> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.thecoloradoconservative.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Chris Richardson: House District 56 Candidate Interview - URL: https://www.thecoloradoconservative.com/issue-1-chris-richardson-hd56/ - Published: 2026-09-12T18:55:00.000Z - Updated: 2026-10-20T01:04:03.000Z - Description: Chris Richardson discusses rural Colorado, affordability, and constitutional government in our inaugural issue’s HD56 interview. - Author: Eric Phelan - Tags: Candidate Interviews, September 2026, Issue 1 From the September 11, 2026 inaugural issue of The Colorado Conservative. Candidate status and campaign links reflect the printed issue. Colorado House of Representatives • House District 56 • Incumbent in the printed issue [Campaign website](https://www.richardson-hd56.com/?ref=thecoloradoconservative.com) · [Campaign donation link](https://secure.anedot.com/richardson-for-hd56/donate?ref=thecoloradoconservative.com) ## The interview ## Who is Chris beyond the campaign? Beyond politics, I am a husband, father, retired Army colonel with combat service in Desert St0rm, the Balkans, and Iraqi Freedom, engineer, and longtime community servant. I spent 23 years in uniform, later served on a local school board and as an Elbert County Commissioner, and now represent House District 56 in the General Assembly. Those experiences taught me that leadership is not about title or authority; it is about duty, accountability, and leaving an institution stronger than you found it. My family keeps me centered, and rural Colorado reminds me every day that ordinary people doing hard things well, not government, are the real strength of this state. ## Why are you running? I first ran because I had watched too many decisions move away from the people they affected and toward a state government convinced it knew better. I am seeking another term because that work is unfinished. After military service, school-board service, county government, and legislative service, I have seen government from nearly every level. The lesson is simple: good government listens first, respects limits, and stays focused on core responsibilities. The Declaration says governments derive “their just powers from the consent of the governed.” That is not ceremonial language; it is a job description. I want to keep a strong, independent voice for rural and frontier Colorado, and make state government answer to the people again. ## What makes your district unique? House District 56 is Colorado at its most grounded: farms and ranches, small towns, growing communities, working families, veterans, entrepreneurs, and neighbors who still show up for one another. We stretch from communities near the Front Range deep onto the Eastern Plains, and our needs are often very different from Denver’s assumptions. What I hear most is not ideological, it is practical: property taxes, insurance, energy bills, housing, healthcare access, roads, water, workforce shortages, and regulations written without rural realities in mind. What I value most is our independence. People here do not ask government to run their lives; they ask it to stop making their lives harder. ## What would be your three highest legislative priorities? My three priorities are affordability, rural strength, and constitutional governance. First, I will fight new taxes, fees, costly mandates, and regulations that raise the price of housing, energy, insurance, food, and doing business, and continue defending TABOR and taxpayer consent. Second, I will focus on what keeps rural Colorado viable: roads, water, emergency services, healthcare, agriculture, and reliable energy. Third, I will defend local control, parental rights, property rights, and constitutional liberties against one-size-fits-all state mandates. My test for legislation is straightforward: Does it make Colorado freer, safer, more affordable, and more capable of sustaining the communities that built this state? ## How would you address Colorado’s affordability challenges? Government cannot make Colorado affordable by subsidizing everything it first made more expensive. The General Assembly should attack the cost drivers it controls: taxes, fees, regulation, energy policy, litigation incentives, permitting delays, and mandates that pile costs onto employers and consumers. I would protect TABOR refunds, oppose disguised tax increases, and require regulations to justify their economic cost. Large new energy users should bear the incremental costs they create rather than shifting them to existing families and businesses. Housing reforms should remove unnecessary barriers while respecting local control. Healthcare and insurance need greater competition and transparency. Small businesses need breathing room, not another state form, fee, mandate, or compliance consultant. ![At the Republican River Watershed Association, making the case for rural Colorado voices. The people closest to the challenges know best. Local solutions beat Denver-Metro mandates.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/ab/62/ab626829-3603-4fac-8e8d-60a3aa9164dd/content/images/tcc-issue-01/issue-1-chris-richardson-hd56-community-2.jpg) At the Republican River Watershed Association, making the case for rural Colorado voices. The people closest to the challenges know best. Local solutions beat Denver-Metro mandates. ## What is your approach to education? Parents are the primary decision-makers for their children. Teachers should be empowered to teach, local school boards should be accountable to their communities, and the state should fund education, establish clear academic expectations, protect civil rights, and then resist the urge to micromanage every classroom. I support strong parental notification and transparency, meaningful school choice, protection for charter and alternative models, and funding policies that recognize students, not systems, as the reason public education exists. Schools should concentrate on literacy, mathematics, history, science, civics, critical thinking, and preparing young people for work, college, military service, or entrepreneurship. Education works best when responsibility remains close to the child and accountable to parents. ## How would you approach public safety and individual liberty? Public safety and liberty are not competing values; constitutional government must protect both. Madison wrote that government must first be enabled “to control the governed; and in the next place, oblige it to control itself.” I support law enforcement, meaningful consequences for violent and repeat offenders, cooperation with federal authorities on serious public-safety threats, and policies that put victims and community safety back at the center. But government power needs limits: due process matters, privacy matters, property rights matter, and the Second Amendment matters. Government should be formidable against criminals and restrained toward law-abiding citizens. The badge and the Constitution should reinforce one another, not compete with one another. ## What does conservative government mean to you? Conservative government begins with a simple question: What is government actually for? The Declaration answers it plainly: “to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men.” State government should perform its core duties exceptionally well, public safety, courts, infrastructure, responsible stewardship, and maintaining a stable framework in which families and businesses can thrive. It should do less social engineering, less economic micromanagement, and less substituting statewide mandates for local judgment. And it should stop treating taxpayers as an inexhaustible funding source or evading voter consent through creatively labeled fees. I want government strong enough to do what it must, disciplined enough to stop doing what it should not, and humble enough to know the difference. ## How will you turn your principles into results? Principles matter most when they produce results. I start with the problem, not the party label, and I am willing to work with anyone who is serious about solving it. That approach has already helped me pass bipartisan legislation, including property-tax accountability reforms and practical workers’ compensation changes. Productive compromise improves the route without abandoning the destination: details, timing, and mechanics can change; constitutional rights, taxpayer consent, equal treatment, and the fundamental purpose of a bill should not. I listen, build coalitions, use facts, and look for the part of an issue where people can agree. You do not need to surrender your convictions to be effective. You need to know which things are negotiable and which are not. ## Why should voters place their trust in you? Trust is earned through consistency. I have spent much of my adult life taking oaths, accepting responsibility, and being accountable for results, from military command to local government to the State House. I will not promise voters that government can fix everything. I will promise to tell you what I believe, explain how I vote, show up across the district, listen even when we disagree, and remember who owns the office. The Constitution begins, “We the People.” Those are not just famous words; they establish the proper order of authority. The single thing I want voters to remember is this: this seat does not belong to me. It belongs to the people of House District 56, and I serve accordingly. ## District notes from the magazine ![District-themed illustration from the Chris Richardson profile](https://storage.ghost.io/c/ab/62/ab626829-3603-4fac-8e8d-60a3aa9164dd/content/images/tcc-issue-01/issue-1-chris-richardson-hd56-illustration-2.jpg) Illustration from the original magazine. The Paint Mines Interpretive Park near Calhan is approximately 750 acres containing colorful clay formations, hoodoos, spires, badlands and gullies created by erosion. Archaeologists have found evidence of several prehistoric Indigenous cultures at the site, dating as far back as 9,000 years ago. They used the colored clay for paint and pottery decorations. They also used selenite and other materials to create tools and projectile points. The final spike for the first continuous railroad route from the Atlantic to the Pacific coast was laid at Comanche Crossing near Strasburg on August 15, 1870\. The crews worked from Denver towards Kansas and laid an impressive 10 ¼ miles of track in the last nine hours. There is a monument in Strasburg’s Lyons Park commemorating the event. ### Industries in the district - Educational services, healthcare and social assistance - Professional, scientific, management, administrative and waste-management services - Construction - Retail trade - Transportation, warehousing and utilities ![House District 56 boundary map from the magazine](https://storage.ghost.io/c/ab/62/ab626829-3603-4fac-8e8d-60a3aa9164dd/content/images/tcc-issue-01/issue-1-chris-richardson-hd56-map-2.jpg) District map reproduced from the magazine. Credit shown in print: Colorado Redistricting Commission. ### District at a glance ![House District 56 voter-registration and demographic infographic from the inaugural issue; open image for full-size figures](https://storage.ghost.io/c/ab/62/ab626829-3603-4fac-8e8d-60a3aa9164dd/content/images/tcc-issue-01/issue-1-chris-richardson-hd56-district-data-2.jpg) Original district data graphic. Figures and source dates are as printed; select the image to enlarge it. [Return to the inaugural issue](https://www.thecoloradoconservative.com/september-2026-inaugural-issue/)