrats get a supermajority in the Senate. And if you think you’re getting bad legislation today, just wait. It will be worse.”
VanderWerf told Republicans at the fundraiser lunch that his top priority is illegal immigration. “Illegal immigration is the main source of the problem,” he said. “There is a federal issue. But at the state level, we can fight the kinds of problems that illegal immigration causes. And that’s working on stiffer penalties for people that do human trafficking, which is a modern day form of slavery. And unfortunately, the Democrats seem to have a strong interest in reducing penalties for crimes.”
In February, El Paso County Commissioners held a press conference to oppose offering aid to migrants, which led Colorado Springs Mayor Yemi Mobolade to issue a statement in an effort to defuse the situation. “We’re not in crisis mode,” said Mobolade. “Twenty-one families [arrived in Colorado Springs]. Denver is dealing with 40,000 families. They’re in crisis. I just want to make sure that we are ready if indeed that crisis ends up meeting our city.”
VanderWerf also supports concealed carry of firearms without a permit. “I am interested in a constitutional carry law in the state of Colorado,” he said. “We know how difficult that will be to push through the legislature, but I would like to work with everybody here to actually get that on a citizen ballot.”
Attempts at constitutional carry laws have failed in Colorado. In 2022, former Rep. Ron Hanks introduced a bill, and so did Rep. Matt Soper (R-Delta) last year. Both times the bills failed to make it out of committee.
Like Snyder’s 2022 opponent, Shana Black, VanderWerf claims Snyder is a radical leftist. “Some of you may know him or know of [Snyder],” he said. “He is a sitting House representative. I just want you to know, if you were to look at the 2023 Colorado Union of Taxpayers voting record of Marc Snyder, you would find out that he is ranked more liberal than Elisabeth Epps, and that’s saying something. Marc needs to be defeated.”
While Snyder was indeed ranked two percentage points lower than Epps by the anti-tax group Colorado Union of Taxpayers in 2023, calling him more liberal than the Democratic firebrand who lost her primary race earlier this summer, is a stretch. Snyder voted against the Epps-sponsored assault weapons ban last year and is probably one of the most moderate members of Colorado Democratic caucus. Snyder, who in 2022 said his crowning piece of legislation was either his 2022 wildfire bill or his Tree Nursery bill, recently voted against Democrats during the special session property tax bill.
“I was the lone Democratic ‘no’ vote on a referred current resolution to the ballot,” Snyder said during a Sept. 12 appearance on the We Have Issues podcast. “I’ve always been pretty much an independent thinker. I’m not a party hack. I’m proud to be a Democrat, but I often have disagreements not only with certain segments, sometimes with my entire caucus. And I’m not afraid to take that vote. I’ve shown that time and again.”
Snyder said his experience in local government informs his work at the Capitol. “Having worked my way up through [Manitou Springs] Open Space [Advisory Committee] chair, to planning commission, to [Manitou Springs] city councilor and Manitou mayor, and having served on every board commission in El Paso County — chair of the [Pikes Peak Area] Council of Governments, on the RTA Board for 12 years, Board of Health, Regional Building [Department] — but when I left and got elected to go up to Denver, I promised my constituents that I would take my local knowledge and use that up there,” he said. “I’ve always been able to analyze bills and proposals up there to see if they’re really going to work for the people down on the ground they’re intended to help. I’ve never been a fan of the so-called unfunded mandates, and so I’ve always had a special look-out for that. But I think it really helps me to be a better legislator, having had that local experience and having that lens to put all the things that you hear up there through. I think being a mayor of a city is probably the best preparation you could have because sometimes it’s hard for citizens to reach their congresspeople or senators, maybe even their state legislators, but by God, they go down to city hall and give you a piece of their mind every Tuesday night.”
