U.S. Sen. Cory Gardner, R-Yuma, took office in January 2015 and has since been steadily transitioning from the regional focus appropriate to his former role as a U.S. representative for Colorado’s 4th Congressional District covering the eastern plains to demonstrating the statewide presence critical to his new office. In hiring a Southwest regional director who began work Feb. 1, Gardner has taken a significant step in ensuring issues important to this region garner his attention. It is a welcome move that can greatly benefit Southwest Colorado.
Gardner’s Southwest staffer is a familiar face: Ann McCoy-Harold took the district’s helm at the beginning of the month and will represent Gardner across eight counties: La Plata, Montezuma, Archuleta, San Juan, San Miguel, Dolores, Mineral and Hinsdale. In turn, McCoy-Harold can feed citizens’ and local governments’ concerns up the chain to her boss.
She has plenty of experience doing so. For the last five years of former Sen. Wayne Allard’s tenure, McCoy-Harold served the Loveland Republican in the same capacity she will now perform for Gardner. She has been active with the La Plata County Republican Party since Allard’s retirement in 2009 – he did not seek re-election in 2008 and Sen. Mark Udall, D-Eldorado Springs, succeeded Allard. Udall lost his re-election bid to Gardner in 2014.
Gardner has not been a frequent visitor to Southwest Colorado since his election, though he did travel to the region after the Gold King Mine spill last August. Gardner and his colleague, Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Denver, arrived on Aug. 7 to survey the spill’s damage and assure the many affected communities that their senators were concerned about and attentive to the problem. Since then, Gardner and Bennet have been working – at times in concert – to add as well as make changes to existing law that hamstrings mine clean-up efforts. Among these is a long-overdue measure to extend liability protection to third-party groups who take on mine clean-up, but currently risk running afoul of the Clean Water Act should something go wrong.
Gardner and Bennet – along with Rep. Scott Tipton, R-Cortez – have introduced legislation that would extend that protection, and are in discussion about the parameters of the bill with stakeholders.
Gardner’s investment in Good Samaritan legislation was surely influenced by his August visit to the region, and if the hiring of McCoy-Harold – and the interest in Southwest Colorado that it conveys – is any indication of what is to come, we can look forward to an increased presence from the junior senator. Gardner visited the area briefly on Tuesday to discuss the Good Samaritan bill with leaders of the Southern Ute and Ute Mountain Ute tribes as well as San Juan and La Plata counties’ boards of commissioners.
Gathering this feedback from those directly affected by federal legislation – or its lack, in this case – is the work of an engaged lawmaker. So is ensuring that all the regions he or she represents are adequately staffed. From his few visits to Southwest Colorado thus far, Gardner has discerned the critical issues and responded accordingly. Now, with a staffer in place – and an office soon to follow – the area can hope for increased engagement from Sen. Gardner, both in terms of his presence in the community and his efforts on our behalf in Washington, D.C.
