If U.S. Rep. Doug Lamborn loses his seat in Congress because of a courtroom fight, the Colorado Springs lawmaker can point a finger at a few supporters of Republican rival Owen Hill.
Several members of the team that successfully challenged Lamborn’s efforts to get on the ballot gave money to Hill’s campaign, according to records filed with the Federal Election Commission.
Chief among them is attorney Michael Francisco, who crafted the lawsuit that — for now — has knocked Lamborn off the ballot. Francisco and his wife, Christina, each gave Hill $2,700 on June 30.
Kyle Fisk, who is running the public-relations effort behind the lawsuit, contributed $500 on June 21, and Michael Kuhn, one of the five plaintiffs in the lawsuit, kicked in another $1,000 on June 22.
Francisco, Fisk and Hill all denied the lawsuit was a coordinated effort to unseat Lamborn — in spite of the six-term congressman’s past claim that the effort was a “cheap political stunt.”
Said Francisco: “I haven’t talked to (Hill) since the lawsuit started. It has nothing to do with his campaign.”
Hill, a state senator who worked with Francisco in 2016 to challenge rules against “ballot selfies,” took a similar tact.
Asked whether he had a connection to the lawsuit, Hill said, “I’m not touching anything” to do with it.
Interest in these players has spiked in the aftermath of Monday’s major decision by the Colorado Supreme Court that found Lamborn broke the rules when he tried to qualify for the June 26 primary.
One way for congressional candidates to make the ballot is by gathering 1,000 signatures from party members in the district — so long as the people collecting those signatures are Colorado residents.
The lawsuit filed by Francisco argued that some of Lamborn’s circulators were from out of state, thereby disqualifying the signatures they gathered. The high court agreed, which could keep the incumbent off the ballot.
Lamborn has vowed to challenge the residency rules in federal court, and his attorney Ryan Call — who in a twist also gave Hill $500 in December — said Tuesday that the filing probably would come Wednesday.
The legal battle is the latest obstacle in Lamborn’s lengthy political career.
The former state lawmaker has represented the Republican stronghold of Colorado Springs in Congress since 2007, and during that time he has been a reliable conservative vote with a few standout issues.
He has long tried to strip federal funding from National Public Radio and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and has sponsored legislation to protect the “symbols and traditions of Christmas,” according to one 2015 resolution.
More recently, Lamborn has tried to tie himself closely to President Donald Trump. He supported Trump’s efforts to ban travelers from several predominantly Muslim countries even as other Colorado Republicans were critical of the move.
The efforts, however, haven’t dissuaded a long list of Republicans from challenging him over the years.
He has two significant adversaries this year in Hill and El Paso County Commissioner Darryl Glenn, who won the GOP nomination for U.S. Senate in 2016. Glenn later lost to Michael Bennet, the Democratic incumbent.
Jeff Crank, who ran against Lamborn in 2006 and 2008, attributed the constant Republican opposition to bruised feelings left over from the mudslinging of that first campaign.
Crank was targeted by Christian Coalition ads in 2006 that asserted he backed the “radical homosexual lobby.” Lamborn said the ads weren’t his, but he didn’t denounce them either.
“While (Lamborn) reflects the will of the district and his voting record is a pretty solid one from the conservative side, … I think he honestly still bears scars from that 2006 race,” Crank said. “I just think he’s never recovered.”
Lamborn nearly missed the ballot two years ago, when a young activist named Calandra Vargas came out ahead at the Republican convention that year.
If a candidate in Colorado doesn’t want to get on the ballot by gathering signatures, he or she can qualify by earning more than 30 percent support among party insiders.
Against Vargas, Lamborn managed to garner the backing of just 35 percent of the GOP delegates — had he lost another 18 votes, he wouldn’t have made the ballot.
Ultimately, Lamborn would go on to win another term, but the scare may have prompted him to take the petition route this year.
A Lamborn spokesman would not comment for this story.
Another challenging year for Lamborn came in 2012 when he faced businessman Robert Blaha.
Lamborn beat Blaha by more than 23 percentage points in the primary but not before Blaha – who later would co-chair Trump’s campaign in Colorado – took a few swipes.
Blaha complained to Capitol Hill authorities that Lamborn was using official mailers for political gain. The allegation was later dismissed.
Dick Wadhams, a former GOP state chair, agreed with Crank’s assessment that Lamborn has had difficulty consolidating support since that first 2006 fight.
“He’s been a target (of) other Republicans ever since he first got elected,” Wadhams said.
But Wadhams noted that the opposition could be a function of the fact that the seat is heavily Republican – meaning the only way to voice dissatisfaction is through a primary.
“Part of it is the nature of such of a Republican district,” he said.
