During the final weeks of the vitriolic 2018 election, Gov. John Hickenlooper offered some affable advice to a group of a few dozen Coloradans who had gathered at a workshop to discuss America’s yawning political divide.
“There’s no profit margin in making enemies,” he said.
The phrase is a Hickenlooper trademark, one of several mantras the Democrat dusts off frequently. And the sentiment, more than any other, defines the governing style and political brand of Colorado’s 42nd chief executive.
Hickenlooper’s eight years in office will be remembered for his insistence on finding common ground between different power bases — and the backlash that followed when that didn’t happen.
Since 2011, Hickenlooper has been the griever in chief during tragedy. He has made Colorado more business-friendly and more consumer-friendly while also being progressive on social issues.
Among his proudest achievements: more efficient state government, which includes a 20-minute reduction in the average wait time for a driver’s license. His office has invested in arts and infrastructure to attract younger transplants. And by 2021, nearly the entire state will have access to broadband.
“No other large-area state has done that, to my knowledge,” he said.
However, as Hickenlooper prepares to leave office Jan. 8, there are many Coloradans who can’t keep up with the cost of living. The state has no long-term transportation or infrastructure strategy. Funding for the state’s public schools is still among the lowest in the nation. And Hickenlooper’s decision to indefinitely postpone the execution of a killer was disappointing for many native Coloradans.
As Hickenlooper looks past his last day in office and considers a presidential bid, Colorado political observers also are wondering whether the cautious, consensus-building approach that has marked his governorship is too timid for the national stage or whether it’s just what the United States needs after the chaos of the Trump administration.
“It hasn’t been all champagne and bubbles for eight years,” said Christian Reece, executive director of Club 20, a nonpartisan association of the rural Western Slope. But “he was very genuine in his effort to make Colorado the best state it can be.”
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Laid-off geologist becomes face of Colorado
Now 66, Hickenlooper stands just over 6-foot-1 with green eyes. His hair has noticeably grayed during the last decade. He loves to play squash and the guitar, and is known to break into a story — or two. He likes to say that he’s always only 5 feet from disaster, the distance between his foot and his mouth.
Hickenlooper was born in suburban Philadelphia. After college he migrated to Colorado to work as a geologist. But in 1986, amid a downturn in oil production, Hickenlooper lost his job. Rather than return to his native Pennsylvania, he began brewing beer. He established the Wynkoop Brewery and helped lead the effort to revitalize Denver’s Lower Downtown neighborhood.
In 2003, he entered politics and ran for mayor in Denver. When he launched his campaign, he was relatively unknown and his poll numbers were abysmal. He won over the city in part with campy commercials that included him zipping across town on his scooter and depositing quarters in expired parking meters. He talked about his success as a job creator and pledged to run Denver as a business.
Among his accomplishments, Hickenlooper watchers say, was his ability to convince the city’s suburbs to work in concert on regional issues, including supporting a sales tax to expand rail and bus service.
“When he became mayor, Hickenlooper understood an issue in Denver spread into the suburbs,” said Dan Haley, president of the Colorado Oil & Gas Association. “Denver was often seen as the problem, and that went away to a large degree after he was elected.”
As Hickenlooper neared the end of his second term as mayor,Gov. Bill Ritter, a Democrat, announced that he would not seek re-election. Hickenlooper easily won an uncontested primary.
The 2010 general election was one of the quirkiest in modern history, with two conservatives in the mix. Hickenlooper won 51 percent of the vote. Former U.S. Rep. Tom Tancredo, who ran as part of the Constitution Party, came in second, with 36 percent.
“It was an amazing ride,” said R.D. Sewald, a Hickenlooper aide at both City Hall and the state Capitol. “But it wasn’t an easy race.”
A recession and 50 funerals
On the day Hickenlooper was sworn in, Jan. 11, 2011, the high was 9 degrees. The economic forecast for the state was worse.
“We took over a little bit past the low point of the Great Recession — but at the time not knowing if we were at the bottom or not,” said Hickenlooper’s former budget director, Henry Sobanet. “With reserves dropping and federal stimulus expiring, we felt it was important to get ahead of the situation with difficult cuts to the budget.”
Hickenlooper proposed slashing more than $300 million to public schools, closing the Fort Lyon Correctional Facility near Las Animas and other changes.
Negotiations were so tense among Hickenlooper’s staff, the legislative committee that writes the budget and then-House Speaker Frank McNulty, a Republican, that the state Senate wrote its own bipartisan budget in case a deal could not be reached.
The aftermath of the Great Recession was far from the only the test Hickenlooper would face during his first term.
In 2012 and 2013, the state was lit up with wildfires, including the Black Forest fire in El Paso County. That one destroyed nearly 500 homes, the most by a wildfire in state history.
Then there was the 2012 Aurora theater shooting, which left 12 people dead and 70 injured. More gun deaths followed, including the assassination of Tom Clements, head of the Colorado Department of Corrections, and the killing of Arapahoe High School senior Claire Davis at the hands of a classmate.
Between fallen soldiers, natural disasters and gun violence, Hickenlooper would attend more than 50 funerals during his first term.
When the governor learned he would have to undergo a hip replacement, he studied Colorado history. He chose a week in September with no record of catastrophe and no important anniversaries.
Days after his surgery, a 100-year flood hit northern Colorado. Nine people died, and the floodwaters destroyed 1,852 homes and caused $4 billion in damage.
On crutches, Hickenlooper visited all 22 counties that had been submerged.
“It was important for him to drive those roads, to understand what the average Coloradan saw,” said Stephanie Donner, who served in numerous roles in the Hickenlooper administration — including as director of the department created to oversee the flood-recovery effort.
When Hickenlooper and Donner arrived in Estes Park, nearly a month after the flood, the tourist destination was still a ghost town. Standing in the middle of downtown, the governor asked the town’s mayor what he could do to help.
A federal shutdown had closed Rocky Mountain National Park. The mayor asked Hickenlooper, who had no authority over federal land, to get it open.
Hickenlooper made his way to his SUV and called the White House. The request was met with a laugh, Donner said.
But within 48 hours, Hickenlooper worked out a deal with the Obama administration. The state would spend $362,700 to cover the cost of opening the park for 10 days.
“He sees political discord as a barrier to do what is right for the people who need the government most,” Donner said. “He just puts on the creative hat and looks beyond all that. He doesn’t take no for an answer.”
The progressive, pro-business Democrat
Hickenlooper’s brand is moderation, compromise, bipartisanship. While it was sometimes celebrated by Republicans when they were afforded a chance to shape policy, it left some in his own party wondering if he did enough to advance the Democratic platform.
“He talks and listens to people no matter the party affiliation,” said Alan Salazar, a former senior adviser to Hickenlooper. “But I like to point out to my liberal friends that during his two terms, we probably got more progressive legislation and initiatives done than any other administration that I can think of.”
The list includes creating the state’s health insurance exchange, legalizing civil unions for same-sex couples (courts later legalized same-sex marriage), developing renewable energy standards and requiring universal background checks for gun sales. He improved relationships with organized labor, said Salazar, who’s now Denver Mayor Michael Hancock’s chief of staff.
And while Hickenlooper was steadfast against the legalization of recreational marijuana, his administration went to work with the legislature to create a national model for regulating the new industry approved by voters.
Hickenlooper often benefited from divided government, political observers say. For six of his eight years, one chamber at the statehouse was controlled by Democrats, the other by Republicans. That meant most of the legislation Hickenlooper signed into law had to be bipartisan.
A divided legislature also meant it took several years to forge compromises, which raises the question how good a deal maker Hickenlooper is. Another recurring criticism from lawmakers and lobbyists, was a perceived lack of engagement in the legislative process, though his staff disagrees with that assessment.
“It was never John Hickenlooper’s style to go up to the House and Senate floor and grab a legislator’s lapels to get what he wanted,” said Kurt Morrison, Hickenlooper’s former legislative director. “Hickenlooper was far more interested in having conversations with legislators so he could understand different points of view and discover where consensus could be found.”
On the last night of his last legislative session this year, Hickenlooper made direct appeals to lawmakers to pass a series of reforms needed to make the state’s employee retirement system solvent.
Like so many other compromises, he said, the bill wasn’t perfect. But Colorado needed it.
“He’s always going to try to find a way to get both sides to a comfortable spot,” Morrison said. “Anything less than that wouldn’t be John Hickenlooper.”
While Hickenlooper helped nudge the state a little more to the left on social issues, he went to work making the state open for business.
His administration eliminated or streamlined 11,000 regulations, and he personally courted businesses to the state — including rural areas.
“In 2010, the state and the country were in significant economic decline,” said Rick Ridder, a Democratic strategist and a longtime friend to Hickenlooper. “What he was able to do was attract business and jobs.”
An early win for Hickenlooper — and a “psychological boost” for the state, Salazar said — was Arrow Electronics’ decision to move its headquarters from New York to Arapahoe County during the new governor’s first year.
During his eight years in office, employment grew by 23 percent, outpacing the state’s population growth of 11 percent, said Patty Silverstein, a Littleton-based economist.
Oil and gas provided a lot of those jobs, and Hickenlooper found himself playing referee more than once during heated political battles between the state’s environmental and energy sectors.
As on other issues, leaders on both sides of the debate said Hickenlooper sought compromise and common-sense solutions — and neither side ever got everything they wanted.
”Gov. Hickenlooper tackled some important issues and has some legacy items like creating first-in-the-nation methane pollution rules, issuing a climate executive order at a key time and support for outdoor recreation,” said Kelly Nordini, executive director of Conservation Colorado, a political nonprofit that advocates for the environment.
But, she added, with recent reports adding renewed urgency on climate change, much more will need to be done by Hickenlooper’s successor.
Complicated relationship with rural Colorado
One of the most vigorous fights Salazar, Hickenlooper’s senior aide, ever had with his boss was over the governor’s intention to create a statewide plan for water.
Water, Salazar warned Hickenlooper, was the third rail of Colorado politics. There was no way a first-term governor would ever get the ranchers on the Western Slope to agree with the farmers on the Eastern Plains or mayors along the Front Range on how to divvy up the state’s most precious resource.
In 2015, after nearly three years of bargaining, Hickenlooper proved Salazar wrong when he announced the Colorado Water Plan.
The Hickenlooper administration earned high marks from rural leaders for the water plan, the appointment of a rural affairs liaison and a compromise with the federal government on how to protect the greater sage grouse.
However, the governor’s relationship with the state’s rural community has been strained at times.
It reached a breaking point in 2013 after Hickenlooper signed a series of gun-control bills, including a law that limited the capacity of gun magazines. His support for renewable energy requirements for rural electricity providers also caused an outcry.
The unrest among rural voters and elected officials eventually manifested into a short-lived but raucous secession movement.
“People felt like their government didn’t want to listen to them and had no other way to express themselves,” said Weld County Commissioner Sean Conway, who supported the effort to form a 51st state.
Since then, Hickenlooper has done a better job of reaching out to rural Colorado, Conway said.
But not every rural resident feels the same way.
When Hickenlooper first arrived at the Capitol, Republican state Sen. Jerry Sonnenberg split a six-pack of beer with the governor on the balcony of the House chamber. It was the start of a good working relationship, he said.
“We didn’t always agree. But, shoot, I don’t always agree with my wife,” Sonnenberg said. “There’s nothing the matter with having disagreements while trying to find compromise. But the last two years have been more strained.”
The Hickenlooper administration has unfairly penalized rural communities, including the city of Brighton, for not keeping up with the administration’s stringent environmental standards, Sonnenberg said. And then there are the state’s new emission standards for cars and trucks.
“Maybe it’s posture for that potential presidential run,” Sonnenberg said. “But he’s made some decisions that will hurt rural Colorado.”
Unfinished business
During his second term, Hickenlooper turned his attention to improving public education and the state’s workforce by championing apprenticeships, internships and certificate programs.
One program, CareerWise, helped more than 100 high school students across the state land paid internships in its first year. Hickenlooper wants 20,000 students to be enrolled in the program in the first 10 years.
Despite this and other education reform efforts, student achievement scores on standardized tests have barely budged. And funding for the state’s public schools and universities is still among the lowest in the nation.
The education funding issue, along with a lack of investments in the state’s roads, is due primarily to Hickenlooper’s and legislative leaders’ inability to make much progress in taming what his administration called the “fiscal thicket.”
Colorado’s budget is largely driven by three constitutional amendments: the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights, which limits how much revenue the state may collect; the Gallagher amendment, which requires the state to adjust residential property taxes periodically based on a formula; and Amendment 23, which requires that spending on public schools keep up with inflation.
Taken together, those don’t allow the governor and state lawmakers much discretion over spending.
“Untangling the fiscal knot is something no one governor can do in one term — or two,” said Morrison, Hickenlooper’s former legislative director.
Hickenlooper did back two tax increase requests for schools and one for roads.
Voters rejected all three.
Improving the state’s infrastructure doesn’t necessitate an increase in taxes, said Conway, the Weld County commissioner. He argued that Hickenlooper simply didn’t make it a priority until it was too late.
“The fact that we’re eight years into his term and we don’t have a plan speaks louder than anything I could say,” he said.
If he didn’t agree, at least he was agreeable
If John Hickenlooper has made political enemies during his eight years in office, they rarely speak out.
His eight years in office yielded little controversy beyond the occasional gaffe.
Perhaps the highest-profile charge against the Democrat came during his last months in office when former Speaker McNulty filed a complaint against him with the Colorado Independent Ethics Commission. Hickenlooper has called the complaint a political stunt.
In interviews with Hickenlooper’s staff, allies and opponents, a theme emerges: Even though he didn’t accomplish his entire agenda, Hickenlooper always tried to put Colorado first. And when there was a disagreement, he almost always tried to listen and better understand his opposition.
Conway, the county commissioner who at one point wanted to secede from the state, put it this way: “We haven’t always agreed. But it isn’t impossible to me to imagine people will look back on the good old days of John Hickenlooper.”
