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 , had joined Hogan & Hartson LLP , an international firm with more than 1,110 lawyers working in 25 offices around the world.
Trimpa, who said Hogan was also the nation’s third-largest lobbying firm, said that while he enjoyed his time at Brownstein, the move to Hogan would allow him to work for a broader base of clients and 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.
In a 2006 interview with the Bay Area Reporter , a San Francisco-based newspaper that serves the gay community, Trimpa described his strategy for taking on political opponents of gay rights.
“You have to create an environment of fear and respect,” Trimpa told the newspaper. “The only way to do that is to get aggressive and go out and actually beat them up (politically).
“Sitting there crying and whining about being victims isn’t going to get us equality. What is going to get us equality is fighting for it.”
The political contributions from Gill and others who support gay rights have been credited with flipping the 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.
Sean Duffy , a former aide to Republican Gov. Bill Owens and who now works as a political strategist for the Denver-based Kenney Group, said Trimpa was responsible for a significant amount of political change in the mountain West.
“He is one of the most effective operatives in the country,” Duffy said. “He’s beating the tar out of Republicans, which annoys me, but you have to respect him.”
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,” Fitz-Gerald said, “and in a place where your word is bond, that’s all that counts.
She added, “Ted always gives you the full picture. When you talk to a lobbyist on an issue you rely on someone to tell you where are the weaknesses, who is going to oppose this?”
Trimpa’s move to his new position even garnered a comment from Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius , a Democrat who was quoted in Hogan’s press release.
“Ted Trimpa has been a critical player not only in Colorado but around the country in improving the quality and the substance of public policy,” Sebelius said in the statement. “With his creative and incisive mind and his ability to find innovative solutions to tough problems, he has earned the respect of governors, attorneys general, state legislators and other public officials in nearly every corner of the United States.” Tim Hoover: 303-954-1626 or thoover@denverpost.com
