Primary ballots are out, and so are a myriad of mailers, texts and digital and TV ads. For the Democratic primary election, many of these campaign ads predominantly feature the word 鈥減rogressive.鈥�
It抖阴ap difficult to be an informed voter when thousands of dollars are being spent to persuade you to vote a certain way. Although all sides do it, this year the 鈥淧aid For鈥� disclaimers for Democratic candidates say things like 鈥淐olorado Affordability Project,鈥� 鈥淒enver Progressives United,鈥� and 鈥淧romoting Progressive Women.鈥� All of them are words on a page 鈥� how do you, the voter, know what to believe?
Candidates are in a tough position because they don鈥檛 have any input into ads and mailers shared on their behalf by an Independent Expenditure Committee (IEC), often funded by dark money. Certain entities can funnel millions of dollars into an IEC with little or no transparency about who (e.g., wealthy individuals or corporations) is funding the efforts.
Over the last year, The Denver Post and other local media have done an excellent job reporting on how this money is raised and spent to influence both elections and legislation, and we encourage you to seek this reporting out.
This lack of transparency, combined with the massive number of communications each voter is receiving, muddies the waters and makes it easy for the average voter to be, if not misinformed, at least very confused.
The fact is that there is a wide variance in ideology in both parties. At the Capitol, where we have both served for the past 8 years, this plays out in voting patterns — not only in the bills a member supports but also in the bills a member opposes. Understanding that no group of people is a monolith, it抖阴ap safe to say that most Democrats support diversity and inclusion, social and economic equality, human rights, heavily regulated or government subsidized healthcare, renewable energy and robust federal regulations to address climate change.
These are some of the things that might legitimately appear on mailers for candidates in the Democratic primary, no matter who the candidate is. Without really digging in, what you might not see is that the bill they mention to regulate data centers might have been heavy on the incentives.
Or it might not be clear that while a candidate is supportive of clean, renewable energy, they might also be more sympathetic to the 鈥渁ll of the above鈥� strategy, which favors continuing to produce and utilize all forms of energy. That postcard paid for by 鈥減rogressives鈥� could be paid for by Oil and Gas companies.
Progressive Democrats tend to lean more heavily into structural change, while the more moderate side of the party might pursue incremental change (e.g., the 鈥渁ll of the above鈥� energy strategy). In full disclosure, we both identify with the progressive side of the party. As legislators, we have pushed for change since the current system doesn鈥檛 seem to be working well for anyone but those at the very top.
To be clear, both the progressive and moderate paths are valid. A democratic framework allows different ideologies to coexist and work together for the good of our constituents. If someone is confident that their way is the right way, they should own it. However, in this primary cycle, our concern is the purposeful confusion that is being sown.
The bottom line for us: vote how you want to vote! This is (still) a democratic republic, and we don鈥檛 take that for granted. But particularly if there is a primary, please educate yourself on the candidates and be sure you understand their stand on issues, rather than the labels put on them that may or may not be accurate. Ask lots of questions, and if the candidate is an incumbent, you can track every single vote on leg.colorado.gov.
No matter how you vote, enjoy taking advantage of what is truly a gold standard election process in Colorado, despite claims to the contrary by Tina Peters.
State Sen. Lisa Cutter represents Senate District 20 in Jefferson County. State Rep. Meg Froelich represents House District 3 in Arapahoe and Denver counties.
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