Washington – What little fame Joel Hefley gained outside his Colorado district in recent years came from the job he hated most: policing the behavior of his fellow lawmakers.
But all of that took a back seat to his main mission in his 10 terms in Congress: saving Fort Carson.
“The preservation of Fort Carson is certainly the center of his congressional legacy,” said Sarah Shelden, his longtime press secretary, now a public affairs executive in California. “Even going back to his time in the state legislature, Carson has been at the center.”
Colorado Springs got a scare a decade ago when Fort Carson – the sprawling Army post south of the city and the state’s second-largest employer – was threatened in a round of military base closures in the mid-1990s, and Hefley set out to make sure that it wouldn’t happen again.
He cornered generals to explain that Carson boasted wide-open spaces for tank maneuvers and gun ranges. He pressed for legislation to protect its perimeter from encroaching development.
And as chairman of the military construction subcommittee, he pressed for new projects at Carson and several other military facilities in his district. Deteriorating base housing at Carson was seen as a particular weakness; Hefley developed a new program to privatize management of living quarters.
In last year’s base-closure round, Fort Carson was not only spared cuts, it grew by thousands of soldiers.
“When you look at what Fort Carson is today, Peterson (Air Force Base), Northcom, and the growth of Colorado Springs and the importance of it, you can clearly see the success over the last two decades that his tenure has brought,” said Sean Conway, chief of staff to Sen. Wayne Allard, R-Colo.
Hefley was raised in Oklahoma and came to Colorado seeking work as a cowboy.
He came to Congress in 1987 after serving in the statehouse, winning his first general election with 70 percent of the vote, and had been elected easily ever since to the most conservative district in Colorado and one of the most Republican in the nation.
Except for defense, he opposed federal spending to the point of irritating his colleagues.
He repeatedly voted against spending bills and became known for his “porker of the week” prize mocking misguided government outlays.
In recent years, Hefley chafed at a system in which success was measured by fundraising prowess.
He spoke more openly than most sitting members about the corrosive effects of the drive for campaign cash. That began an open clash with then-House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas.
Never one to enjoy holding a news conference, the low-profile congressman got his biggest publicity boost from a job he never wanted: House ethics chairman. Hefley compared the post to “jury duty.”
In 2004, Hefley and his committee three times admonished DeLay for financial and political transgressions. DeLay has since been indicted on campaign finance violations in Texas.
Early in 2005, Hefley was pushed out as the House’s top ethics cop.
Hefley said he’d been ready to leave the post, but his sudden departure turned him into an improbable martyr in the congressional corruption scandal.
Staff writer Anne C. Mulkern contributed to this report.
