Congressional candidate Pace makes stop in Crested Butte

Sal Pace seeks Colorado’s 3rd Congressional District

It’s not every day that a U.S. congressional candidate finds the time to get to Crested Butte, but state representative Sal Pace managed to make his way to the Crested Butte News office for a chat on Thursday, September 6.

Pace, a Democrat, is from Pueblo, with working class roots and a feeling that the future is imperiled by the partisan gridlock in Washington. He’s taken an aggressive stance against the incumbent Congressman Scott Tipton, and wants people to know that a Congressman Pace wouldn’t be afraid to stray from the party line. Instead, he has his own ideas about what’s necessary for a successful future in Colorado and across the country.
He believes it’s going to take people sitting down at a table, away from the partisan fray, talking about the issues they see as most important in a way to move things forward. To get the word out, he sat down at a table with the News to talk about what we might expect if Sal Pace is elected as the representative from Colorado’s 3rd Congressional District.
On the topic of land use, Pace goes back to the idea that people can find consensus in how public lands should be managed when people talk about where they’re coming from and their goals. He says a congressman’s role is “to facilitate dialogue and discussion and find consensus,” tipping his hat to Senator Michael Bennet’s recently announced effort to secure the future of wild lands in the Colorado high country.
At the same time Pace believes there has to be a place for less glamorous activities, like energy development, on public land for a host of reasons, namely energy security. However that doesn’t mean he thinks energy should be developed everywhere energy exists. “If an economy like Crested Butte’s depends on recreational tourism, it doesn’t make sense to affect that economy for a temporary economy,” Pace says. “There are other communities that are really begging for the jobs, and at the end of the day it’s about balance and respect. Respect our land, respect our water, respect the existing economies and we can have it all. But we have to have a balanced approach.”
Part of that balance can include oversight and regulation of the energy industry by local officials. Pace says he has shown in his four-year tenure at the State House that he values the role of local government. “I have a voting record on this at the state legislature. There were a couple of bills to eliminate the role of counties in regulating natural gas industry. I stood firmly on the side of local control; it’s something I believe in,” he says. “Locals know their community best.”
Pace says he will bring balance to a conversation about the proposed Bear Ranch Land Exchange, which sometimes seems to be heavily weighted to one side in legislative circles. “My philosophy at the end of the day as the next congressman for this district is that the local community should have the loudest voice. We shouldn’t have a one size fits all, but a collaborative approach where the local citizens will be the folks I listen to in deciding how to move forward,” he says. “At this point, here and on the other side of the pass, there’s still a lot of skepticism and concern about the access issues.”
Access isn’t just a recreational issue, it’s also an economic issue and Pace says he helped secure a $5 million annual grant for transportation projects around the state, some of which has been set aside for bus systems in rural communities. As far as air travel goes, Pace sees the role of the federal government as providing the infrastructure for rural communities to connect with the rest of the world.
On down the list, Pace lines up where you might expect him to, except on Second Amendment issues, which he has always supported, and on some fiscal matters, like those related to a balanced budget amendment. “I think it makes sense if we can do it in 49 out of 50 states. We have to address our national debt and I don’t think that’s high enough on our leadership’s list of priorities,” he says, adding “On a number of agriculture and water issues, in my time in the legislature I’ve supported rural communities, often fighting against my metro counterparts.”
But at the end of the day, partisan priorities aren’t what Pace says he’s concerned about. He says he hopes to be able to sit down with people on all sides of whatever issue is on the table and come up with a solution that serves as many stakeholders as possible. “We passed a budget in the state house this year 64 to 1. At the same time we’re seeing fights over debt ceiling, payroll tax, super committee one after another down in Washington,” he says. “Out in Colorado, that’s not how we do things. I think it’s imperative that we bring that Colorado approach to Washington.”