Colorado: Marilyn Musgrave

Former Rep. Marilyn Musgrave will lead a new antiabortion initiative dubbed “Votes Have Consequences” that will target members of Congress in the 2010 election cycle who support abortion rights.

In a case of supreme irony, Musgrave intends to rip a page from the hardball playbook used by the Defenders of Wildlife. The environmental group that was credited with helping to defeat the three-term Republican congresswoman with intense local organizing and a $1.6 million barrage of TV attack ads — a strategy that was roundly criticized by Republicans.

Musgrave and her new boss, Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the Susan B. Anthony List, told the Coloradoan they would mimic the same scorched-earth tactics:

“We need to know that the person that we defeat has a scalp that we can hold up high and say their pro-abortion leadership is why they lost,” Dannenfelser said.

As the Fort Collins Coloradoan reports:
Rep. Betsy Markey broke with the Democratic leadership in opposing a bill that would give bankruptcy judges the ability to lower mortgage payments for troubled homeowners.

Markey, a Fort Collins Democrat, said the bill passed by the House Thursday night "had the right intentions, but the wrong approach."

"This bill isn't fair to people who have stayed on top of their mortgage payments, but are now seeing their home values decline because of foreclosures in their neighborhoods," Markey said.

"The bill is also unclear about who could qualify for federal aid. It will be extremely difficult to fairly judge unscrupulous or irresponsible borrowers.

Gentlemen, go to the back of the class, says the Sargent Shriver National Center for Poverty Law.

Rep. Doug Lamborn, recently retired Rep. Tom Tancredo and Sen. Wayne Allard all earned failing grades on the center’s new poverty scorecard. The Republican trio ranked dead last in the 110th Congress for their votes on bills legislating fair pay, housing, college financial aid, unemployment and other measures designed to lift working class folk out of poverty.

Tancredo, in fact, bought an abysmal F-minus rate for voting against every bill in the survey despite Colorado’s 12 percent poverty and creeping unemployment rate.

Lamborn narrowly missed the minus designation by voting for a bill to prevent homelessness among veterans and to expand protections under the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Former PolitickerCO.com reporter Jeremy Pelzer — whose daily postings on the now-defunct site were must-reads for Colorado’s politically attuned — lands this week at Elevated Voices, 5280’s everything-to-know-about-Denver blog. Monday’s posting examines potential challengers to Rep. Betsy Markey, who unseated three-term Republican Marilyn Musgrave and became the first Democrat to represent the sprawling 4th Congressional District in more than three decades.

Pelzer, who regularly broke Statehouse stories during the year he reported from the Capitol, brings his savvy to bear on the half dozen Republicans considering a run against Markey in 2010. Topping the roster:

University of Colorado Regent Tom Lucero of Loveland

Odds he’ll run: Already announced.