Hefley won't seek 11th term this fall.

[GardeningGal]

Saw this earlier on the 9news website. Hope we get some democratic contenders for the district, though I think it would be difficult to win.

http://www.9news.com/acm_news.aspx?OSGNAME=KUSA&IKOBJECTID=7619f107-0abe-421a-00b7-826fb3df73f9&TEMPLATEID=0c76dce6-ac1f-02d8-0047-c589c01ca7bf

[MissMarple]

1. There is a big discussion about that at ColoradoPols.

http://coloradopols.com/archives/2006/02/rep_joel_hefley.html#comments

Also, Jay Fawcett is running as a Democrat, he is Air Force veteran and contracts with the military for consulting work. He announced a while back.

I think the idea is to build support and revitalized the El Paso County arm of the party even if he doesn't win. Winning would be the icing on the proverbial cake. :) The Republican wannabes have been circling like sharks waiting for Joel to announce either way. John Suthers may even bow out of the Attorney General race to make a bid for national office. That may not make Owens happy.

I'm hoping Doug (Focus on the Family)Lamborn gets it. He is so looney toons, he wants to make it a law to maintain feeding totally debilitated patients like Terry Schiavo even if the family and hospital don't want it. His bill didn't make it out of committee, though. I say bring him on. Even if he wins, the Republican Party looses in the long run. However, having said all that, I really don't he would win. We have a lot of wingnuts here, but there are a lot of pragmatic Republicans in Colorado Springs.

[GardeningGal]

2. Wow, thanks for that link

I had no idea this had been talked about for a year! Going to be interesting to see what shakes out.

[Hawkeye-X]

3. here's what Ken Gordon had to say about this:

(He's my state Senator for this district, and a progressive one!)

Representative Hefley: Joel Hefley, the Congressman from El Paso County, announced yesterday that he would not be running again for Congress. Congressman Hefley chaired the Ethics Committee, which under his leadership chastised House Majority Leader Tom Delay for actions "beyond the bounds of acceptable conduct." The leadership removed Rep. Hefley from his committee chairmanship for his temerity. When asked about the current proposed reforms, he said, "The committee worked fine before the Republican leadership screwed it up." Like Steve Johnson, quoted above, Hefley had the courage to stick up for what was right against the weight of his party. This is a good quality in Republicans and Democrats.


I think the removal of the chairmanship did him in. It's time for him to go away too, and try to piss off the FoF and kick the HQ out to some place like Bumfuck, Wyoming.