The top Republican in the Colorado House of Representatives is drawing national criticism after he referenced in an email that solicited political donations.
In the email, sent by the conservative Colorado Liberty PAC and signed by Minority Leader Patrick Neville, the Castle Rock lawmaker said he laid the blame for the shooting “squarely at the feet of ‘tolerance-preaching progressives’ and their accomplices in the media who allowed violent rhetoric to get so out of control.”
He went on to ask recipients for a $25 or $50 donation to “show us that you’re not backing down … so we can retake the state House in 2018.”
Though it follows a format commonly used in political fundraising pitches, Neville in an interview with The Denver Post disputed the idea that it was a fundraising email, saying that just two sentences of the email referenced campaign donations.
“The closing pitch of the email was to get back to civil discourse,” he said. “Sometimes passionate discourse, but it should be civil.”
The email was initially made public by , then published by , a local liberal blog, before being picked up by national outlets such as the and .
Oh look-A state rep fundraising off today's shooting. You make me vomit, & I'm a GOP donor.
— Dave Maney (@davemaney)
The email drew swift condemnation on Twitter.
Colorado is so much better than this. You have shamed our state.
— Zaphie (@milehiartist)
sent out a fundraising email about tragic shooting in . Now is the time to come together, not make money off horror
— Kara Cook-Schultz (@Kara_B_Cook)
Much of the criticism revolved around the email’s timing. But Neville defended sending it so soon after the attack.
“Obviously as someone who’s been through a mass shooting myself (at Columbine), I’m passionate about this issue,” Neville said.
“I’ve seen this exact thing happen in Iraq where political terrorists did things like this to silence people who disagree with them. And I don’t want to see that happen in our country. I think it’s important to speak out immediately.”