One of Colorado’s most influential political operatives — who has helped coordinate a national strategy to defend gay rights — is moving to one of the country’s most powerful lobbying firms.
Ted Trimpa had worked as an attorney and lobbyist for Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck, a Denver-based firm with offices throughout the West. But it was announced Tuesday that Trimpa, 41, has joined Hogan & Hartson, an international firm with more than 1,110 lawyers working in 25 offices around the world.
Trimpa said that while he enjoyed his time at Brownstein, the move would allow him to have a greater political reach.
“I reached the point where in my career path around the public-policy work I do, I needed a bigger, more national platform, and Hogan provided me that platform,” Trimpa said.
Trimpa has worked on various campaigns and is well-known as the political adviser to Tim Gill, a software millionaire from Colorado who has used his wealth to target lawmakers in multiple states who oppose gay rights and to support measures expanding rights for gays.
The political contributions from Gill and others who support gay rights have been credited with flipping the Colorado legislature from Republican to Democratic. The Atlantic Monthly recently described Trimpa, who helped coordinate Gill’s efforts, as “Colorado’s answer to Karl Rove.”
Those who know Trimpa said his influence has been great.
Former Senate President Joan Fitz-Gerald, a Democrat who is now running for Congress, worked closely with Trimpa on a variety of legislation, not all of it dealing with gay rights.
“He has a high amount of credibility,” she said, “and in a place where your word is bond, that’s all that counts.”
Tim Hoover: 303-954-1626 or thoover@denverpost.com
