Andrew Romanoff, the former State House Speaker and failed US Senate primary candidate, is back running for his latest government gig, this time in the 6th Congressional District. Running as a former lawmaker always has its pitfalls, seeing the number of votes you’re required to take on all types of controversial issues.

It’s particularly difficult when you led a legislative body, and thus are responsible for every piece of legislation that passed through the chamber.

Case in point today is an awkward attempt to reverse Romanoff’s signature piece of anti-illegal immigration legislation, a bill called the “toughest in the nation” by The Washington Post.

Reports FOX31’s Eli Stokols:

The legislation aims to repeal a controversial 2006 law, Senate Bill 90, which requires local law enforcement to report anyone arrested for a criminal offense who is suspected of being an undocumented immigrant to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

…For Democrats, the politics of the bill aren’t as simple as they seem.

While repealing the 2006 law will curry additional favor with an increasingly large Latino voting bloc that’s already helping Democrats immeasurably, it also casts new light on one state lawmaker who oversaw its passage, former Democratic House Speaker Andrew Romanoff.

Why is repealing this law, and thus highlighting Romanoff’s previous stance on immigration issues, so awkward for legislative Democrats?

For many reasons, but this one in particular: current State Senator, and endorser of Romanoff’s CD6 bid, Jesse Ulibarri, helped write a Denver Post column in 2010 blasting Romanoff’s then-immigration stance, saying he “threw the Latino community under the bus in the legislature” and then “spent tens of thousands of dollars in special interest contributions to defend his law.”

We’ll leave you with Ulibarri’s fine piece of political punditry from the left, that’s certain to make some appearances in paid media in the coming campaign:

After the passage of legislation that so many of us in the Latino community fought against, then State House Speaker Andrew Romanoff bragged about its implementation, boasting, “Colorado passed more bills to curb illegal immigration than any other non-border state in the nation. We did more to solve the problem of illegal immigration than Congress has done in a decade.”

Furthermore, he spent tens of thousands of dollars in special interest contributions to defend his law that denied basic government services to individuals who couldn’t immediately prove they were legal residents.

…Now, as a U.S. Senate candidate, Speaker Romanoff condemns Arizona for passing nearly identical laws to the ones he supported here in Colorado. It leaves many of us wondering: who is the real Andrew Romanoff?

Senate Candidate Romanoff often says on the campaign trail, “You don’t get power just to have power. You use power to do good.” Yet as longtime observers who have seen Speaker Romanoff throw the Latino community under the bus in the legislature, and now watch candidate Romanoff court us for our vote by speaking Spanish – we have a hard time believing that what he tells us now is what he’ll do, if elected to the Senate.

Simply put: Actions speak louder than words.