Bob Beauprez

Robert Louis Beauprez (born September 22, 1948) is an American politician and member of the Republican Party from the state of Colorado.

Beauprez is a Colorado native and graduate of the University of Colorado Boulder.

Like his father and the majority of blue collar Catholics in the area he originally registered as a Democrat before switching parties in the 1970s.

He attributes this to his frustration with prominent Colorado Democrats at that time.

Beauprez attended Fairview High School where he played football and was named all-conference offensive tackle.

He went on to study physical education at the University of Colorado, and received his B.S. in 1970.

While Beauprez had been involved in the Republican Party for some time, his first leadership role came in 1997 as the chairman of the Boulder County Republican Party.

He worked as a dairy farmer and community banker before serving as chairman of the Colorado Republican Party from 1999 to 2002.

In 1999, with the backing of Senator Wayne Allard, Beauprez became chairman of the Colorado Republican Party.

His tenure as state party chairman was marked by an aggressive attempts to use redistricting to get more Republican candidates elected in Colorado.

The Republican Party lost control of the Colorado State Senate for the first time in four decades while Beauprez was chairman.

In 2002, Beauprez ran to represent Colorado's 7th congressional district in the U.S. House of Representatives, regarded as a "swing" district.

In beating Democrat Mike Feeley by only 121 votes he won the closest race in the nation.

As a freshman, Beauprez served on the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, the Veterans Affairs Committee, and the Small Business Committee.

He was then elected to represent Colorado's 7th congressional district in the United States House of Representatives, and served from 2003 to 2007.

He was re-elected in 2004 and subsequently obtained a position on the powerful House Ways and Means Committee.

He gave up his seat to run for Governor of Colorado in the 2006 election but lost to Democratic nominee Bill Ritter.

Beauprez won the Republican Party nomination for governor in August 2006, running to succeed two-term governor Bill Owens, who was ineligible for a third consecutive term.

Beauprez ended up winning the nomination uncontested; he was briefly opposed by Marc Holtzman, who dropped out of the race and endorsed Beauprez several months before the primary.

On February 2, 2006, veterans called on Beauprez to apologize for appearing at a photo-op in a military-issued uniform, even though he had never served in the military.

He had requested and received three draft deferments and then a medical release during the Vietnam War.

In May 2006, ProgressNow, a liberal advocacy group, produced an Internet-based ad that again focused on Beauprez's draft status during Vietnam.

The Beauprez campaign dismissed the ad as done by a "well-financed attack machine."

In October, Beauprez started running ads that attacked Ritter's performance as Denver district attorney, citing a plea-bargained case against illegal immigrant and alleged heroin dealer Carlos Estrada Medina.

Under the plea bargain, the dealer was given probation.

Later, he was arrested in California, under an alias, on suspicion of sexual abuse on a child.

But the fact that that information couldn't be verified in public court records prompted inquiries to Beauprez's campaign as to where it got its facts.

Beauprez's campaign manager, John Marshall told a local news station, "In federal criminal databases, the guy's information matches up."

That comment set off alarms in Ritter's campaign because federal criminal databases are off-limits to anyone but law enforcement and can be used only for law enforcement purposes.

Owing to the fact that the subsequent arrest was under an alias, Ritter's supporters argued that the information could only have been obtained by accessing the National Crime Information Center (NCIC) database, which access is restricted by federal law.

The Colorado Bureau of Investigation initiated an investigation, and found enough evidence to then ask FBI to join its probe.

He was the Republican nominee for governor again in the 2014 election, losing to incumbent Democratic Governor John Hickenlooper.

Beauprez is a member of the ReFormers Caucus of Issue One.

Beauprez was born in Lafayette, Colorado.

He grew up on his family's dairy farm, which had been purchased by his grandparents, outside of Boulder, Colorado.

He is the son of Marie (née Stengel) and Joseph C. Beauprez.

His paternal grandparents had emigrated from Belgium to Colorado and raised draft horses on the family's land.

His mother's family was of German descent.

His parents raised both Hereford and dairy cattle on the farm.

Beauprez often cites his father's example as a major influence on his life.