Rutinel is not running as a socialist but wrote blog posts pushing for ‘socialistic society’
The Democratic nominee in Colorado’s competitive Eighth Congressional District, Manny Rutinel, voted to give out nearly $12.3 million in taxpayer funding for prisoners’ “transgender healthcare,” including sex-change surgeries.
The appropriations bills passed by the state’s House of Representatives over the past three sessions included a line item for “transgender healthcare” within the budget for the Department of Corrections. Rutinel, a state representative, joined his fellow Democrats to vote in favor of the legislation, with just one Republican defecting each year.
The budgets provided $5.3 million in 2024 and again in 2025, then decreased to $1.6 million this year as Colorado had to close a $1.5 billion budget deficit. The first vote came just weeks after the state agreed to provide medical procedures, including surgeries, to all transgender prisoners as part of a consent decree it signed to settle a lawsuit brought by some 400 convicted biological men who identify as women. The settlement also allows biological men to be housed in female-only facilities.
Rutinel, whose campaign did not respond to a request for comment, is facing a competitive election against a Republican incumbent, Rep. Gabe Evans. In 2024, President Donald Trump won Colorado’s Eighth Congressional District by nearly 2 points after aggressively targeting his opponent, then-vice president Kamala Harris, over her support for taxpayer-funded sex-change surgeries.
Rutinel ran to the left of his primary opponent, fellow state representative Shannon Bird, though unlike Democratic congressional candidate Melat Kiros of Denver, he is not running as a socialist. That marks a change for Rutinel, who in 2014 published blog posts headlined “Why a More Socialistic Society Is Superior,” and, “What Would Jesus Do? Socialism,” the Washington Free Beacon reported. A former vegan and climate activist, Rutinel now says he supports the district’s vast ranching and oil industries, claiming during a June debate that he now eats meat because “it’s important for me to be able to enjoy the delicious products that Colorado ranchers make.”
Many Democrats blamed their heavy nationwide losses on the party’s backing of transgender causes, with many, like California governor Gavin Newsom, retracting their support. Virginia governor Abigail Spanberger (D.) avoided addressing the issue during her 2025 gubernatorial campaign, at one point fleeing in her car when a reporter asked her to clarify her position.
Rutinel’s budget votes aren’t the first times the Democrat supported handing out tax dollars to law-breakers or supporting transgender causes.
He voted in 2025 for a program that gave taxpayer-funded health care to illegal immigrant “pregnant persons.” It was expected to cost less than $15 million, but ballooned to nearly $105 million. The budget bill Rutinel supported this year instituted a 2-percent cut to Medicaid health care providers as part of an effort to close Colorado’s deficit, but it preserved the program, albeit with benefit reductions and enrollment caps.
Earlier this year, Rutinel voted for legislation that ordered courts to consider whether a parent uses their child’s preferred pronouns when ruling on custody battles. The bill’s original form, which Rutinel supported, categorized “deadnaming” and “misgendering” as coercive control.
Before it passed, those measures were stripped from the bill, which primarily focused on how Colorado handles preferred pronouns, such as on official documents like birth certificates.
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