By Jen Schumann | Contributing Writer, Rocky Mountain Voice
El Paso County Republican Rep. Scott Bottoms walked the quiet State Capitol halls with his wife, prayers filling the empty space. They spent hours there—no fanfare, just a pastor seeking God’s will on a new path after years of preaching in Colorado Springs.
Several lawmakers asked him to run for office. “I’m a pastor,” he told them. One replied, “Pray about it.” That stuck. “I almost said no,” Bottoms said. “I was scared God might say yes.”
“I didn’t choose this,” Bottoms said. “I felt God say, ‘This is your battlefield.’”
He said what no one else would
Bottoms caught the attention of millions across the country with a speech that went viral on X last fall. “Our state is running rampant with pedophilia,” he said. “People don’t want to say it, but it’s true.”
Before you vote LISTEN TO THIS
— Wall Street Apes (@WallStreetApes) October 26, 2024
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After the video went viral, calls came from representatives and senators nationwide, asking if it was true. He laid out years of bills shielding predators. “Nobody wants to talk about it,” he said. “That’s part of the problem.”
That speech wasn’t just talk. Court records show over 90% of child buyers get probation, not jail. “Colorado’s the most pedophile-friendly state and the most friendly to human trafficking in the United States according to our laws,” he said.
Bottoms pushed House Bill 25-1145 earlier this year to stop human trafficking across state lines, targeting a loophole letting abusers move kids for abortions and gender surgeries.
“These people load up vans of girls and boys and bring ’em over for gender transition surgeries,” he said. “It’s not because they can’t get the surgery done in their state—sometimes they can—but they can’t do four or five kids at a time there because police would notice they’re trafficked. Colorado’s okay with it.”
Sheriffs and Colorado Bureau of Investigation agents backed the bill. But Democrats voted it down—unanimously.
The fight inside the Golden Dome
Bottoms stepped into the Capitol and saw a deeper struggle unfolding. “There’s a desire to tear apart our society—murder babies, push transgender surgeries and strip parental rights,” he said. “It’s intentional.”
He ran House Bill 24-1252 this session to tackle one piece of that — safety rules for late-term abortions. First-trimester procedures have guidelines from the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, but not second or third, where risks climb higher each trimester.
The bill aimed to protect women, not ban abortion—a point he stressed. “I don’t like abortion—everybody knows that,” Bottoms said. “But the bill wasn’t actually addressing or stopping abortion—what it was doing is saying when these women are going to abort their babies, let’s just put some guidelines in place that keep them from dying.”
Witnesses spoke of ambulances at clinics, lives lost in silence. “I know I can’t save any babies’ lives today,” he added. “But if I could save a handful of women’s lives, it’s worth it.”
Democrats rejected it—every vote against.
Resistance in the Capitol
While Bottoms says he expected resistance from the opposing party, what shocked him was the level of control and fear he’s witnessed behind the scenes.
“They’re told what to do. They’re told how to vote,” he said. “I’ve had Democrats come up to me privately and say they agree with me, but they’re not allowed to support my bills—because I’m the one sponsoring them.”
He described committee hearings where Democrats refused to speak at all, whispering to each other to stay silent in order to avoid going on the record. Even on issues where Bottoms believes the moral stakes are clear—like ensuring medical oversight for late-term abortions—he says the majority party won’t budge.
“They know they’d look stupid trying to argue against it,” he said. “How do you say no to protecting women from dying in surgery?”
Bottoms attributes much of it to what he calls ideological bondage—a kind of moral compromise that starts small, but grows into total submission to party power.
“They walk directly into the darkness—even though they don’t want to,” he said. “They’re afraid to lose their seat, so they sell their soul to stay in line.”
He contrasted that with how the Republican caucus operates. Republican lawmakers differ, he says. “We have disagreements. We don’t tell anybody how to vote.”
The church responds
Despite the darkness he describes inside the Capitol, Bottoms isn’t discouraged. If anything, he says something remarkable is happening in the places that matter most: the churches.
“I used to have to beg pastors—just get four or five of you together and hear me out,” he said. “Now? I’ve got pastors calling me from the Western Slope, from the northeast part of the state, asking me to come speak at luncheons or conferences. It’s happening almost every week.”
He believes Amendment 79, which expanded abortion access in Colorado, was a wake-up call. Too many churchgoers stayed home, and he said the price of that silence is now undeniable.
“If the church had just gotten out and voted, it wouldn’t have passed,” he said. “But that moment changed something. Pastors started texting me. They’re telling their people to vote—and to vote on biblical principle.”
Bottoms said the church has long been conditioned to stay out of politics, convinced that silence is safer than speaking truth in the public square. But that’s changing.
“We’re not just talking about tax rates or roads anymore. These are our children. These are our families. And I think the church is finally saying, ‘This is too far.’”
He recalled a flood of emails—over 2,000 in a single window of time—from people telling him they were coming back to the Republican party because he was willing to take a stand.
“I started getting pastors saying, ‘Can you come speak at a luncheon? Can you come do a conference?’ I’m getting those all the time now,” he said.
His calling to run for governor
Bottoms never set out to run for governor. “I’m just a pastor, but I really believe God has called me to pick up this banner and fight in ways I never thought—even five years ago—I’d be doing,” he said.
What changed? According to Bottoms, it was the firsthand exposure to what he calls deep corruption, ideological bondage and a legislature that refuses to protect children—or tell the truth.
“A lot of the stuff, the corruption, the financial corruption that’s going on… my first day as governor, we’re gonna set up a DOGE department because this state is so corrupt financially, and we see it every day here,” he said.
He sees the moment as bigger than politics. To him, it’s a spiritual battle—one that marks a turning point in American history.
“I believe that the third demarcation of our country is right now,” he said. “First it was the Revolutionary War. Then the Civil War. Now, we either stand up and take our freedoms back, or we lose them.”
Looking to 2026 and beyond
The urgency to retake freedoms lost, combined with what he calls a spiritual awakening among churches and ordinary Coloradans, led him to take the next step.
He believes most Coloradans aren’t radicals.
“I think their party left them,” he said. “There’s a small group starting with Governor Polis that wants you to drive an electric vehicle and live near a bus station while they push DEI—that’s not who Colorado is.”
Bottoms asks for resolve as he looks ahead. “The necessity of being engaged is because this really is a fight,” he said. “This is no longer politics as usual—we’re fighting for our kids and our freedoms.”
He trusts the people’s instincts. “The average person knows it’s common sense—parents should be in charge of their children, boys aren’t girls,” he said. “If they would just get out and vote, that would change the whole state.”
His call stays personal. “I have to fight for the people that truly will take the strong conservative stand and care about babies and moms,” he said. “Step up—for my grandkids, for yours—and let’s keep Colorado true.”