For some families, politics runs in the blood. The Colorado General Assembly is no different.

Plenty of couples have served in the legislature over the past quarter-century: Joel and Lynn Hefley; Janet and the late John Buckner; Paula and Paul Sandoval; Bri Buentello and Nick Hinrichsen; Morgan Carroll and Mike Weissman. Father-children combos have featured as well, including Tim Neville and son Patrick and Perry Buck and father Bill Webster.

Cousins? That’s a new one.

Sen. Rod Pelton, R-Cheyenne Wells represents southeastern Colorado. His first cousin, once removed, is Sen. Byron Pelton, R-Sterling, who represents northeastern Colorado.

Between the two of them, their districts cover 44% of the landmass of Colorado, but only 7% of the state’s population.

One recent witness in a hearing on an Rod Pelton bill on veterinary school loans referred to the area represented by the duo as “Peltonia,” and they’re running with it. Even their Senate colleagues are in on it – in a recent debate on greenhouse gases legislation, Senate President Pro Tem James Coleman went through every possible way of distinguishing between the two, even referring to one or the other as the delegate from Peltonia. 

Cheyenne Wells, a place all Peltons cite as their place of origin, is the capital city.

Fellow Republican Sen. Perry Will, now of New Castle, went to high school in Cheyenne County with Byron Pelton’s dad, and there’s a good story about some shenanigans from those days. The likelihood of a Peltonia embassy branch in New Castle is being discussed.

Fast Facts

Sen. Rod Pelton: Third-generation Coloradan, born in Cheyenne County. Elected to the state Senate in 2022. Previously served for two terms in the state House representing the northern and central portion of Colorado’s Eastern Plains. Previously served six years as a commissioner in Cheyenne County.

Married to Kathy for 43 years, two daughters.

Owns a cattle ranch and farm in Cheyenne County, just north of Cheyenne Wells. He is also a “custom harvester,” which means he travels from Texas to Colorado, harvesting wheat for other farmers. He jokes he has his pick of nephews (and there are a lot of them in Cheyenne County) for help.

His calving season will begin when the session ends.

Tractor on his desk over at the State Services Building: red, for International Harvester.

Sen. Byron Pelton: Born in Burlington, grew up in Cheyenne Wells until the eighth grade, when his parents divorced and he moved with his dad to the Western Slope. Graduated from Basalt High School. Lived on the Western Slope “until I couldn’t take it anymore” and moved back to the Eastern Plains, settling in Fort Morgan, where he met his wife and got his “Mr.” degree.

Elected to the state Senate in 2022. Previously served two terms as a commissioner with Logan County. Succeeded on the county commission by Jerry Sonnenberg, who B. Pelton succeeded in the state Senate.

Married to Celeste for 18 years, two daughters.

Navy veteran and electrician, who says working as an electrician allows him to afford livestock. During the 2023 session, he moved his cattle to his dad’s farm outside of Strasburg, and prior to his day’s work at the Capitol he takes care of the herd, including recently-concluded calving.

Tractor on his desk in the Senate: green, for John Deere.

Colorado Politics: What’s the most important thing you have focused on so far this session?

Rod Pelton: I’m focusing more on the rural issues around our veterinarian shortage out there, and on energy policies. I just want to make sure we don’t get left behind and not just have just windmills and solar panels. That includes HB 1247, a study bill on “all of the above,” including clean hydrogen and nuclear.

B. Pelton: It’s been substance use and drugs. (Sen. Dylan) Roberts and I are on a couple substance use bills together. Then Senate Bill 109 with Sen. (Kyle) Mullica. That’s very important because in order to stop some of the crime that we deal with out there, it’s all circling around drugs and methamphetamine. If we don’t curb that we’re going to continue to see the crime that we are seeing in our areas.

Northeast Colorado has the worst drug problem with methamphetamine in the state. And it’s up in northeast Colorado because of Highway 14 and I-76. Those are the drug super highways.

CP: What else has come up during this session that’s caught your attention?

BP: We have to be a loud voice for rural Colorado and really explain some of the issues that we come across.

For instance, I don’t think they quite understand when you’re waiting on a three-day period for a gun , but if Rod and I have livestock out there and we don’t have one, or if you have a new kid owning livestock, he doesn’t always know what he’s going to run into.

If he wants to get into agriculture, is he really going to wait three days to protect his livestock? Or if a gun breaks and you have to get something to protect your livestock, you still have to wait three days. We were throwing in all these scenarios that go with that.

When Sen. (Rhonda) Fields went down to the well and started talking about how you need to just call the cops, Rod and I looked at each other. How’s somebody who’s living in Crook, 45 minutes away from Sterling and the sheriff’s office, just call the cops? That sheriff’s deputy could be all the way in Peetz.

These are the things that we notice a lot. That’s the first thing.

The second one, it really surprised me and I actually made this comment to Rod when I got here, is how many legislators that have not been in local government don’t understand local government.

What we’re doing to local government when we come up with these unfunded mandates and send them down to the counties or to the cities to have to pay for, that’s not OK.

Nobody knows anything about local government here. And that was one of the things that just was really surprising to me.

RP: Just being in the Senate, the House is a cage fight and the Senate is a chess match. They’re just fighting over there and not thinking and there’s no strategy.

There’s a lot more respect in the Senate, which is nice. I tend to have a little quieter personality and it’s just better suited to me.

CP: What issues have shown up this year that you weren’t expecting, or things that have come up that you dislike?

RP: I knew we were going to have some housing, but boy it just seems like we’re bombarded with housing bills, and that’s going back to that blatant disregard for local government from the first floor with SB 213.

BP: Bad bill. The part that bothers me, I knew we were going have something with land use because I’ve been hearing about it since last summer. So we’ll talk a little bit about land use, but this is blatant, to take local control away and put in state central planning.

Local governments have been in this business for 140 years and my whole problem with taking it away is now you’ve taken the people’s voice away. Once you take the people’s voice from being able to have that input on the land use decision of their local governments, then you put a bureaucrat in front of it instead of a local elected official. Disaster is going to happen because of that.

Both of us have had to sit through land use hearings. You really take that in consideration on what both sides are saying. If you decide to approve that land use bill or resolution, we’re gonna take into consideration what the neighbors said.

The other thing is who are they gonna sue? Because you will get sued on land use. It’ll happen. Who are they gonna sue? And then when they sue the state of Colorado, do they have a voice? Because there’s bureaucracy’s so big they can just run out that lawsuit as long as they want.

It’s a lawyer’s dream.

CP: Is there still an urban-rural divide? Has it gotten bigger?

RP: I don’t know whether it’s gotten bigger, but it’s still there, and it starts in my caucus. I’ve got urban legislators who are Republicans and who vote against my ag bill every time. 

We’re dealing with the shortage of veterinarians where we live, the entire Eastern Plains.

CP: You both represent the entire breadth of the Eastern Plains, Byron at the north end, Rod at the south. Are the issues the same or different? And how do they differ?

BP: My issues mainly are water. I worry about that all the time because the South Platte River basin is one of the few basins that haven’t been (over-appropriated).

So dealing with the water in the northern part, is in my mind, one of the biggest challenges, to protect it. Out of the seven counties that I represent, six of them are in the top 10 ag producing counties, and it’s because of the South Platte River Basin and the Republican River.

The Colorado River issues are just as much our issues because we get 230,000 acre feet coming from the Colorado that goes down the Platte. So these are huge issues for us. And one of my biggest concerns, especially with this land use, is: Where are they going to get the water? They’re going to get it from us, and that’s the part that worries me.

But the thing about it is, if you’re going to try to take that water and start drying up counties, you’ve got to be very careful about what your economy’s going do. Because ag is also the second largest economic driver in the state of Colorado, $47 billion comes from our industry.

RP: I think that goes back to the urban rural divide. These urban legislators see (water) as low hanging fruit. And our governor sees it that way.

BP: There’s such a huge amount of water in ag that they see that as low hanging fruit. If they can nibble away at the prior appropriation doctrine, then they can start getting at that water.

RP: Water’s big, but right now the drought is just overshadowing everything. Northeast got snow during the winter. We didn’t.

BP: 16 inches of snow.

When Rod and I grew up together, we farmed the same 6,000 acres. That’s his grandpa and my great-grandpa. It was funny because no-till was brand-new in the ’70s.

His brother and his dad did it at a scale that was so large that all of us were like, they’re crazy. What the hell are they doing? And then after three years after we saw what they were doing, everybody’s like: “OK, show us how to do that.”

RP: My dream was to be a part of the farm. I married a neighbor girl, she lived about six miles away.

BP: He’s being very humble. His father was the whole reason why the Pelton family was successful. Every single one of my uncles (a family of 13 kids, 10 boys and 3 girls) worked for his dad. He was the brains behind the farming operation.

There were two times they shut down the entire town of Cheyenne Wells, when Rod’s dad Jim passed away, because that’s how popular he was. The second time was when Grandma died, they shut down the entire down for her too, because that’s how popular she was.

When we lost Uncle Jim, it was hard for all of us, because we all worked for him at one point or another, including my father.

CP: Why are your cattle in Strasburg during the session?

BP: I can’t live in Denver. When I was in the military and I tried to stay on the base, it’s just too loud. I can’t sleep, I just stay up all night lights, street lights, all that stuff. So I go out to Strasburg and actually get rest. But then I also get up and feed and do everything with the cows.

RP: He’s always talking about being up at 2 in the morning checking cows.

CP: How different has it been going from the county commission to the Senate for you?

BP: It’s really different. County commissioners solve problems. It almost seems like you create problems up here.

RP: Being a county commissioner, you work with like-minded people on the issues, you fix the issue and you move on. Here, if you don’t have 33 (House), 18 (Senate), and one (governor), the best idea in the world goes nowhere.

CP: What do you guys want to see from Denver?

BP: Just leave us alone. Let us do our jobs.

RP: Leave us the hell alone. Leave our water alone, leave everything alone so we can just continue to do our job and make your money so you can spend your money on how you see fit.