Hugh McKean was elected to represent Colorado House District 51 on November 6, 2016. He has sponsored bills to improve transportation in Northern Colorado, help County governments in natural disaster recovery efforts, apply necessary corrections to statute where County Sheriff training requirements were concerned in addition to many other bills. One of the highlights of the session was co-sponsorship of HB1248 making available $90 million in loans for the Chimney Hollow Reservoir as part of the Windy Gap Firming Project, a vital water infrastructure project that will ensure water security for generations of Front Range Coloradans. Having lived in Loveland for over twenty years he is most proud of raising his children with a “western ethic”, teaching them self-reliance and personal responsibility.
Contrary to what the dozens of postcards are saying I DID NOT GIVE THE GOVERNOR HIS EMERGENCY POWERS during COVID.
I DID NOT sponsor the bill that shut Colorado down during COVID. I am not in the pocket of Big Pharma and I do not know Dr Fauci. In fact, no one sponsored such a bill during COVID. Those powers were given to the Governor way back in 1947 and are nearly unchanged today. The truth is that I fought against the mandates just like all of you. In fact I sponsored a resolution with Senator Paul Lundeen, removing the blanket powers the Governor has used, returning the approval of any such “disaster emergency” to the legislature on an ongoing basis. The bill I did get passed into law was one that put public health officials on the Governor’s Disaster Advisory Board. We found out after the floods in 2013 when there was a great deal of e-coli contamination that it posed a public health question that no one had answered before. It made sense to include the very departments that test for these contaminants so that recovery could be more streamlined. When the bill was written they took the original language that created the Department of Public Health in 1947 and moved it into that newly created section. The emergency powers of the Governor were put into law way back in 1947 and have only changed once, when State Senator Wayne Allard ran a bill in 2004 amidst the SARS epidemic. I sent my opponent the explanation of why his accusation was untrue. I sent him the original citation from 1947 and even described what our state legal staff shared with me, the original language, the changes in 2004 and then the move of the UNCHANGED language in my bill. He answered with an off the cuff dismissal and no discussion of what was true and what was a lie. Accusations carry a responsibility and they effect the reputation of one individual or the other. In this case there is no question. This bill did not do what my opponent alleges, he was given the entire history of the issue and still refused to comprehend. That means one of two things. Either he is not willing or able to dig in to the research and educate himself or he just refuses to admit that he made something up for political gain.
COVID-19 is here to stay. It’s going to be a fact of our lives and those of our kids and our grandkids. The division created by mask mandates and vaccine requirements has left an indelible mark on our society. We need to heal and they should not be allowed to continue. I have been steadfast in advocating for our nurses and frontline health care workers in dropping the 100% vaccine requirement, instead following the federal guidelines long established for influenza A&B, at 90%.I continue to push Governor Polis to discontinue all Executive Orders and return our lives to normal.