Pugliese, a Colorado Springs Republican, is in just her second year as a state representative, but she had been serving as assistant minority leader in the House
By Jesse Paul | SOURCE: THE COLORADO SUN
Republicans in the Colorado House of Representatives on Thursday elected a first-term lawmaker from Colorado Springs to be their new leader, replacing Mike Lynch, who stepped down from his leadership role a day earlier following revelations about his 2022 arrest on suspicion of drunken driving.
Rose Pugliese, a Colorado Springs Republican, is in just her second year as a state representative, but she had been serving as assistant minority leader in the House.
She beat out state Reps. Matt Soper, R-Delta, and Ken DeGraaf, R-Colorado Springs, for the job in two rounds of voting by secret ballot. DeGraaf was the lowest vote getter in the first tally, which meant he was dropped from the contest. Pugliese beat Soper in a final, 11-8 vote.
“I love this caucus and I want to see it grow,” she said in a speech before the votes were taken. “I want to make sure that we are stopping Democratic policies that are hurting the people in our state.”
Pugliese, a former Mesa County commissioner, is taking the helm of a 19-member caucus that is bitterly divided between more moderate and more conservative factions even as it contends with a 46-member Democratic supermajority in the House.