Back in July, Cosmo’s Ada Calhoun quoted Keith Mason, president of Personhood USA, as saying:

Mason: “[Cory Gardner has] built his entire political career on support of personhood. I think he’s just listening to some bad advice, and he’s playing politics.”

Calhoun didn’t get into the details of how and why Gardner relied on personhood to advance himself in politics, so I’ll hit on it briefly now, not only because it gives you insight into Gardner but, in the bigger picture, the anti-abortion movement’s lock on Republican candidates as they move through caucus and primary processes in Colorado.

From the time he was elected to the State Legislature, Gardner clearly made his anti-abortion stance a priority, sponsoring state personhood legislation, in 2007, defining life as beginning at conception and outlawing abortion even in the case of rape and incest.

In 2008, Gardner stood with other Colorado legislators in support of Colorado’s first personhood ballot measure, earning a shout out from Kristi Burton, the mother of our state’s personhood movement.

When she helped launch the 2012 personhood measure, which didn’t make the ballot, Burton praised Gardner as “very supportive” and “one of our main supporters” of personhood campaigns.

Gardner’s deep support from anti-abortion activists paid off when he launched his first congressional campaign against a tough field of candidates, including Tom Lucero, the former CU regent.

At a Tea Party event in November of 2009, Gardner was asked if he’d carry legislation to end the “practice” of abortion:

Gardner: “Yes, and I have a legislative background to back it up.”

The applause you hear in the video is a clue to how important the abortion issue is to the activists in attendance. You can imagine the reaction of any if the three candidates present had offered anything but a full-throttle acceptance of banning abortion.

Later, in 2010, Gardner touted his personhood chops at one Republican congressional candidate forum, where he infamously said the following. (Again, note the round of applause.):

Gardner: “I have signed the personhood petition. I have taken the petitions to my church, and circulating into my church. And I have a legislative record that backs up my support for life.”

All his trumpeting of his personhood stance set Gardner up perfectly to win the votes of pro-life delegates at the 2010 GOP district convention, where the congressional nominee is selected.

Indeed, as reported by the Colorado Statesman in May of 2010, Gardner “stormed the 4th Congressional District GOP assembly last Friday — winning 60 percent of the delegate vote and shutting out University of Colorado Regent Tom Lucero and businessman Dean Madere, the two other Republican contenders.”

Leslie Jorgensen, covering the assembly for the Statesman, reported a detail that brings us back to the exact point personhood’s Keith Mason made about Gardner building his “career on support of personhood.”

Jorgensen reported:

Christian Family Alliance of Colorado distributed a flyer to delegates that reported the three candidates’ positions on several conservative issues that included public funded abortions, the personhood ballot initiative, gay rights, and posting the 10 Commandments in public buildings. Gardner scored perfect responses, Lucero missed the mark on two issues, and Madere had “refused to respond.” [BigMedia emphasis.]

This (as well as the rest of this blog post above) obviously isn’t proof that Gardner owes his political career solely to his support of personhood, but it’s clear enough that personhood was one of the foundational building blocks of his climb to Congress, proving Keith Mason correct and shedding light on the short-term gain GOP candidates encounter by joining with anti-abortion activists. And the long-term pain they encounter if they seek state-wide office in Colorado and are forced to defend their positions.

CORRECTION — A previous version of this post stated incorrectly that Cynthia Coffman is on record opposing same-sex marriage. In fact, there is no record of her position on this issue.

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In a long question-and-answer story in Westword, Attorney General John Suthers once again lays out his case that he is duty-bound to defend Colorado’s same-sex marriage ban until the bitter end. Which isn’t bitter, actually, because everyone expects the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn such bans.

Sounding all above-the-fray and bipartisany, Suthers tells Westword about his high-minded commitment to defend Colorado’s laws, even when he disagrees with them.

It sounds like maybe a beautiful thing, if it were true. But it’s not.

Left out of the Westword interview (and other media coverage of Suthers’ position) is the fact that under Colorado law, our Attorney General doesn’t have to defend laws (and constitutional amendments) that he deems unconstitutional. In fact, he’s supposed to go after those laws.

As former Deputy Attorney General Don Quick, a Democratic candidate for Attorney General, wrote in The Colorado Springs Gazette in July:

Quick: First, the Colorado Supreme Court unanimously ruled in 2003 that it is the attorney general’s job to challenge a law when there are concerns about its constitutionality. I remember it well, as I was chief deputy to Attorney General Ken Salazar when the court ruled in our favor. Coffman knows this also, as her office did the same thing last year. The Legislature passed a law restricting the display of marijuana-related magazines, and the Attorney General’s Office refused to defend it because it believed it was unconstitutional.

Quick is referring Cynthia Coffman, a Republican who’s running against Quick to replace Suthers. Coffman, who works in Suthers’ office, has embraced the Attorney General’s view that he had no choice  but to defend Colorado’s ban on same-sex marriage.

The 2003 Colorado Supreme Court ruling, to which Quick refers, involved the infamous effort by Colorado Republicans, challenged by Salazar at the time, to change Colorado’s congressional districts after they’d been established by court order subsequent to the 2000 Census. The decision delivered by Chief Justice Mullarkey stated that if the Attorney General has “grave doubts” about the constitutionality of a law (in this case an election-related law affecting an upcoming election) he or she must, “consistent with his ethical duties and his oath of office,” seek to “resolve those doubts,” meaning, in this narrow case, file a lawsuit (consolidated cases 03SA133 and 03SA147).

What’s more, attorneys general in at least six states, decided not to defend their states’ same-sex marriage bans. And U.S. Attorney General Eric holder has advised state attorneys general, like Suthers, that they are not obliged to defend state laws they see as discriminatory.

Against this backdrop, Suthers’ high-minded rhetoric about his duty to defend the constitution starts to look dark, even self-serving, especially when you hear he’s running for mayor of Colorado Springs, which is one of the few places where a crusade against gay marriage counts in your favor. That’s also essential context for any future stories on Suthers’ current defense of Colorado’s constitution.

Here’s what Suthers told Westword:

Westword: Colorado law requires the attorney general’s office to be responsible to federal constitutional law. How do you navigate loyalties between state and federal law?

Suthers: It’s quite simple: If a higher court tells us that our state law is unconstitutional under federal law and that’s the final decision, then that’s the deal. If the U.S. Supreme Court denies cert [request for judicial review] in the Tenth Circuit decision, [Colorado’s law banning same-sex marriage] is invalid and we accept that. But I think what you’re driving at is that some of my colleagues are saying that I’ve decided that this law’s unconstitutional under the federal constitution. I don’t think that’s my job.

Could you imagine if I selectively say: “You know, I think those gun laws passed by the legislature last year are unconstitutional. I agree with David Kopel [the attorney representing the plaintiffs in that case], so I’m not going to defend those laws.” Could you imagine the outrage in your newspaper if I did that? I frankly have a little bit of sympathy with this ma-and-pa baker out in Lakewood, who my office is prosecuting on behalf of the Colorado Civil Rights Commission for not selling a cake to a same-sex couple. I understand why he thinks this is real governmental intrusion on his life. That’s the law in Colorado. We passed a public-accommodations law that protects sexual orientation as well as gender and ethnicity and religion. It’s my job to defend that statute, despite the fact that I’m getting tons and tons of criticism from certain circles about that. If I saw my role as something other than being the best lawyer and started deciding and picking and choosing because I don’t think this law’s right, I think this law’s unfair, despite the fact that the court hasn’t told me that this law is unconstitutional, and I decided not to defend that, that is a very slippery slope.

In interviews aired over the weekend, Fox 31 Denver’s Eli Stokols tried hard to clarify Rep. Mike Coffman’s squirrelly positions on immigration reform, but unfortunately, after you watch the interviews, you’re left scratching your head on key points.

For example, during Stokols’ Sunday show, #CoPolitics from the Source, Coffman reiterated his opposition to President Obama’s executive order allowing young undocumented immigrants, brought here illegally as children, to defer deportation for at least two years.

“I certainly don’t support it being done by executive order,” Coffman told Stokols, which makes sense because Coffman voted to defund Obama’s order this summer. “I believe it should be done legislatively.”

So you have to assume that, as of now, in the absence of DACA legislation, Coffman believes the dreamers should be deported.

Yet, in a news piece aired last night, Stokols also has video of Coffman saying he supports deferred deportations (without saying he doesn’t support them). A young man, who identified himself as a Dreamer, asks Coffman why he voted to defund Obama’s program to defer deportations.

“I thought we had an opportunity to make it permanent,” Coffman told the young man, neglecting to add he opposes Obama’s executive order.

Putting on his immigration happy face, Coffman also told Stokols that he supports granting young undocumented immigrants a path to citizenship through “higher education”

This is a significant departure from his previous position, which granted citizenship to Dreamers only through military service.

“I certainly support a path [to citizenship] for some of the young people that do higher education and do military service,” Coffman said.

Rep. Mike Coffman’s new district

Stokols tried to understand the heart of Coffman’s broader immigration views when he asked, “When you say a step-by-step path, I’ve heard you use that phrase a lot lately, what does that mean? ”

Coffman replied by saying that he doesn’t like “big-sweeping” bill like Obamacare, and he said he doesn’t support a path to citizenship for adults who “broke the law.” He reiterated his support for work visas with no citizenship path, which would formally create a working underclass in America.

In explaining his immigration shifts, Coffman told Stokols “there needs to be more districts” like his, where competitive elections force politicians not to get stuck in ideological straight jackets, but earlier this year Coffman implied that the judge who okayed Coffman’s district was swayed by his affiliation with the Democratic party–though it turned out the judge wasn’t even a registered Democrat.

“I think it’s made me a better Congressman,” Coffman told Stokols, who still has his work cut out for him to get Coffman to explain the precise positions that him the better Congressman he says he is.