Latest Ads From Gardner, Republican Special Interests Continue to Mislead Coloradans on Coronavirus Response, Public Lands

Gardner Greenwashes Votes with Trump to Sell Out Public Lands, Still Refuses to Support CORE Act & Oppose William Perry Pendley

Senator Cory Gardner and Mitch McConnell’s dark money special interest allies are out with a new round of misleading ads to deceive Coloradans about Gardner’s record of selling out our public lands and failing to support Colorado’s economy during the coronavirus pandemic.

“While the coronavirus is continuing to take its toll on Colorado’s health and economy, Cory Gardner and Mitch McConnell are working hand in glove to deceive Coloradans about Gardner’s record of standing with Trump as he ignored scientists’ warnings about the pandemic and attacked our public lands, air and water at every turn,” said Colorado Democratic Party spokesperson Eli Rosen. “Coloradans won’t be fooled by their spin -- voters know Gardner has sold out our public lands and stood with Trump 100% through his botched pandemic response, failing Colorado when we needed him most.” 

Like Gardner’s last greenwashing ad, his new deceptive spot ignores Gardner’s own record of being a rubber stamp for Trump’s toxic environmental agenda -- earning a failing 11% lifetime score from the League of Conservation Voters. 

The second ad, from Mitch McConnell linked dark money group One Nation, conspicuously omits that the vulnerable Senator stood with President Trump “100%” through his failed pandemic response that has yielded record unemployment and the tragic loss of more than 140,000 American lives. 

Here are the other facts Gardner and his dark money allies leave out: 

1 - Colorado’s unemployment rate is going up -- and Gardner is refusing to support a full unemployment insurance extension while trying to rip health care away from millions.

• CPR reports that the data on the number of jobs impacted by the Paycheck Protection Program “don’t necessarily show what they appear to at first glance.”

• Colorado’s unemployment rate went up to 10.5% in June, “indicating that the state’s jobs situation isn’t dramatically improving as the state continues to reopen after a coronavirus shutdown.”

• Expanded unemployment insurance will expire in days -- but Gardner supports reducing the lifeline and has been silent on Trump’s proposal to cut benefits for the unemployed while cutting taxes for everyone else.

• Gardner is still supporting the GOP lawsuit to overturn the Affordable Care Act,which could rip health insurance away from millions in the middle of a pandemic. Washington Post fact checkers gave him “four pinocchios” for deceiving about his votes trying to gut protections for people with pre-existing conditions.

2 - Gardner has refused to hold Trump accountable for his failed response to COVID; tough talk on China doesn’t match his support for tax breaks for companies that ship jobs overseas.

• Gardner did not support early efforts for widespread testing and stood by Trump as he failed to take early warnings of doctors and scientists seriously, even as the coronavirus was likely already spreading in Colorado.
  
• Gardner has refused to hold Trump accountable for his pandemic response -- instead, he supported the president’s early failures, defended Trump on hydroxychloroquine, and said “I think it’s important to not look and try to provide some kind of a grade.”
  
• While reports show Trump “‘wasted' months” and has a “disdain for facts, science and experience” in responding to the coronavirus pandemic, Gardner has instead shifted blame to another country, the World Health Organization, and even impeachment for the administration’s shortcomings.
  
• Gardner stood by Trump as he pushed to “slow the [coronavirus] testing down” and proposed to cut funding for testing, contact tracing, and the CDC.
  
• While Colorado was facing a surge in coronavirus cases, Gardner and Trump were caught “playing political games with lives” as Colorado tried to secure much-needed supplies.
  
• Gardner “pos[es] as a China hawk” but has repeatedly refused to support bipartisan measures to crack down on China, likely resulting in manufacturing job losses here in the U.S. He’s voted against efforts to crack down on currency manipulation, strengthen trade enforcement, and penalize companies that ship jobs overseas.

3 - Gardner has a long record of refusing to protect Colorado’s public lands -- including voting to cut LWCF -- and standing by Trump to sell out public lands and national parks.

• Gardner was called out by CPR, the Durango Herald, the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel, and Colorado Politics for using the Land and Water Conservation Fund like “armor” to shield him from his own anti-environmental voting record. Gardner has a failing lifetime score of 11% from the League of Conservation Voters.
  
• Designation of new Colorado wilderness has been left out of every major public lands bill to pass the Senate during Gardner’s tenure.

• Gardner supported cutting millions from the Land and Water Conservation Fund as recently as 2018 and has voted to virtually eliminate funding for the program, slashing it by at least 90%.
  
• Gardner refuses to support the CORE Act -- a major wilderness bill to protect 400,000 acres of public land that passed the House last fall. But the bill is “unlikely to see the light of day in the Senate” without Gardner’s support, and he recently decried the collaborative legislation as “a partisan, political tool,” despite widespread grassroots support.  

• Gardner voted for the GOP tax scam, which gave massive tax breaks to Big Oil, and stood by as a loophole gave billions in handouts to oil companies.
  
• For nearly a year, Gardner has repeatedly refused to take a stance on Trump’s anti-conservation pick to lead the Bureau of Land Management, William Perry Pendley, who has proposed selling off public lands, opposed public lands and wildlife protections, and has a long history of xenophobia and climate science denial. 

• Gardner has supported Trump’s anti-environment nominees who’ve overseen the largest rollback of protected public lands in U.S. history, dismantled efforts to fight climate change and gutted clean water protections.
  
• Gardner has a long record of voting against Colorado’s public lands, from trying to limit new protections to blocking local input on land management.

• Gardner voted to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas drilling for the first time ever.
  

###