It’s hard to know if ego or ill temper drives State Rep. Douglas Bruce to his ugly behavior on the floor of the Colorado House. He certainly gets the attention he seems to crave, but that doesn’t do much for his Colorado Springs constituents.
His most recent fit of churlishness was aimed at the migrant workers who Colorado businesses hire to pick our fruit during harvest time and clean our hotel rooms during ski season. He certainly has a right to oppose a law permitting migrant laborers to enter Colorado. But expressing an opinion on a bill doesn’t require sputtering racial insults in the process. Facts and logic are far more persuasive than slurs.
In earlier episodes, Bruce kicked a reporter and huffed over a resolution honoring veterans. The latter incident was also his right, but caused an embarrassed Republican Party to remove him from a key committee.
We should also look at what this kind of conduct means for his constituents and colleagues.
Bruce may be trying to make a point about what he considers important issues facing Colorado, but he fails to understand that there is a reason for civility. If your language and behavior are boorish, that becomes the issue, not your beliefs or values. You can’t be effective in politics — or anywhere else, for that matter — if you don’t have the respect of your colleagues and undermine their ability to succeed.
Bruce’s behavior may carry over to his colleagues’ elections, where they will have to convince voters that he is an aberration and not typical of the GOP. When you’re out campaigning, it’s not much fun to be answering for someone else’s crass actions when you’d rather be talking about why voters should support you instead of your opponent. At the very least, Bruce’s crudeness hampers his colleagues’ ability to conduct their business because they have to spend too much time dealing with him.
As for his constituents, Bruce has hung them out to dry. His fellow Republican legislators don’t want anything to do with him. Democrats, who control the legislature, forbade him to speak on the migrant issue and, with Republican support, censured him for kicking a photographer. You can’t represent your constituents if your fellow legislators think you’re a buffoon.
Bruce wasn’t elected to the legislature. He was appointed, in what must now appear to have been a moment of foolishness, by a vacancy committee in his House district. He must have thought that was a ticket to future political success. But he now has a primary opponent, who won more caucus votes than he did. His own party is calling him to account for his uncouth behavior. Even more than his behavior, though, he should be held accountable for putting self aggrandizement ahead of his constituents’ interests. They deserve to be represented at the Capitol by someone who is respected, not shunned.
Coloradans are best served when a variety of views are represented at the Capitol. It is the give and take of politics that results in better governance. When one individual seeks to dominate the news by childish “acting out” rather than effective leadership, his presence is a disservice to everyone.
