Craig Sullivan
Elections and appointments
Personal
Contact
Craig Sullivan (Republican Party) (also known as Sully) ran for election to the Colorado House of Representatives to represent District 34. He lost in the general election on November 5, 2024.
Sullivan completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2024. Click here to read the survey answers.
Biography
Craig Sullivan was born in Stockton, California. He graduated from Thornton High School. He attended Metropolitan State College.[1]
Elections
2024
See also: Colorado House of Representatives elections, 2024
General election
Withdrawn or disqualified candidates
Democratic primary election
Republican primary election
Campaign finance
Endorsements
Ballotpedia did not identify endorsements for Sullivan in this election.
2024
Ballotpedia survey responses
See also: Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection
Craig Sullivan completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2024. The survey questions appear in bold and are followed by Sullivan's responses. Candidates are asked three required questions for this survey, but they may answer additional optional questions as well.
Expand all | Collapse all
Craig Sullivan is a retired air traffic controller, with over 22 years in the tower at Denver International Airport in a career spanning over 31 years. Craig has lived in and near the HD34 environs for over 42 years.
- The costs of living and housing. The Democrats in charge of Colorado don't care about the effects of increased taxes, fees and regulation. Your costs for everything, including food, fuel, and insurance, have gone up because of careless Democrat policies. The incumbent in this race has marched in lock-step with the most radical of her colleagues, and you are paying the price. The beneficiaries of these Democrat policies are tiny special interest groups, and these people don't care one little bit about your well-being.
- Crime. It's on the rise everywhere in Colorado because of Democrat soft-on-crime policies. Our fantastic police officers must be constantly on-guard to ensure that they don't violate a criminal's 'rights'. Their lives are on the line every day. And if they dare perform any enforcement action, they might be subject to a frivolous lawsuit made possible by pro-criminal laws on the books. Meanwhile, the incumbent Democrat and her radical state house colleagues are working hard to ensure that responsible, law-abiding gun owners are demonized because of what criminals do with their weapons.
- Immigration. This issue has significant impact on my first two! Colorado's sanctuary state status was short-sighted and is unsustainable. Nobody planned that thousands upon thousands of illegal immigrants would actually pour into our state, but here we are. We simply don't have the resources to handle the influx without significantly cutting vital services to Colorado taxpayers. Denver has already begun cutting its budget to divert funds to the growing, needy immigrant population. Crime, disease and pollution are exploding in and around migrant communities. Homelessness is up significantly when they spread out with nowhere to go. Millions of your tax dollars are being diverted to expenses you never asked for.
The response to radical environmentalism. When enacted, environmental laws should have practical, attainable means to an end, as opposed to unilaterally mandating that certain goals absolutely MUST be met by a particular date in the not-too-distant future. Essentially, we should not be in such a rush to eliminate the use of oil, gas or coal - as a nation, the U.S. has proven that we can and do produce and consume such products more cleanly than any other nation. Battery technology quite likely is the future, but people don't realize (and the extremists won't tell you) that spent batteries are loaded with toxic chemicals that cannot be recycled. Excessive reliance on current battery technology will create an environmental crisis.
Among current political figures, I look up to Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida and Sen. John Kennedy of Louisiana. Kennedy in particular intrigues me. He's a man of great intelligence and principle. He is particularly relentless in his examination of judicial nominees.
I read and study the Holy Bible. I always say I consider the Bible to be a mirror, not a hammer; something to apply to myself first instead of using it as a weapon 'against' others.
That person must absolutely put the greater good first.
I have always strived to be as upright of an individual as I possibly can be. The taxpayers can trust me to choose principle over party. I enjoy the process of educating myself about the issues that are before me, which I believe would make me a good committee member as well as a good legislator.
Any passed legislation must be constitutional, necessary, and paid for. Ensure that amended or overturned prior legislation fails to meet at least one of those criteria. Budgetary or regulatory considerations must never be for the purpose of solely creating winners and losers. The taxpayers should feel confident in my commitment and ability to deliberate and legislate conscientiously.
Many of the neighborhoods in House District 34 have reflexively voted Democrat for years. When the time comes to leave office, I hope to have convinced them to examine what is going on in their neighborhoods and their entire state, and to vote accordingly going forward.
I remember Richard Nixon's resignation when I was 11. Even then, I knew that it was a profound event.
I was a dishwasher at a diner. I got hired right after I turned 16 and only kept it through the holidays because of spring high school activities.
(Apart from the Bible) The Hunt for Red October by Tom Clancy. The first and best spy thriller I ever read, filled with glimpses into the inner workings of D.C. I always appreciated the 'true' Clancy novels instead of the newer books that have his name but do not contain his writing.
Captain America! While, like the fictional Steve Rogers, I would need significant genetic modification to achieve the physical side, I have always liked the fact that Steve had an altruistic side that constantly put others first.
Not what it is now! At present, the governor and Democrat-run legislature march hand-in-hand, regardless of the needs or wants of the citizens of Colorado. Ideally each should be a check on the other and be compelled to negotiate in order to get controversial legislation passed. We need more Republicans in the legislature to stop or overturn recent Democrat overreach.
Our current Democrat leadership in the governor's office and state legislature seem to be laser-focused on destroying the state's economy via short-sighted regulation and legislation. Of special note are their repeated, and frequently successful, targeting of the oil/gas/natural resources industry, farming and ranching, excessive taxation which includes their hoped-for repeal of the Taxpayer Bill of Rights, and onerous, job-killing legislation affecting employers and businesses.
Somewhat on the procedural side, but ultimately it ought to be seen as beneficial for normal citizens to bring their life experience and common sense to the table.
Most definitely, yes! I would like to have a friendly relationship with every legislator on either side of the aisle, mostly because that's the type of person I am, but it also would have the benefit of creating a ground floor of trust to build upon for higher levels of communication and cooperation.
Former Colorado legislator and U.S. Senator Bill Armstrong, may he rest in peace. A man of great Christian faith who worked from that sincere mindset to build relationships and a solid record of legislative accomplishment and integrity.
No. I'll be 62 when the legislative session starts, and my goals are simply to bring common sense values to the Colorado State House of Representatives.
I have spoken to numerous individuals about the impact fentanyl has had on their loved ones. In particular, one couple with young children spoke of losing a very close and dear friend recently to an accidental fentanyl overdose, and they appreciated my commitment to addressing that problem in the legislature.
Not a joke per se, a quip - "Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're NOT out to get you."
That's somewhat of a broad question in that there may be extreme and urgent emergencies that prevent immediate oversight, but in general I'd say yes, it is within their scope of responsible authority. Ideally, the legislature would be able to anticipate circumstances around which they could create a framework of action for the governor and his administration, but any of that would need to be collaborative in its creation.
I don't want to pin myself down to anything specific. I am researching fentanyl-related issues at this time and I can see myself collaborating with other legislators as well as law enforcement officials and the federal government on legislation addressing that growing crisis.
These can be found at https://leg.colorado.gov/content/committees. I am most interested in serving on Energy and Environment, and Transportation, Housing and Local Government. I can also see myself serving on Judiciary, Appropriations, and/or Agriculture, Water and Natural Resources. Ultimately though, I will not shirk any committee assignment in-session. I am also willing, available and eager to serve on year-round or intermittent committees. Every one of the year-round committees address areas of interest to me. Of the intermittent committees, I'm drawn to the Artificial Intelligence Impact Task Force, Sales and Use Tax Simplification Task Force, Transportation Legislation Review Committee, Wildfire Matters Review Committee, and Legislative Oversight Committee Concerning Tax Policy & Task Force.
As previously mentioned, budgetary and regulatory legislation must never be for the sole purpose of creating winners and losers. There should be a demonstrable benefit or need to the citizens of the state of Colorado when crafting legislation. I believe in sunshine rules and will always strive to be in compliance with the law.
I've heard from a lot of voters that the size of our ballots is ridiculous, the initiatives are often very confusing or poorly worded, and Colorado's 'Blue Book' (mailed to each household prior to ballots going out) is overly left-leaning in its evaluations. But I don't plan to make it a legislative priority of mine to change that system. We have too many other issues to address.
Note: Ballotpedia reserves the right to edit Candidate Connection survey responses. Any edits made by Ballotpedia will be clearly marked with [brackets] for the public. If the candidate disagrees with an edit, he or she may request the full removal of the survey response from Ballotpedia.org. Ballotpedia does not edit or correct typographical errors unless the candidate's campaign requests it.
Campaign finance summary
Note: The finance data shown here comes from the disclosures required of candidates and parties. Depending on the election or state, this may represent only a portion of all the funds spent on their behalf. Satellite spending groups may or may not have expended funds related to the candidate or politician on whose page you are reading this disclaimer. Campaign finance data from elections may be incomplete. For elections to federal offices, complete data can be found at the FEC website. Click here for more on federal campaign finance law and here for more on state campaign finance law.
See also
External links
- ↑ Information submitted to Ballotpedia through the Candidate Connection survey on September 3, 2024
Leadership
Speaker of the House:Julie McCluskie
Majority Leader:Monica Duran
Representatives
Democratic Party (43)
Republican Party (21)
Vacancies (1)