Democrat Sal Pace is criticizing incumbent U.S. Rep. Scott Tipton, R-Cortez, for votes on wildfire funding.
Scott Tipton voted seven times to cut fire fighting to pay for a tax cut for millionaires like himself, Pace says in a television ad.
It mixes scenes from Colorado wildfires this summer with shots of Pace talking to wildland firefighters as they appear to mop up a fire.
A fire had burned over the land where the ad was filmed, but there were no active fire containment operations happening at the time of filming, according to Paces campaign.
The assertion that Tipton voted against fire funding seven times is at least partially true.
The ads fine print actually cites nine votes. Four of those votes were for budget bills. The first two were for the House Republican budget plan, which calls for cuts to most domestic programs.
Other budget bills passed with Democratic support. Congress has approved tight budgets for the Forest Service recently, and the agency ran out of firefighting money this summer.
A fifth vote was a Republican plan to avoid defense cuts late this year by cutting grants to local governments. Although the bill did not specifically target firefighting, cuts to fire departments would be possible as local governments struggled to balance their budgets without federal help.
Three more votes concerned federal grants to local fire departments. Two of them would have made it easier for fire departments to apply for the grants and use the money to rehire laid-off firefighters. The third sought to add $510 million to the grants by cutting the Department of Homeland Securitys research budget.
A final vote was a symbolic motion to get the federal government to do more to clear beetle-killed trees. This type of motion is frequently used by the minority party to make a point, but it does little to change the law.
Tipton never voted directly to cut firefighting to pay for a tax cut, although he does favor lower federal spending and lower tax rates, including for the wealthy.
Tiptons campaign manager, Michael Fortney, said the ad isnt accurate.
Sal Pace has ran a campaign based on factual leaps, this ad is no different. Congressman Tipton is focused on getting Coloradans back to work, something Sal Pace, with his record of job killing tax increases on family farms and businesses, is completely uninterested in doing, Fortney said.
Paces campaign says the ad was shot on private land with local firefighters who had fought wildfires this year, including the Waldo Canyon blaze in Colorado Springs. But the campaign would not pinpoint the location shown in the ad.
Tiptons campaign mocked Pace earlier this year for an ad that showed Pace doing chores at his fathers house. The house that appeared in the ad was not, in fact, his dads real house.
Paces spokesman, James Dakin Owens, said what matters more is votes in Congress.
And when a Congressman prioritizes tax cuts for millionaires over American workers and the essential services that keep our citizens safe, it matters a great deal to the people of Colorado, he said in an email.
joeh@cortezjournal.com
