Manny Rutinel Rakes in Cash From Former Far-Left Climate Colleagues
Democrat Manny Rutinel is raking in cash from his former Earthjustice colleagues who push a radical climate agenda that would raise costs for all Coloradans.
Manny Rutinel previously boasted that his “entire” job working for the far-left environmental group Earthjustice was to “take on large meat corporations and sue them for all they’re worth.” Recently, Rutinel tried to hide his work for Earthjustice by removing references on his campaign website.
Earthjustice is actively arguing a case in front of the Supreme Court regarding climate change that “could leave oil companies bankrupt, gas stations facing financial ruin and Americans paying more at the pump.”
“Radical climate activist friends of Manny Rutinel are pumping his campaign full of cash because they know he supports their far-left policies that would gut Colorado’s oil and gas industry. Northern Colorado can’t afford Manny Rutinel’s anti-energy agenda.” – NRCC Spokesman Zach Bannon
You can read the full article here or see excerpts below:
Colorado Dem Manny Rutinel Rakes in Campaign Cash From Employees of Far-Left Climate Group He Used To Work For
Washington Free Beacon
Ethan Barton
October 20, 2026
Colorado Democrat Manny Rutinel, the congressional nominee running in the state’s competitive Eighth Congressional District who has sought to distance himself from his climate activist past, has taken nearly $11,000 in political contributions from his former colleagues with the far-left environmental group Earthjustice, campaign finance filings show.
The donations include $7,000—the maximum allowed—from Peter Lehner, the head of Earthjustice’s Sustainable Food & Farming Program and Rutinel’s former boss. While working for Earthjustice from May 2022 to July 2023, under Lehner’s direction, Rutinel helped win a lawsuit against the EPA that forced the agency to enforce stricter regulations on slaughterhouses.
Another $1,000 came from senior attorney Alexandra Schluntz, who lives down the road from Rutinel in Denver and is a fellow Yale Law School graduate. Her work includes seeking to reduce emissions from the oil and gas sectors and fighting “unjust levels of toxic pollution emitted.” Rutinel advocated for similar policies during his time at Yale, where he was arrested for storming the field during a November 2019 Yale-Harvard football game to demand the schools divest from oil and gas.
Rutinel has gone to great lengths to recast himself as a moderate since launching his bid to unseat Republican congressman Gabe Evans in a district where ranching and oil are crucial to the economy. Though he spent years as an environmentalist and animal rights activist, beginning well before and lasting long after his tenure with Earthjustice, Rutinel now calls himself a “friend” to ranchers and says he’s started eating meat after spending some 15 years as a vegan.
Rutinel also stripped references to his Earthjustice gig off his campaign website and excluded it from his biography at a debate earlier this month. Just months before beginning his congressional campaign, however, he boasted that his “entire” job working as an Earthjustice attorney was to “take on large meat corporations and sue them for all they’re worth.”
Evans repeatedly condemned Rutinel for his work for Earthjustice during the untelevised Oct. 7 debate, which the Washington Free Beacon attended. The environmental group threw its support behind the County of Boulder, which borders the eighth district, in its lawsuit accusing multinational oil companies of deceiving the public about the climate-related harms of the fossil fuel products. A lawyer representing Suncor Energy and ExxonMobil told the Supreme Court this month that there are theoretically no limits on Boulder’s claims and the case, if successful, could lay the groundwork for tens of thousands of additional cases against both the industry and fuel retailers, automakers, and companies or individuals who emit so-called greenhouse gases.
[…]