2022 Colorado General
State Rep HD22
CANDIDATES
KEN DeGRAAF
Republican Candidate Information
Campaign Website URL: www.KenDeGraaf4HD22.com
Email Address: KenDeGraaf4HD22@protonmail.com
Occupation/Vocation: Pilot
Military Background: USAF (ret)
Resident of El Paso County: 15 years = 4 (USAFA) + 2 (2000-2) + 9 (since 2013)
Experience
What experience (personal, professional, other) would you bring to your role as Representative that will benefit our state?
30+ year AF Veteran; current commercial pilot. Distinguished Graduate from USAFA; Guggenheim Fellow to Columbia University for Engineering. Policy and programming experience in USAFE, AFAFRICA, and as an Operations and Mission Support Group Deputy. Established a multi-aircraft AF Reserve Squadron. Served as an Environmental manager; worked with the EPA & MiDEQ; templated the first Michigan DOD “Clean Corporate Citizen.” Formed cooperative agreements with the USCG, NOAA, FWS, DNR, and Merchant Marine. I taught Calculus at the USAF Academy. I have served on a school board. Currently on the Executive Council of the El Paso GOP. Experience living in 8 states, plus Germany and Canada.
Vision
What is your vision for being a Colorado State Representative?
To return the government to its “just powers” as derived “from the consent of the governed” for the purpose of securing our Creator endowed Rights per the founding values of our Republic. Our legislators have largely betrayed this as their focus. While democrats have been increasing government intrusion into all aspects of our social fabric, “republicans” have been (inadvertently) increasing the government collusion with business. Both can undermine our individual Liberty. Even seemingly well-intended bills often undermine our freedom to curry favors from a faction or special interest for power or money. Individual Liberty is surrendered through compromise with State Power, and may be difficult, if not impossible to regain.
Election Reform
Do you believe that elections in Colorado should be conducted differently? Should voters in Colorado be required to verify their identity and residential status in the respective counties in which they vote? Are you in favor of a single-day, in-person voting system consisting of all-paper ballots? Why or why not?
All computers can be hacked. Paper ballots limit the extent of inevitable tampering. Single-day voting with ID and paper ballots limits risk.
Computers do as programmed and are susceptible to corruption in their coding, which you are not allowed to see, and in their hardware, which is usually produced by countries hostile to our interests. Election manipulation is of high strategic value because it determines who will yield power and money. Hackable machines make our elections a soft target.
Accuracy is the primary characteristic required. Cost is irrelevant since it is not secure. Lack of confidence and transparency leads to lawsuits, audits, and ultimately hand-counting; electronic voting is expensive, and time intensive.
TABOR
What is your position on the Taxpayers Bill of Rights (TABOR)?
Support. TABOR should be strengthened by requiring all new spending be approved in the general election, and disallowing the use of the “peace, health or safety” clause to bypass referendum per Article V, Section 1, paragraph 3. Automatic inflation adjustment and annual percentage (exponential) growth should be banned. Program renewals should require 2⁄3 majority vote to proceed to the general election. Government has proved it cannot be trusted to act responsibly with the money it extracts now. Allowing the government to keep anything extra is further depriving the still functioning (but suffocated) free market of actually utilizing that money for good and worthwhile things that are best determined by those who earned that money.
Education
As a State Representative, what will you do to improve the education of our K – 12 students? What is your position on parental authority in education, including school choice?
Parental engagement and school choice are essential to education, as is local control of school boards. Vouchers incur State meddling, so tax credits might be more appropriate. The bloated bureaucracies of National and State education agencies have proven to be untrustworthy as they have become more interested in ideological indoctrination than functional education. They would be unnecessary with increased local control, so elimination would help reduce the 30-40% of the per- student cost that goes to administrivia, which would allow increasing the number of teachers. Free enterprise in education will increase and improve options for students while allowing teachers to be paid based on their efficacy.
Government Authority
Do you believe that the government has the legal power and authority to dictate what a person does with his or her body? If so, how?
Absolutely not. The only “just powers” of a government are those derived from the consent of the governed for the purpose of securing our entitled Rights. Government has no just authority to operate outside of those bounds. Government’s role is to secure our Rights by protecting them from infringement, not to impose compliance.
This subject becomes muddled where we ask the State to assume responsibility in areas such as healthcare. If we expect our fellow citizens to bear the load of our health, the taxpayers (by way of the government) have a vested interest in our health-related choices, and a responsibility to ensure those decisions are sound. Foisting our responsibilities on government necessitates the governments foisting of restrictions on us.
Protecting the Most Vulnerable
As a Representative, how would you seek to protect the most vulnerable in our state, including the lives of the unborn, the trafficked, and the elderly?
Our laws need to reflect the inherent value of every citizen as an image-bearer of God not as a balance of cost/benefit to the State. Laws violating our constitutional values must be rewritten or rescinded. It is within the “just powers” of the government to protect the Rights of citizens. Either all have the Right to Life, or none do. Life must be protected from conception to natural death. Feticide must be illegal. Euthanasia must be banned as well as schemes to assign negative value to healthcare for anyone over (eg) 75yo as proposed by the Biden administration.
Borders must be secured to prevent both human and drug trafficking. Punishment for such crimes must be severe and enforced.
1st Amendment
What will you do as Colorado State Representative to protect our 1st Amendment rights to: the free exercise of religion, freedom of speech, peaceably assembly, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances, all of which are becoming more difficult to exercise in America (and around the world)?
A citizen is not sovereign if the government compels his speech. Restrictions on speech violate “the consent of the governed” in general, and the 1A specifically, placing them outside of any “just powers” of government.
Offending legislation must be repealed as anathema to our Constitution. Thought is shaped by speech, thus speech control is thought control. “He who dares not offend cannot be honest,” and without honesty problems cannot be solved. A society cannot function without the ability to solve problems. While some will engage in unnecessarily offensive speech, the restriction of that as an option is an invitation to tyranny.
Colorado’s Constitution forbids both preferential treatment and discrimination, but restricting someone’s speech to preclude offense is extending preferential treatment.
2nd Amendment
Do you believe that gun ownership is a civil right, and what are your positions in regards to red flag laws, magazine capacity bans, legislation that regulates gun storage, and permitless “Constitutional carry”?
“Shall not be infringed” shall not be ignored. The 2A is the means of preserving our Creator Endowed Rights. Liberty is impossible if dependent on another for security. Self-defense is a Right endowed to us by “the Laws of Nature, and Nature’s God,” as evidenced by animals defending both themselves and territory. Restricting self-defense creates subjugation or extinction. Guns deter aggressors. History teaches that after registration, guns will be confiscated, followed by tyranny. History is written by the victors and remembered by the vanquished, and erased by those looking to repeat it. “No” on red flag laws, registration, magazine capacity bans or legislation on storage. “Yes” on constitutional carry.
Infrastructure Spending
How do you believe that tax revenue in Colorado should be best utilized to improve our infrastructure?
First, stop diverting infrastructure dollars into boondoggle projects. Then, instead of shoe-stringing projects along with lowest bidders, a city can purchase the road or bridge with (eg) 10 yrs of maintenance. This would allow upgraded materials and processes upfront which would decrease maintenance later, decreasing time spent in construction delays. Discriminatory barriers to entry should be removed, but they should not be replaced with readily abused “social justice” edicts that do more harm than good and amount to nothing more than destructive redistributive schemes.
BLAKE GARNER
Democratic Candidate Information
Candidate Chose Not to Participate
Campaign Website URL: www.BlakeGarner.org
Candidate Email Address: GarnerForCO22@protonmail.com
MICHAEL GIALLOMBARDO
Libertarian Candidate Information
Questionnaire was sent to the Candidate and he never confirmed receipt, though we sought to contact him multiple times and by various methods. Therefore, we do not know if the Candidate is even aware of the opportunity to participate in the Voter Guide, or whether he is aware and chose not to participate.
Campaign Website URL: Unknown
Candidate Email Address: psmgag@q.com
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Christian voting
Voting is a simple, yet significant way to do something about public policy in our country. As people of faith, we will be held accountable for our actions, as well as our lack of action. (Luke 12:48)
Biblical worldview
By diligently learning, applying, and trusting God’s truths in every area of our lives, we can begin to develop a deep comprehensive faith that will stand against the unrelenting tide of our culture’s non-biblical ideas.
Vote your values
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Electing righteous leaders
Bad governance and our loss of freedom is the direct result of the church’s failure to disciple. When the citizenry do not seek to be obedient to God’s Law, they vote in wicked and corrupt candidates, who then trample underfoot the God-given liberties of the people.