GOP Candidates Brag About Arrests During Colorado Debate

The Republican Party has long claimed to be “the party of law and order,” but some GOP candidates in Colorado think a criminal record is a bragging point.

That sad truth was on display Thursday night at a primary debate in Fort Lupton, a community in Colorado’s 4th Congressional District, when candidates were asked if they had ever been arrested.

A whopping six out of the nine candidates on the debate stage raised their hands to the audience’s cheers.

Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.), who currently represents the 3rd District but is changing districts in hopes of improving her reelection chances, celebrated the moment by high-fiving with Mike Lynch, who, earlier this week, resigned as the state’s House minority leader after a 2022 DUI arrest was made public, according to Denver NBC affiliate KUSA.

Boebert told the audience that her arrest was “just a simple traffic violation that was unpaid,” butthe Colorado Times Reporter said Friday that she was arrested in 2016 after skipping a required court hearing for rolling her truck into a ditch.

She was also arrested in 2015 for disorderly conduct after she allegedly encouraged underage drinkers at a music festival to resist the police.

Many people on social media noted the irony that a majority of the candidates seemed to think that having an arrest history was somehow a badge of honor ― or at least antithetical to the GOP’s professed core beliefs.

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