The congressman from the 3rd District is Scott Tipton, a Republican who ousted three-term Democrat John Salazar in 2010. Tipton was born in Española, N.M. His family moved to Cortez, Colo., three months after he was born. His father was a construction worker for a Denver-based company, but the family’s finances were often strained by the medical needs of Tipton’s brother, who was diabetic. “Until I was about 7 years old, we ate oatmeal every morning for breakfast,” Tipton said. “It wasn’t because we needed to lower our cholesterol.” Tipton’s mother and father were doting and attentive parents, “who never missed a parent-teacher conference,” he said. When Tipton enrolled in Fort Lewis College in Durango, he became the first member of his family to go beyond high school, an achievement he attributes to his stable home life. Read More

The congressman from the 3rd District is Scott Tipton, a Republican who ousted three-term Democrat John Salazar in 2010. Tipton was born in Española, N.M. His family moved to Cortez, Colo., three months after he was born. His father was a construction worker for a Denver-based company, but the family’s finances were often strained by the medical needs of Tipton’s brother, who was diabetic. “Until I was about 7 years old, we ate oatmeal every morning for breakfast,” Tipton said. “It wasn’t because we needed to lower our cholesterol.” Tipton’s mother and father were doting and attentive parents, “who never missed a parent-teacher conference,” he said. When Tipton enrolled in Fort Lewis College in Durango, he became the first member of his family to go beyond high school, an achievement he attributes to his stable home life.

After getting his degree, Tipton returned to his hometown to establish a production facility for Native American pottery and jewelry, employing childhood friends who belonged to the Ute and Navajo tribes. But his fledgling business was encumbered by onerous and redundant government paperwork, he says. “We spent hours filling out forms (asking) how many thousands of pounds of clays we went through each year,” an experience that made Tipton a critic of government intrusion into the affairs of small businesses.

In 2006, he mounted his first political campaign, challenging Salazar, then a freshman. Salazar won handily, receiving 62% of the vote, but Tipton’s campaign increased his visibility. Two years later, the local Republican Party in nearby Montrose recruited him to run for the Colorado House, and he was soon on his way to Denver. As a Republican legislator, Tipton says he sometimes felt marginalized by the Democratic Party’s hegemony in the state following the 2008 election. He was the ranking Republican on the Agriculture Committee and worked on legislation that streamlined government paperwork through increased reliance on the Internet. He was also a sponsor of the bipartisan “Katie’s Law,” which requires collection of DNA from anyone arrested on suspicion of a felony.

In the August primary to run against Salazar, retired Army lawyer Bob McConnell was the preferred candidate of tea party activists and Tipton’s main opponent. Some tea partiers viewed Tipton suspiciously as a member of the Republican establishment, but he refrained from criticizing McConnell. The race never grew overly negative and The Pueblo Chieftain dubbed Tipton’s win a “bloodless victory.”

In the fall campaign, Tipton portrayed Salazar as too deferential to the Democratic leadership, “voting as (House Speaker Nancy) Pelosi and Obama would have him vote.” The Republican slammed the incumbent for his votes in favor of President Obama’s $787 billion economic-stimulus bill and his major health care overhaul. Of the 220 House supporters of the health care law, only 11 represented districts that are more Republican than Salazar’s, according to The Cook Political Report. Salazar also was perceived as having close ties to the Obama administration because his younger brother, Ken Salazar, is Interior secretary. For his part, John Salazar suggested in his ads that Tipton would reduce Social Security retirement benefits, and he deemphasized his party label, calling himself “An Independent Voice for Rural Colorado.” The incumbent was also well-funded, with $1.8 million compared with Tipton’s $1 million.

Although Salazar enjoyed decisive victories in two previous re-election bids, the district’s conservative voters were energized, and Tipton prevailed, with 50% to 46% for Salazar.