Colorado state Rep. Rose Pugliese, a lawmaker from Colorado Springs, was elected to lead the House Republican caucus Thursday morning, a day after the previous minority leader stepped down in the fallout over his past drunken driving arrest.
Pugliese, a first-term lawmaker who had served as assistant minority leader, beat out fellow Reps. Matt Soper and Ken DeGraaf in two rounds of voting. She succeeds Mike Lynch as the leader of the House’s super-minority Republican caucus after Lynch resigned from leadership Wednesday in the internal fallout of last week’s reporting by the media on his previously unknown 2022 arrest.
In a statement sent two hours after the vote, Pugliese thanked Lynch and vowed to push back against the majority Democrats’ agenda.
“Republicans stand united in our desire to chart a different path in our state,” she wrote, “and we are working hard on policies that deliver on our commitment to make Colorado more affordable, safer and ensure parental rights and educational choice are priorities.”
An attorney who recently helped campaign against Gov. Jared Polis and the Democrats’ Proposition HH, Pugliese previously served as a Mesa County commissioner before running for the state House in 2022 in the Front Range’s El Paso County. She briefly raised money and explored running for U.S. Rep. Doug Lamborn’s soon-to-be open congressional seat, but she said she decided against a run, and she refunded the donations.
In a first round of voting Thursday morning, Pugliese won eight votes, compared to Soper’s six and DeGraaf’s five. DeGraaf, a right-wing freshman lawmaker from Colorado Springs, was eliminated because of his low total.
In the second round, Pugliese and Soper each picked up votes, but Pugliese won 11-8. The House Republicans will gather again Friday morning to elect someone to replace Pugliese as assistant minority leader.
Lynch, of Wellington, announced his resignation from leadership (but not from his legislative seat) on the House floor Wednesday morning, 24 hours before he was set to face a second confidence vote in four days. Lynch had narrowly survived a first vote Monday, in a 9-9 tie that didn’t include conservative Rep. Stephanie Luck, one of his critics.
The Denver Post first reported last week that Lynch was arrested for drunken driving and for a weapons charge in September 2022 in Larimer County, an incident that wasn’t known among most, if not all, of his House Republican colleagues. Lynch later pleaded guilty, and he remains on probation through June.
He was elected minority leader in late 2022, while that case was still pending. In the last week, he came under criticism from within the caucus, particularly from right-wing members, for failing to disclose the arrest over the last 15 months.
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