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Kirkmeyer wants 4th District seat

Via The Pueblo Chieftain

Weld County Commissioner Barbara Kirkmeyer isn’t intimidated by fellow Republican Ken Buck’s decision to drop his U.S. Senate campaign to run for the 4th Congressional District seat being vacated by Rep. Cory Gardner.

“I don’t think Ken or any of the other candidates can match my knowledge of the district, its agricultural economy or our oil and gas industry,” said Kirkmeyer, who is running for the 4th District seat, too.

Buck, the Weld County district attorney, narrowly lost to U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colo., four years ago. He already had a new Senate campaign underway this year until Gardner surprised GOP activists by announcing his Senate campaign just before the February precinct caucus meetings.

Kirkmeyer, 55 and a county commissioner for 13 years, got into the race four weeks ago and has already turned in voter signature petitions to qualify for the June 24 Republican primary.

“I’m expecting a four-candidate primary election,” she said Friday, meaning herself, Buck, state Sen. Scott Renfroe, also of Greeley, and Steve Laffey, a Larimer County businessman.

The 4th District includes Fort Collins and Greeley, but then sweeps east and south to include the Eastern Plains counties and the Arkansas Valley.

Kirkmeyer, who grew up on a Jefferson County dairy farm, may have an advantage on the GOP field because she was a senior official in the Department of Local Affairs for Gov. Bill Owens during his terms. That put her in regular contact with county officials across the 4th District.

Kirkmeyer was a county commissioner from 1993 until 2000. She started another two terms on the Weld County commission five years ago. The county has a booming natural gas and oil industry.

A political conservative, she would repeal the new state gun control laws and backs the “personhood” movement that says life and all legal rights begin at conception.

She did support the 51st state initiative last year, where voters in 11 northeastern counties were asked whether they wanted county officials to pursue creating a separate state of Northern Colorado.

“The basic message of that movement was to tell Gov. John Hickenlooper (and the General Assembly) that we were sick of them passing mandates to rural Colorado,” she said.