Rep. Cory Gardner un-endorsed Colorado’s personhood amendment last month by telling The Denver Post’s Lynn Bartels he changed his mind.

But if Gardner is going to un-endorse federal personhood legislation, which he cosponsored nine months ago, he’ll have to trot down to the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives and ask for “unanimous consent” to have his name removed from the legislation, which would ban all abortion, including for rape and incest.

“A member has go to the House floor and technically ask for unanimous consent to remove their name as co-sponsor of the bill,” said Sarah Binder, a Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution. “And you can do that up until the point at which the committee reports the bill to the floor.”

If you’re completely bored and you feel like reviewing the “Life at Conception Act,” which is a federal personhood bill, you’ll find Gardner’s name is still listed as a cosponsor, having signed up nine months ago.

So it appears Gardner hasn’t un-endorsed the bill yet, but calls to the Gardner’s office and to the office of the bill’s sponsor, Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) were not returned.

Gardner still has time to remove his name, because the House committee hasn’t reported on the bill, which means the committee hasn’t voted on it.

During an interview on CBS4 Friday, Gardner suggested that he may not take back his support of federal personhood legislation. And he defended his anti-abortion record in Congress during a recent radio interview as well.

“In the state of Colorado, the personhood initiative, I do not support,” Gardner told CBS4 Political Reporter Shaun Boyd.

Boyd should have asked Gardner if he has plans to withdraw his cosponsorship of federal personhood and, if so, when.

“It’s somewhat rare for members to feel compelled to take their names off bills,” said Binder, but she could understand how the pressure of a state-wide campaign would put “heat” on Gardner.

But if you Google the phrase, “I ask unanimous consent to remove my name as a cosponsor,” you find examples of Congresspeople doing this. Here’s an example.

“By and large, people cosponsor bills to take a position in support, either because something’s bothering them or because a colleague has said, ‘I’d like to demonstrate support for the bill; I need you to sign on,'” Binder said.

If a change of heart occurs, a Congressperson can’t just announce the switcheroo in writing, according to Donald Wolfensberger, Congressional scholar with Woodrow Wilson Center. A short speech on the House floor is required, he told me.

Wolfensberger’s and Binder’s views comport with House rules I ploughed through.

One congressional document, titled “House Practice: A Guide to the Rules, Precedents and Procedures of the House” states:

Before the bill is reported, Members may remove their names as cosponsors by unanimous consent. Manual Sec. 825. Alternatively, a cosponsor may announce withdrawal of support for a bill, or a statement indicating that an error was made in the listing of a cosponsor’s name may be made on the floor for publication in the Congressional Record. Deschler Ch 16 Sec. Sec. 2.5, 2.6.

Reporters have covered GOP Attorney General candidate Cynthia Coffman’s attacks on Democratic AG candidate Don Quick for saying he wouldn’t defend Colorado’s gay-marriage ban, if Quick were elected state AG.

But strangely, they haven’t reported if Coffman thinks the ban, which is overwhelmingly opposed in Colorado, is constitutional.

So, to fill in the media gap, I asked Coffman and Rep. Mark Waller, who dropped out of the race yesterday, for their views on the marriage ban.

Jason Salzman @BigMediaBlog
Dear @Rep_Waller & @CynthiaHCoffman, i’m filling a media gap & asking you, do you believe CO gay marriage ban is constitutional? #copolitics

No response yet, but I’ll  update this post when I hear back.

Progressives who read this blog would be excused for wondering, how could anyone find Rep. Doug Lamborn to be insufficiently tilted rightward? So much so that he should be thrown out?

We can thank KVOR’s Jeff Crank Show for broadcasting the answer, at least according to the guy who wants Lamborn’s job.

Major General Bentley Rayburn, who is challenging Lamborn in the GOP congressional primary in Colorado Springs (CD 5), told Crank on Saturday why he’s running:

Rayburn: You know, the thing that pushed me over the side [into the race]– it was kind of funny, because it was the ‘white board incident’ at the Air Force Academy. [Read about it here.] And the fact that this young man, or woman – I think it was a fellow, wrote a bible verse (Gallatians 2:20) on his whiteboard, just a board mounted outside his room. And it was just a statement of his faith. And yet, within nanoseconds, somebody is complaining about it. It gets to our buddy Mikey Weinstein, who’s been a nemesis of the Academy for a decade. And within, you know, two hours – whether the cadet erased it himself or had it erased is really irrelevant. It was erased.

And in all of this, Doug [Lamborn]– people don’t understand this. Doug has a special relationship with the Academy because he sits on the Board of Visitors. That would be like the Board of Regents for the CU system. And so he’s not only the local rep. He sits on the policy board. Every accredited institution has to have an independent policy board. And he has never spoken forcefully about the religious freedom issues at the United States Air Force Academy, and so many of the other important issues that the school faces.

And I want somebody – not only with the other things, the spending out of control, and everything else. But we have a jewel here in the United States Air Force Academy, and if we’re not going to stand up and make sure that we’re producing the kind of officers that we need – one, who are not offended at the slightest little thing that crosses their path, and two, that know what they believe and have the backbone to stand up for what they believe, then I’m not sure we really need an Air Force Academy or any other academies. But we’ve got to have somebody stand up for the schools, and we are not getting it from Doug Lamborn. He’ll write a letter. [Lamborn issued a letter in support of religion at the Academy.]

At least when Putin invades Crimea, at least Obama writes a strongly-worded letter. But we need somebody that will demonstrate real leadership. And that just happened to be the proverbial straw. Had somebody else stepped up [to run against Lamborn], fine. But that’s what drove me over the edge and made me consider running in the first place.

The Durango Herald got it right Thursday by leading its report on 9News’ gubernatorial debate with the news that “three Republican candidates for governor said they would probably repeal a law passed last year granting in-state tuition to students who immigrated illegally.”

News coverage of the debate among Republican gubernatorial candidates, minus no-show Tom Tancredo, should have put more emphasis on the in-state tuition issue, because all the GOP candidates came out against in-state tuition.

No one wavered much, and no one thinks Tancredo will do so, meaning the GOP gubernatorial field is unified on an issue on which Republicans must “improve” or “die,” according to GOP guru-pundits Josh Penry and Rob Witwer, writing in The Denver Post just after the last GOP bloodbath:

Penry and Witwer: We’ve forgotten that politics is a game of addition, not subtraction. And here’s some more math: 50,000 Latino kids turn 18 every month in this country. These kids grow up in households where parents work hard and attend church on Sunday. These are American values. But yes, some of these kids — through no fault of their own — were not born American citizens.

We’ve seen the arc of the immigration debate, and through our own personal experiences, we’ve also seen that it must now be resolved at all costs. This is a human issue, with moral (and biblical) implications. It’s time to bury the hatchet and forge bipartisan agreement on immigration reform.

Here’s the 9News’ exchange in the “lightening round” clip:

9News Political reporter Brandon Rittiman: Would you sign a bill repealing in-state tuition for college students in the country illegally?

Bob Beauprez: Yes.

Rittiman: That was a yes.

Mike Kopp: I would. I’ve, In fact, led the Senate effort against that the first time it went through.

Scott Gessler: Probably yes. Of course, you want to look at them. But probably yes.

KVOR guest host Jimmy Bensberg talked last weekwith Cynthia Coffman, who’s running for Colorado Attorney General.

CYNTHIA COFFMAN: Taking a page from U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder’s playbook, [Democratic AG candidate Don] Quick held a press conference on the steps of state courts building and called on John Suthers to drop his defense of the definition of marriage – BENSBERG: Ugh! COFFMAN: –that’s in the Constitution of Colorado. You know the voters, a number of years back, amended the Constitution and said we want marriage to be the traditional definition of being between a man and a woman. That’s what the voters approved, and Don Quick says he doesn’t agree with that. He doesn’t believe that that is constitutional, even though the Supreme Court of the United States hasn’t said that. And so presumptively, he thinks that the Attorney General should not defend that provision of the Constitution. And you know, that kind of picking and choosing as an Attorney General, what parts of the Constitution you defend, I can’t imagine a better thing to criticize my opponent about, than starting there.

Left out of this loving, tolerant, and legally ignorant conversation is the fact that Suthers’ proactive defense of the federal “Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA),” which was filed in the name of protecting Colorado’s gay-marriage ban, was actually an attack on gay couples who wanted to be buried together in military cemeteries or to get spousal benefits under Medicaid, etc. Suthers’ DOMA action looked like a wrong legal tactic, from the perpective of protecting Colorado’s Constitutional amendment. But more broadly, and to the heart of the matter, you want an Attorney General who will make public-minded decisions about what makes constitutional sense, regardless of the politics involved. In the case of defending Colorado’s anti-gay-marriage amendment, Suthers could have decided, as six other state Attorneys General did, that it’s a wrong legal move. Despite what Cynthia Coffman says, nothing forces Suthers to take action. Here’s what the Attorney General Eric Holder told the New York Times:

But Mr. Holder said when laws touch on core constitutional issues like equal protection, an attorney general should apply the highest level of scrutiny before reaching a decision on whether to defend it. He said the decision should never be political or based on policy objections. “Engaging in that process and making that determination is something that’s appropriate for an attorney general to do,” Mr. Holder said. As an example, Mr. Holder cited the landmark Brown v. Board of Education case, which forced public school integration in 1954.

During a radio interview Saturday, Secretary of State Scott Gessler framed his gubernatorial campaign as a battle to save Colorado from the rot of corruption, saying our “state government is corrupt,” and he’s the only candidate who’s had “the guts to stand up and say, ‘No more.'”

“I’ve had the guts to stand up and say, ‘I’m not going to tolerate this; I’m going to fight back,'” Gessler told KNUS radio-host Jimmy Sengenberger, citing his clashes with Democrats over his budget and ethics issues. “And no one else wants to because they’re afraid. They’re afraid that if a Republican gets criticized they can no longer win elections. And let me ask you, Jimmy, how has that worked out for us over the last ten years?”

“We are a party that needs to be bold,” replied Sengenberger, whose show airs Saturdays 5 – 8 p.m. on KNUS. “I agree with you there–”

“I am the only guy who’s being bold on this stuff and what happens?” Gessler continued. “We have these fearful, weak-kneed, timid Republicans who are more interested in scoring political points against me than standing up for principle and saying, ‘You know what? We have corruption in this state.'”

“Republicans need to stand up and understand that we have a corrupt state government.  They shouldn’t buy into the corruption,” he said.

During the interview, Gessler criticized members of the Independent Ethics Commission and called it “corrupt.”

In June, the Independent Ethics Commission ruled that Gessler violated the public trust by using public money to attend a Republican political event. On the radio, Gessler was incensed by this decision as well as the Commission’s dismissal last month of a complaint against Gov. John Hickenlooper

Gessler said at one point, referring to the Commission, “Let me tell you, Jimmy, this is a corrupt, corrupt government. And I will say ‘corrupt’ again.”

Comparing the corruption he says he saw as a young man in Bosnia and Chicago to what he sees in Colorado today, Gesser said, “Where people no longer respect the law, we lose the foundation of our western civilization here. And we’re facing that in Colorado.”

With more and more ads implying that Coloradans lost their insurance under Obamacare, and senatorial candidate Cory Gardner saying directly that “335,000 Coloradans…lost their health insurance” thanks to Obamacare, it’s worth a trip to the archive to see if conservative bloggers agree with fact checkers, like 9News political reporter Brandon Rittiman, who noted that getting an insurance-cancellation notice due to Obamacare was “not the same thing as losing insurance.”

So I extend a good-on-ya to Todd Shepherd, who blogs for the conservative Independence Institute. Shepherd reported back in January:

Shepherd: Without question, 249,000 health care policy cancellations did not mean 249,000 Coloradans were left completely bereft of insurance coverage.

I’d prefer Shepherd use a contextual statement highlighting the renewals and new-and-improved insurance options available under Obamacare, but, still, Shepherd’s formulation is something closer to the truth than the simple words “lost” or “cancelled.”

Shepherd did not respond favorably to phone and email requests for comment.

Journalists should let us know more often when politicians are ducking them.  Or when they only talk through spokespeople.

After a week or two goes by, and a public official still refuses to talk, reporters should tweet it, if nothing else.

On March 28, KNUS radio’s Steve Kelley and co-host Bill Rogan chose to talk openly about their difficulties landing Rep. Mike Coffman and Rep. Cory Gardner.

Kelley: Congressman Coffman and Gardner are not talking, apparently.

Rogan: Ducking us. And I don’t like that.

Kelley: Well, that’s what it feels like at this point. So we’ll give them one more day, and then look, the clubs are coming out.

Rogan: They’ll come on Saturday, and we’ll do a special edition of Kelley and Company, just to accommodate Coffman and Gardner.

Kelley: See, I don’t know.

Rogan: I’m not too happy with these two.

Kelley: At this point, I’m not either. We can say that. It’s a free country.

Strongly anti abortion, Kelley told me last week he’d been trying to reach both politicians since they flipped on personhood.

Gardner finally appeared on Kelley’s conservative talk show, “Kelley and Company,” last week. It turned out that Gardner had changed cell phones, and he shuffled press contacts, so it was all a misunderstanding, Kelley said on air.

Coffman, however, is still not returning calls from Kelley’s producer, Kelley said, noting that Rep. Diana  DeGette and Sen. Mark Udall don’t return his calls either.

But Coffman’s lack of response surprises Kelley, who sees his conservative KNUS show as a friendly audience for Coffman, even if he asks a challenging question on occasion, Kelley told me.

Eli Stokols reports that senatorial candidate Cory Gardner is defending his co-sponsorship of a 2007 bill that would have banned doctors from performing an abortion for rape and incest.

Stokols reports:

When he was a state lawmaker, Gardner signed onto Senate Bill 143 as a co-sponsor — he did not carry the bill himself, his campaign points out.

The measure would have outlawed all abortions with the exception of cases that is “designed to protect the death of a pregnant mother, if the physician makes reasonable medical efforts under the circumstances to preserve both the life of the mother and the life of her unborn child in a manner consistent with conventional medical practice.”

Gardner’s campaign pushes back: “the bill only prohibited the performing of an abortion (with an exception for life of the mother). It specifically exempted women from prosecution: ‘A pregnant mother upon whom an abortion is performed or attempted shall not be guilty of violating this section’.”

Stokols did not tell us how Gardner thinks a raped woman should get an abortion, if not from a doctor?

Garnder’s push back is correct. His bill did not make it a felony for women to get back-alley abortions. But a doctor would face felony charges.

So Stokols or another reporter should find out where Gardner thinks a raped woman should get an abortion–and from whom?

On conservative KNUS radio last week, GOP Senate candidate Cory Gardner assured listeners that he remains “pro-life” even though he recently un-endorsed the personhood amendment, which would ban abortion in Colorado.

“I remain a pro-life legislator who believes that my record actually speaks for itself while I’ve been in Congress,” Gardner told KNUS radio host Steve Kelley.

If his record speaks for itself, does Gardner stand behind it?  Because left out of the radio conversation was the annoying fact that Gardner’s legislative record in Congress includes his endorsement of federal personhood legislation, which he has yet to un-endorse. His name is still right there, having joined as a co-sponsor in July of last year.

Gardner also told Kelley:

“If you look at my record, it is a pro-life record. And that will always be on my record, and continue to be a part of it. So, I think that that is something that we have not been trying to turn away from.” [Bigmedia emphasis]

Gardner’s “pro-life” record, which (in case you missed it) he says “will always be on my record,” also includes co-sponsorship of bills in Congress aiming to de-fund Planned Parenthood and to re-define “rape” to include only the “forcible” kind. (Gardner later said his effort to redefine rape was a misunderstanding.)

His “always-on-my-record” record at the state legislature includes sponsorship of legislation banning all abortion, even for rape and incest, as well as other anti-abortion bills, like one mandating ultrasounds prior to abortion. These have yet to be un-endorsed.

Gardner’s response to Kelley, touting his anti-abortion credentials to receptive ears, sounds like Gardner’s statement at a Tea Party forum in 2009, when he was running for Congress for the first time.

Gardner was asked if he’d carry legislation banning abortion, and he replied, “Yes. And I have a legislative background to back it up.”

Gardner later told journalists he would not carry anti-abortion legislation in Congress. Then he did it.

 Partial transcript of appearance of Rep. Cory Gardner on KNUS’ Steve Kelley Show, April 16, 2014.

KELLEY: .. Are you pro-choice? Are you pro-life?

GARDNER: Well, if you look at my record, it is a pro-life record. And that will always be on my record, and continue to be a part of it. So, I think that that is something that we have not been trying to turn away from.

KELLEY: So, no ambiguity, you’re still pro-life, but — and your votes support that. But as senator, will you continue in that vein?

GARDNER: Well, again, I’m not – I remain a pro-life legislator who believes that my record actually speaks for itself while I’ve been in Congress.

KELLEY: So, does the Personhood Amendment, –and again, just to refresh folks’ memories, there was a change, not only you but Congressman Coffman, as well. What was the turning point? When you looked at it for what we’ll be voting on. What changed your mind?

GARDNER: Well, if you look at the number of people who do not support Personhood, I think it might even come as a surprise to many people who aren’t as studied on the issue as we have become, but groups like National Right to Life, groups like the Eagle Forum have raised serious questions if not outright opposing, uh, the effort. L0ok, I think there are things we can agree on, things we can disagree on. But the bottom line is, how do we find those common areas where we can agree and, and, actually make policy — good policy choices that we can all work together on.

KELLEY: It’s been suggested that that would be political – not political suicide, but it is a strategically wise move. Because it’s much different being a senator than a congressman, and that you’ve got to appeal to wider swath of people, here. Was it strategic?

GARDNER: Well, again, I think if you, if you – people who have brought that question up, we brought it up before the Republican assembly. So, clearly we wanted to make sure that we were true to our record and true about our record, and not letting the, the opposition – Mark Udall, in this case – destroy my record.