Rep. Manny Rutinel has busted out a cowboy hat for campaign photos and has thrown it into the ring to represent Colorado’s 8th Congressional District in D.C. He is endorsed by U.S. Sen. Cory Booker, a New Jersey democrat who serves on the Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry, where he works to “rein in the abuses of factory farms.”

Booker became the first vegan senator to serve on the committee in 2021, though his “vegan identity” has varied over the years. His lunch order is no business of mine, but he has been a champion of animal-rights-type causes and legislation, and it would appear that Rutinel perhaps hopes to follow his lead. This, of course, is a race to represent an electorate still flinching after nearly 8 years of Gov. Jared Polis’ anti-oil and gas and anti-ag agenda, and First Gentleman Marlon Reis’ undue influence on anti-animal ag causes. 

Colorado’s 8th District, currently represented by Republican Gabe Evans, encompasses portions of agriculture powerhouse Weld County, as well as Adams and Larimer Counties. Weld County, according to 2022 Census of Agriculture data, is behind $2.3 billion (with a B) in ag products sold. Of that, $1.8 billion is paid out by ag producers to produce those commodities, largely in part to local economies. Cattle are king in Weld County, with forage, corn silage, wheat, corn, and sorghum all serving in the court and churning out more than a quarter of the state’s ag sales. For their own part, Adams County produces $94 million in ag products, primarily wheat, and Larimer produces $270 million in ag products, primarily in bovine form. That brings the three counties Rutinel would like to represent, contributing to a combined $2.6 billion in ag production of the state’s $8.95 billion in farm cash receipts.  

The problem, though, is Rutinel’s anti-animal agriculture history. 

In an interview with Kyle Clark, who I like more all the time, Clark asked Rutinel about the time in 2021 he told the Yale Big Ag and Antitrust Conference attendees that “animal agriculture is one of the biggest sources of suffering on the planet” and went on to call it “a horrific, exploitative industry.” In response, Rutinel called farmers and ranchers his friends and offered a rather Victor Marx-like non-answer that gives voters in CD-8, who contribute substantially to the state’s economy, no confidence. 

While at the University of Florida as an undergraduate, Rutinel protested animal-based food production by posing shirtless and draped in a PETA banner to make a point about the amount of water used in beef production. At Yale Law School, which was in 2022, dear readers, Rutinel spoke about transitioning producers away from animal agriculture by offering carbon offset credits. He also claimed “farmers are polluting a lot in animal agriculture, and if they switched to plant agriculture, they would emit much less while still producing great products that provide people with nutritious, delicious, and sustainable foods.” He said factory farms are “able to put out as much pollution as they want,” celebrated his cooperation with Mercy for Animals, and suggested that monitoring farms and ranches with satellite imagery to detect any “fishy” activities happening, like raising livestock. He said, “As it stands now, animal agriculture is a horrific, exploitive industry. It’s producing an incredible amount of harm, from chronic health conditions to pandemics, that affect farmers, laborers, animals, local communities, consumers, and people drinking water miles down the road.” He accused farmers of “cramming genetically homogenous animals into conditions that compromise their immune systems through stress” and said farm laborers would be better off without animal ag because they would no longer be “working with tortured animals.” 

When he was appointed to the Colorado Legislature in 2023, he said at the University of Denver that those in the “meat and oil industry…they’re all scared and they’re trying to warn everybody about what I’m about to do.” Then he said, “maybe they’re right, maybe they should be a little scared.” He told students at DU’s law school that he became involved in politics in part due to how animals are treated in agriculture and, according to reporting by Jesse Paul in 2025, called the pair of Denver ballot measures to end slaughterhouses in Denver and to ban fur sales “really awesome.” He has yet to serve a full term in the state legislature. 

Factory farming is a buzzword term thrown around by those opposed to production agriculture. It harkens back to a really horrible Chipotle ad several years ago that offered a cartoon version of cows riding a conveyor belt into a factory and exiting as a box. There is room in the American agriculture industry for all types of production methods but there is no room for an attack on the industry that feeds, fuels, and clothes the world.  

In 2023, Sen. Byron Pelton invited Rutinel to have his questions and concerns about animal agriculture answered directly by someone in the industry. Over the course of a more than 2-hour visit, Pelton said Rutinel offered a number of click bait-type talking points- that poultry producers cut the beaks off the birds and cows that are AI bred are abused because they don’t provide consent – and wasn’t interested in the truth. That lack of interest in the truth as recently as 2023 paired with his inability and unwillingness to offer an answer with accountability is enough to make those in the cattle capital wonder if he’s all hat and no cattle. 

Rachel Gabel writes about agriculture and rural issues. She is assistant editor of The Fence Post Magazine, the regionís preeminent agriculture publication.