Mike McLachlan

Michael Edward McLachlan was born at the Dover Air Force Base in Dover, Delaware, on April 18, 1946, to Audrey and Joseph J. McLachlan. His father was a colonel in the United States Air Force. The McLachlan family moved to Munich, West Germany, when Mike was six months old. They lived in San Antonio, Dayton, and Pittsburgh during the first five years of his life. They also lived in Arlington and Tampa. In 1959, they moved to Zaragoza, Spain, where McLachlan attended 8th to 11th grade. They moved to Lincoln, Nebraska, in 1963, and he graduated from Pius X High School. McLachlan attended the University of Nebraska in 1965, but joined the United States Marine Corps that year and arrived in Vietnam on April 14, 1966. He survived a plane crash and was sent back to the United States on April 10, 1967. He was honorably discharged later that year. He was awarded the Navy Commendation Medal and Vietnam Service Medal. McLachlan moved to Colorado with a friend from Zaragoza to attend Southern Colorado State College. He graduated cum laude with a degree in history in 1970. He graduated with a Juris Doctor from the University of Arizona in 1973. He was an associate editor of the Arizona Law Review from 1972 to 1973. ==Career==

Law McLachlan was admitted to the bar in Colorado in 1973, and worked as a law clerk for Justice Edward C. Day of the Colorado Supreme Court from 1973 to 1974. He worked as an assistant district attorney in the 6th judicial district under Jim Childress from 1974 to May 1976. He joined the Hamilton & Shand law firm and worked there for nineteen years before leaving in 1995, when the firm was known as Hamilton Shand & McLachlan. McLachlan operated his own law firm in Durango, Colorado, for twenty years. In 1987, McLachlan was one of 149 delegates who participated in a mock constitutional convention organized by the University of Colorado Denver and The Denver Post to examine and discuss changes to the Constitution of Colorado. On November 13, 1998, Attorney General Ken Salazar appointed McLachlan to serve as Colorado's Solicitor General. In 1993, a shield law for abortion clinics was established and stated that protesters could not come within eight feet of patients within 100 feet of a healthcare facility. McLachlan defended the constitutionality of the law before the Supreme Court of the United States in Hill v. Colorado. The court ruled that the shield law did not violate the First Amendment. Colorado House of Representatives Dickey Lee Hullinghorst convinced McLachlan to run for the Democratic nomination in the Colorado House of Representatives' 59th district. He launched his campaign on February 9, 2012. He won the Democratic nomination without opposition after Patrick Swonger was disqualified. He defeated incumbent Republican J. Paul Brown. McLachlan raised over $133,000 compared to Brown's $113,000 and around $1.2 million was spent during the campaign. Brown stated that he lost due to the success of Amendment 64 and Barack Obama's victory in the state in the concurrent presidential election. McLachlan voted in favor of legislation to limit magazines to 15 rounds, prohibit conceal-carry on campuses, and universal background checks. There was an unsuccessful attempt to issue a recall election against McLachlan in 2013, due to his support for gun control, but only around 8,500 signatures, less than the 10,587 needed, were gathered. During his tenure in the state house he served on the Judiciary and Agriculture, Livestock, & Natural Resources committees. The American Civil Liberties Union gave him a rating of 71% in 2013, and 100% in 2014. Brown defeated McLachlan by 170 votes in the 2014 election. McLachlan conceded the election almost two weeks later on November 20. Around $1,180,000 was spent during the campaign, around $570,000 by Republicans and over $600,000 by the Democrats. McLachlan's wife Barbara McLachlan defeated Brown in 2016. ==Personal life==

McLachlan married Dixie Self in 1968, and divorced her in 1971. He married Deborah Elaine Cowan on January 25, 1975, and divorced in 1981. He married Barbara Hall, with whom he had two children, in November 1984. McLachlan died on June 23, 2021, in Durango. ==Electoral history==

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