Election Guide 2018: State House

State House
District 10

Edie Hooton (D)

Hooton has lived in Boulder for 21 years. She was a legislative aid for a U.S. Senator in Alaska in the 70s and 80s and was a legislative aide for a State Senator. She and her husband are very involved with local nonprofits. “We see quality education as critical to leveling the playing field.”

112: For. “Proposition 112 [would let] people decide whether . . . community should have some rights. And their response to that is Amendment 74, which is not a hammer, it’s an anvil.”

73:For.  “It’s not burdensome, because the additional tax would only be paid by individuals with $150,000 or more. Proportionally it’s a pretty small tax, but it would generate a lot of revenue for K through 12, which is critical for a good education.”

109 &110: “I support Proposition 110 and making it a sales tax is slightly regressive. It’s better than raising the gasoline tax, which would unfairly burden rural Coloradans that drive vehicles better suited for rural areas. [It also] captures a lot of the dollars that Colorado receives from the tourism industry.”

Housing: “In Boulder, I support accessory dwelling units over blowing up height limits.I support subsidized housing. I support rent control, and I would work towards that at the legislature just to keep the people who live here from going homeless. And let’s do tiny homes!”

Renewable Energy: “I would say yes, but I think 2041 is a little far out there. I think technology is coming faster than we anticipate. I don’t think the Earth can really sustain 20 more years of the current level of carbon and methane emissions.”

Merl Hendrickson IV (R) 

Hendrickson, 39,  currently works in sporting goods sales. He has a Bachelor’s Degree in economics from CU. “I feel I would do a good job looking at state budgets and identifying unnecessary regulations, taxes, and wasteful spending. I’m [running to] get people out to help the statewide races.”

112: For. “I am a supporter of the oil and gas industry. I am 100% against Proposition 112.”

73: “I oppose Amendment 73, as do I oppose any tax increase or tax extension. I personally think we’re already over taxed in this state. I acknowledge there are some teachers who are underpaid, but the average teacher salary in Boulder Valley is $75,000. I know public school administration are overstaffed and overpaid locally and nationally, and we can repurpose those funds to pay teachers.”

109 &110: “I support 109 and oppose 110. I do feel we do need to have some road repair and improvement in Colorado.”

Housing: “I feel that there are two main things in play that contribute to this issue:

1.       [The] housing shortage [is] due to a combination of overly strict zoning and environmental protection laws.
2.       People [also] don’t have as much money for housing due to over taxation and regulation of business, caus[ing] wages to be depressed.”

Renewable Energy: “I think this goal is unrealistic and would have a crippling effect on our economy.”

District 11

Jonathan Singer (D)

Signer was the author of the Marijuana tax and has six years at the state legislature. He has spent his entire career working on behalf of working families to get them out of poverty, into the workforce, and protect the most vulnerable children as a social worker.
“I’ve taken those skills and smashed the bureaucracy as a legislator to make sure that we’re doing the right thing so that everyone else, regardless of your age, race, or color, has a fair shot…I wanna show people that when we actually do our job as citizens and lawmakers we can actually make a stronger community for each other.”

112: For. “We, at the legislature, have been fighting for the past six years, to actually create more accountability in the oil and gas industry and provide more opportunities for local control, meaning that cities and counties can actually have a little bit of control over the where, when and the how and even the if of oil and gas development. Basically, all of those bills have been killed.”

73: For.  “The more time our kids spend in the classroom learning, the better outcomes we’re gonna see in the long run. We woefully under pay our teachers and we expect our teachers, every year, to do more, and we expect them to be mental health professionals and now people are expecting them to.. be police officers now. We’re asking them to do ten jobs with fewer resources than any of those who actually have those jobs. It’s just unfair. If we actually say education is important, it’s time we put our money where our mouth is and Amendment 73 will help get us there.”

109 & 110: “The ‘Fix Our Damn Roads’ is one of the worst ideas I’ve seen out there. I don’t believe in increasing our state’s debt and then putting the legislature on the hook to pay that off when we already have huge unfunded mandates in our education system, which will now take a back seat to funding roads.”

Housing? “First of all, I feel it. The reason that I’m moving is because my rent is doubling. ..The first thing we need to do is, we need to take a very serious look at how we’re going to make sure that everybody on every end of the economic spectrum can afford a place to live…I’d like to see a pilot program on universal basic income. The affordable housing crisis is everywhere. It’s in Colorado for different reasons…. One place it’s not being built, in another place it’s being built but people of regular means can’t afford it….There’s no one silver bullet. It’s a complicated problem, it’s going to have a complicated solution.”

Renewable Energy: “I think 2041 might be too late.  When we talk about economic growth, education, and affordable housing- none of that matters if we don’t have clean air and clean water and a clean Earth to live on. If we’re gonna have a standard of 2041 when most scientists are saying 2030 at this point, we need to make some sacrifices in other places.”

Major Issue: “The fact that we need to be fighting for social equity and economic equity, but also racial equity in our state, country, and local communities. My district is heavily Hispanic and a huge number of immigrants and Dreamers live here and so I’ve been writing bills for the last several years to ensure that everyone, especially our immigrant populations, don’t have their wages stolen from them from unethical bosses. At the same time, if you’re a part of this community regardless of our broken immigration system, you should be able to attain a driver’s license if you can pass the driver’s test and get insurance. I don’t care where you come from, I just care that you’re part of this community and you try and do the right thing.”

Brian Donahue 

Refused repeated requests for interview

District 12

 Teresa Stets (unaffiliated)

Stets has lived in  in Lafayette since 2009. She’s an educator, Mom of 3 young kids, activist against oil and gas development and has a science background, Chronically ill 14-year-old, Endorsed by the Green Party but unaffiliated.

112: Strongly For. “My push has always been for a fracking ban. It’s very important that we get this one passed because that 2,500 feet is the area that we know of well documented as the most health harmed. It shouldn’t be in neighborhoods, it shouldn’t be anywhere near there. It will save a lot of families from suffering, people from suffering. I’d love to get into the office so I can fight for it down at the Capitol.”

73: For. “I think any other changes that we want to come into our education system are dependent on funding. Right now, we are 46th in the country in terms of teacher pay, and the state with the kind of wealth that we have – that is not OK. That’s ridiculous. I’m a former classroom teacher so that’s close to my heart.”

109 & 110: Neither. ” The way that both of these amendments shake out is that they will not be used for transit. They will be used for more road building. And we know when you add road after road, it adds more drivers. Which is not what we need. What we need is a state-of-the-art 21st century transit system and these bills are not in support of that.”

Housing: “One thing I would love to see happen is a Community Rights Act. Right now, in the state of Colorado, state preemption laws make it so that we cannot have any rent control laws at all, so that the rent is purely based on market. So people are priced out, we have stagnant wages, and so we have people making less money over time and skyrocketing prices. I would love to see some rent controls laws to be able to go into effect locally.” 

Renewable Energy: “I’m very committed and I actually think 2041 is far too long…We need to be in emergency mode. I’m working with a group called Climate Mobilization. This is a group that writes legislation to move into emergency mode and move into a World War ll type of mobilization to stop all fossil fuel extraction as soon as possible in these next two years.

Major Issues: Community Rights Act. We actually have a law that doesn’t allow fracking but our city council is not honoring that.

 Sonja Jaquez-Lewis (D)

Jaquez-Lewis has lived in Colorado for 21 years. She’s a first-time candidate, what you might call part of the blue wave of the new Democrats: Women, LGBT, Latinas running for office. She’s a  pharmacist who has been endorsed by Jared Polis. “I hope he gets elected and I hope that I can work with him on his 100-day plan for healthcare reform for Colorado.

112: For. “I got a letter in February 2017 from Creston Peak that they planned to put a very large production pad right beside my wife and I’s home in eastern Boulder County. We need proposition 112 to pass so we can ensure safer setbacks for new drilling. If proposition 112 doesn’t pass, I will be working for more local control so that if a municipality or county wants to set a greater setback, that they can do so. And if another county or city is fine with the existing setback, then that can be under their local control. I’m a huge proponent of local control and I am supporting 112.”

73: For.  “We made promises to school systems and teachers several years ago we would keep them fully funded and we didn’t do that…one of the issues impacting our education funding is TABOR. We absolutely need to tackle the restrictions that the Taxpayer Bill of Rights put on our state.

109 & 110: 110. “It’s much bigger than these propositions. I like to think of it as an issue we need to tackle from several different fronts. We have to address what’s happening with our reliance on fossil fuel…We have to support better efficient vehicle use, electric vehicles. And we have to support public transportation… I was a supporter of Senate Bill 1, that actually said if either of these do not pass then it refers back again November of 2019. So the answer is, I do support the Let’s Go Colorado, the 6 billion dollar bond. 

Housing: “It’s a big concern, in Boulder County especially. I served on the Boulder County Board of Health for seven years and at that time we had the 2013 flood and we had to do a lot work around emergency housing. That certainly contributed to our lack of affordable housing in Boulder County so my idea is to do take the unclaimed property tax fund that occurs in Colorado which reverts back to the general fund. I’d like to take that money and earmark it to jump start grants and programs for affordable housing in Colorado.

Renewable Energy:  “We have to tackle climate change. We have to give an even playing field for renewable energy. We’re a leader in the country, we have some of the best research and development going on here in Colorado and we need to be taking advantage of that. We need to set the stage by supporting these programs in our state budget. 

Major Issues: “I really wanna work on inclusiveness and issues around diversity because I believe that our Boulder County progressive values can be translated statewide. We need to work on mental healthcare funding. We don’t have enough bilingual healthcare providers in our community and that’s a huge issue in healthcare. Transgender folks are not able to change their birth certificates to get proper documentation. We haven’t talked about reducing gun violence. I have been endorsed by gun-sense organizations because we do need to ban bump stocks, we do need to expand background checks, we do need to raise age requirement for gun purchases.”

District 13

 Kevin Sipple (R)

Sipple has a background is business. He attended CU Boulder and is one of the founders of Eldorado Artesian Springs bottled water, where he was responsible for: operations, quality control, regulatory compliance. Volunteered for Boulder County appointed board, Placement Alternatives Commission managing seven social services programs to keep families together.

112: No.  “It will kill off so much of the business for oil production and natural gas production. Natural gas has been the savior of Colorado. The taxes on gas, the severances taxes from taking the minerals out of the ground, and sales taxes and other sort of things generate lots of money for Colorado. The number of jobs it would kill off, this economic activity in the whole state for all jobs, not just only and gas jobs but the ones that are dependent on them for money would also be hurt.”

73: No. “The reason isn’t because I hate kids, it’s because I hate more taxes. I support the Taxpayers Bill of Rights. It has saved us lots of money… Often we have added extra taxes to the educational system. 23, back about nine years ago, where we decided to add money to the educational system based on population growth and inflation, and there hasn’t been much inflation past then. We’ve added about nine million dollars a year to the educational funds on that… But the teachers weren’t getting it. Also the teacher’s pay isn’t decided by legislation, it’s decided by their school district.

109 & 110: 109. “The money already exists to pay it back, or the money is in the budget to pay it back. It’s smaller, it’s similar to 110 in that it’s a bonding issue and the money is more directed only to roads which is a major consideration right now because everybody needs roads and the trains aren’t practical.”

 KC Becker

Not available for interview within allotted time.

District 24

Donald Osborne 

Osborne is in the construction industry. I think the government is over burdened. I want to reduce government burdens and reduce tax liability.

112: Against. “We need oil and gas. The companies that own the rights to that have the right to mine it. I think that the state is more than capable of policing it, and monitoring it, regulating it.”

73: No. “I want to disclose that my wife is a teacher in the Adams County school district and we both agree that the school districts have enough money, they just don’t allocate it as well as they could.”

109 & 110: 109. “The state legislatures tend to misallocate our funds, this would force them to take existent funding for transportation and take it away somewhere else and if you ask me where I’m going to say Medicaid. Medicaid is a horrible program. I don’t think it does majority of recipients a whole lot of good.”

Housing: “Change zoning and regulation. I know what it takes to get a permit and it’s absolutely ridiculous. It adds tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars to a project. We need to allow low income construction. There’s a definite need for it. What happens is medium income housing gets built, then get subsidized for the poor but it’s the little income people that get in the system and in that housing anyway. It doesn’t really seem to do the low income group much good.”

Renewable Energy: “I think there’s a lot of fraud in the global climate research industry. I don’t know if carbon dioxide is ruining the atmosphere but I do know that science is convoluted and I don’t trust it. I remember one time we were all gonna die in a nuclear winter. I’m not an alarmist on this issue.”

Major Issues: “We’ve got to do something about healthcare, and it has to happen at the federal level. In my district specifically, transportation is a nightmare, I25 is clogged all the time. I look at the costs of the light rails and it’s astronomical and they only carry a tiny percentage of the commuters and they don’t go where people need to go.”

Faith Winters (D)

Winters is currently the rep in SD 35.  She has been elected for 11 years, seven City Council, four on state house. She first ran for office at 27 in 2007. 
“Even when I do all the work, building a coalition, neutralizing opposition, working with Republicans (had a republican sponsor her affordable housing bill), and it’s still not inside the state senate. In the state senate we can’t even say the word climate change. We can’t begin discussing things like equal pay. I want to be able to have real conversations that bring people to the table. The leadership in Colorado is out of touch.”

112: “I don’t know how I’m personally voting on it. One of the reasons we have 112 on the ballot is because Republican leadership refused to act on common sense legislation that would protect health and safety. I know we can make a big difference, but when senate leadership won’t even let a really reasonable thing like ‘let’s not drill next to playgrounds’ pass, then of course citizens are going to put something on the ballot. I’m listening to my voters, I’m going door-to-door every day.”

73: For. “We are near the bottom of funding the United States for education yet we have one of the most educated workforces in the country. “

109 & 110: “[109] would harm our education system so much. It would force us to take all our money and put it in our transportation system. That’s not a responsible way of building a budget. I was the prime sponsor of Senate Bill 1, which help set up 110. We didn’t pass a transportation bill until I was a prime sponsor. I am optimistic that 110 passes, but in Colorado tax increases are left up to the voters.”

Housing: “I’ve been running an affordable housing bill to create an affordable housing trust fund. We are 1 of 16 states that doesn’t have one. We have developers and projects that are ready to be built right now, if we had a little bit more spending and incentive from the state. The proposal has bipartisan support.”

Renewable Energy: “I think we can get there. We’ve always been innovative. We have the infrastructure, we can build the infrastructure. It’s gonna be a boost to our economy, it’s going to help our environment, and it’s going to bring in jobs.”

District 33

Matt Gray (D)

Gray is finishing up first term serving House District 33. He’s a public finance attorney and a previous district attorney in 17th Judicial District. “I’ve enjoyed our first two years, we’ve gotten a lot of stuff done, but there’s a lot of stuff and work left to do in order to get the state to the place where I think that we’re delivering the families in the district through the state.”

112: “112 is a big issue in Broomfield right now. I have not endorsed 112… the setback would increase protection and get citizens some of what they want by giving a bigger buffer between oil and gas developments and residential neighborhoods. My concern for it is that it doesn’t distinguish between people like that who are my supporters and constituents, which are focusing residential areas who don’t want oil and gas development to happen versus people in rural areas who do want oil and gas to happen. I think a long term solution for a lot of the conflict that we have, the best way to do it is to allow different communities who want different things, to have different sets of rules. I haven’t formally endorsed it but I’m also not out there campaigning against it either.”

73: For. “We chronically under fund education in this state. The voters when they passed amendment 23 they wanted us to not fall more behind on education funding as we have been over the last several years. Education is probably the number one issue I hear about when folks talk about what they like us to be doing.”

109 & 110: 110.  I don’t support 109 because the only way to actually fund 109 and make it workable would include cuts in other areas. The only realistic shots would include taking healthcare from people, or cuts to education and I don’t support either of those things. I do support 110… it’s not ideal for me..a sales tax is not how I would prefer to fund transportation.

Housing? “We just renewed the low income housing tax credit last year and the programs we have to construct dedicated affordable housing, we need to support. They do work and do deliver for some families but they’re not big enough to deal with everybody that needs affordable housing right now.”

Renewable Energy: “I think we need to be as aggressive as possible in pursuing renewable energy and we’re at the real cusp now of being able to really push the envelope in moving towards renewable energy because the economics are changing and renewable energy is cheaper than legacy fossil fuel energy when it comes to electrical generation. That gives us the opportunity to not only save people money but also address climate change and address the negative impact of using non-renewable sources.”

Jay Geyer (I)

Geyer taught Ethics and Political Philosophy at CU. He is a veteran of the US Army.
“I feel like the political system we have is broken and after the 2016 election that brokenness was really hard to ignore. I saw the brokenness as something that was a problem with both parties so I became an independent.

112: Against. “The issue of oil and gas comes down to informed consent. If you haven’t consented to having an oil and gas operation outside your house, if you haven’t consented to taking on those risks for you and your family, it shouldn’t be forced on you.”

73: For. “I think there might be more intelligent ways to increase revenue but I see it as a positive step.”

109 & 110:110. “The roads are supposed to be funded by gas tax but that hasn’t been adjusted since 1991. 110 is certainly the superior one, I think it’s wishful thinking but we can fix transportation in the state without increasing revenue.”

Housing: “The state should partner with local governments to incentivize, in some cases subsidize, the construction of affordable housing units.  I think we’re gonna let the local governments take the lead on those because they’re gonna have a better sense of what the needs in their community. Long term I think, the solution is going to be increase supply. There’s a major shortage of skilled labor in the state. I think there’s an opportunity for the state to have retraining programs for people that are looking for work, to encourage them to take up some of the building trades so that we can match that need.”

Renewable Energy: “Certainly we have to eventually move to a completely renewable economy. That has to happen. I think Colorado is a great state for innovation. I think there’s a lot of commitment to renewable energy and we need to encourage those industries and support them in getting there as quickly as possible.”

Major Issues: “District 33’s biggest issue is reforming the way our politics works…We’re not gonna make significant progress on any of those as long as politics are played as a zero sum team sport, which is what’s happening right now. We can change the way politics is done, first of all by voting in reasonable people who are willing to work with both sides but also by fighting for reforms that take away from the incentives for bad behavior in office. In particular, we need to focus on partisan gerrymandering. We need to get rid of a system that rewards people for pandering to the extremist in their own parties because they’re in a safe seat.”

Kim Taverndale (Libertarian)

Originally from New Zealand, she and her husband became citizens in 2008 and moved to Colorado the same year. She’s an entrepreneur, she’s worked in insurance industry, and was operations manager for a benefit company. She is currently an ordained minister and wedding officiant for people without a home church. “I think a lot of people in my district are a lot like me. They’re socially very tolerant and financially responsible and would like their government to be both as well.”

112: This is a bit of mixed bag for me.  “I’m appreciative of the health concerns people have that are living [and schooling] near these, not to mention the disruptions they are putting up with in terms of traffic and noise pollution.On the other hand, I also understand the property rights issue. If a farmer in Weld county wants to have a rig on his property within the 2,500 feet limit, that he absolutely has the right to be able to that. A third point of view is that fracking does provide very cost effective energy, in terms of natural gas.”

73: Against. “Having been to school as a teenager in the American school system, and also having grown up under the New Zealand and Australian school systems I find it very interesting. We need to fund education differently and better. We spend, in Colorado, within a few hundred dollars per student what New Zealand, where I’m from, spends per student. But yet our results here are not as good as countries overseas.”

109 & 110: “109 has a very specific amount of money and it would narrow the scope of the projects we can take on. 110 does allow for us to have income coming in dedicated to traffic improvements that would grow as our economy grows and as our population grows. At this point I would say I am probably more in favor of 109 because it doesn’t raise taxes, but I am not opposed to 110 because it does provide an avenue for future growth.”

Housing: “This is a really local issue. Local communities need to step up and address. They know their cities, they know their needs.”

Renewable Energy: “We have 300 days of sunshine in Colorado and we should be making use of them. I am all for legislation that encourages innovation of renewable energy. I’m not really in favor of demanding it or forcing it. You can’t make good ideas appear in an instant. I really feel that the free market is the best way to accomplish this. If we can foster innovation, if we can encourage adoption, if we can create a regulatory or legislative environment that makes it very attractive – these are incentives that I would very much be in favor for.”

Major Issues: “I think the oil and gas issue is the biggest issue that my constituents are talking about, that my friends, my neighbors are very concerned about. People need affordable heating and people also need the environments that they choose for their children to be safe and healthy. As a Libertarian, I’m going to agree with Democrats on a lot of socially accepting policies. I’m going to agree with a lot of the Republicans on the financially responsible policies. That way we can create a state legislature that’s more about what’s best for Colorado rather than fighting, you know, red versus blue.”

Eric Rutherford (R)

Rutherford is from Boulder. He graduated from Naval Academy and was a  Marine Corp Officer, FBI Academy, DA agent. He started his his own business. “As for why I’m running for office, there are three reasons. I’ve always loved people.  I’m never really one to complain. If there’s an issue I want to be on the implementing side rather than have policy initiated on me. The third is since I am married to a woman of color, I want to make sure my children have the same opportunities that I did.”

112: For.  “I’m the only Republican or incumbent in the state of Colorado to do so. It makes a break away from the Republican party which makes for some intense conversations some times. I’m a different Republican. I’m an environmentalist, yet I want to balance the budget. I want to make sure we fix our roads without raising taxes yet I’m advocating for pre-kindergarten quality education for everybody.”

73: “It’s not specific enough for me. If we raise money for taxes, it has to go to the teachers…We are going to enter a recession, and what TABOR does is making sure we aren’t going to overextend ourselves in good times cause you don’t wanna start having this policy or this program then have to cut it back when we’re in our recession.”

109 & 110: “I’m not advocating for increase in taxes. The reason for that is, if you look at the number one opportunity for corruption for government contracts nationally, is road building. If we have automatic vehicles, and that can take 15-20 vehicles off the road… One of the problems we have is we are victims of our own success. Oil and gas prices are too low. When you drive down to Denver, everyone’s driving in their own car. Let’s get people to double up. Let’s think about the environment.”

Housing: “The affordable housing issue really needs to be addressed within each community. We need to galvanize our communities. We need higher density in this infill areas. Affordable housing I would focus on, we call it, infill development.”

Renewable Energy: “We should be 2040 renewable energy. I’m fully on board with it. My goal is to have my real estate renewable energy by 2030. If you’re interested and I win, I can show you the records of the buildings and of how putting renewable energy on the roofs has saved me energy and I would like to sell that to other property owners. So I’m committed to doing that by 2030, our state should do it by 2040.”

Major Issues: “My love and my passion is environment. I’ve spent a lot of time in the backcountry, I’m an amateur survivalist, I’m a mountaineer. I support proposition 112. That’s the biggest issue in my community. We are on the cutting edge… My love for this country doesn’t stop at the flag, it stops at the ground. It goes deeper into the ground, the water, the air. Everybody who walks this land no matter what race, color, gender, or sex or orientation, that’s how far my love goes.”

District 35

Shannon Bird (D)

Bird has served on the Westminster City Council, is a lawyer in training, and has a background in commercial and corporate finance. She ran a bond campaign for school district in 2014.

112: “I have not taken a position on 112. I understand this: citizens in local communities have great health and safety concerns with respect to oil and gas operations too close to their house and hospitals. I respect the contribution that oil and gas makes to our economy as a state. There needs to be an appropriate balance. 

73: For. “Right now, the value of local property within a school district’s boundary determines the quality of funding for each public school and in my mind, public education needs to be equal for all of our kids. It should be high quality for all of our kids it shouldn’t matter what zip code they live in. We need a better school finance formula and we also need Amendment 73 to pass.”

109 & 110: “I support 110. We need a new sustainable source of funding for public infrastructure. Our roads and our bridges are critical to growing our economy, supporting the one we have, and also maintaining Coloradan’s quality of life. As I’m aware we have over 9 billion dollars in unfunded projects throughout the state of Colorado that’s just related to maintenance.” 

Housing: “Many of the drivers of this issue include rising cost of land and also the inability to hire skilled workforce to come in and build this housing. So there are many innovative ideas where they state and local governments can partner and offer land at reduced costs.”

Renewable Energy: “I am committed to renewable energy. The best ways to do that are to make that a viable business option in the state of Colorado, do what we can to support that industry, and make it a good business proposition for people to invest. I know Xcel has taken advantage of some really good programs within our state and make renewable energy sources available to their consumers and I’d like to grow and expand on some of those ideas.”

Major Issues: “I think in our district the three biggest issues are the lack of housing that people can afford, concerns over not properly investing in our public schools, and then the third piece is insecurity over healthcare. Can people afford it? Will they be able to keep their health care? And those kinds of basic bread and butter issues.”

Bruce Baker (R)

Baker moved to Colorado when he was four, went to CU and spent three years in the US Army. He spent 37 years as a retail pharmacist and four years on Westminster City Council.
“I’m running why everyone else is running, for better government. The question isn’t why are you running it’s how do you define better government? I define better government as following the law and living up to our values. Which we’re doing a terrible job of. I define better government as serving all the people and not special interests.”

112: Against.  “It’s a dishonest thing. It’s not about safety and yet that’s the way it’s being sold.  It’s fine for me if you wanna say ‘I don’t want any oil drilling in this state,’ but then say that. That should be your position, don’t hide behind safety. That’s dishonest.”

73: Against. “Right now the current system is a rigged system and it hurts the suburbs terribly, especially here in House 35. House 35 has never had a Republican representative, we’ve always had a Democrat and they always pretend to support education.  Adams 12, where I live, has had either the highest or second highest school property tax in the state of Colorado for decades. That’s wrong. How can someone pretend they’re for public schools where they’re letting District 12 get screwed?”

109 & 110: “We need to be adults and pay for what our roads cost. Roads always use a per gallon gasoline tax. We need to have a tax on mileage because that’s the way we pay for roads. As we go to electric cars, and I’m a big fan of electric cars, that’s going to be paid straight to the state because they don’t pump up on gas at the gas pump. We need to get rid of RTD. RTD is the biggest rip-off boondoggle there’s ever been.”

Housing: “Affordable housing is a scam to make really connected insiders rich. When I was on council I was appalled to find out that the income tax, subsidized, affordable housing projects after 30 years – they’re not affordable housing anymore. All these government programs for affordable housing are absolutely ridiculous.”

Renewable Energy: “We should use thorium energy. Thorium is four-times as plentiful as uranium. It’s not gonna have as many of these horrible side effects. It’s something we’ve known about for 50 years and haven’t done. It’s outrageous. In my opinion, everybody in the world is going to want to have an energy using lifestyle. It isn’t that we’re being greedy in the United States it’s that we were the first there. But the people in China and India want it just as much.”

Major Issues: We have been completely neglected. For example, I25 and US 36. We have not increased free capacity on those roads, and yet if you look at the south end of Denver T-REX increased free capacity on those roads. So, whether it’s our roads or our schools, we’ve been getting the short end.” 

 Ken Biles

Not available for interview in allotted timeframe.

District 63

Brandon Bobian (D)

Bobian is a Colorado native and graduated college from CU Boulder with an aerospace engineering degree. He was a contractor for the International Space Station program at NASA in Houston for four years. And for the last 7 years, he’s worked at Digital Globe as an aerospace engineer. “I want to be a part of managing the growth over the next 10 years. Whether it be traffic congestion, water shortages, our class sizes, I want to help solve those problems.”

112: “So in general, I support the oil and gas industry. I think it’s a great boom for the economy, especially short term. However in the long term, and medium term, I think we need to start to pivot now so we can have a sustainable energy economy in Colorado, especially in the wind and solar… It should be left up to local municipalities and even county governments to decide rather than it be decided at the state level.”

73: For. “Our schools are majorly underfunded in my opinion. We rank near the bottom per student funding when compared to other states. Even states like Arkansas and Kentucky fund their schools better than we do and that’s not acceptable to me. We need to reduce class sizes. I support Jared Polis’ proposal to make full-time Kindergarten and full-time One year preschool funded by the K-12 public education system in Colorado. “

109 & 110: “I support 110. It’s a great opportunity to have our tourists help fund our roads. They benefit from the roads, they should share in the costs.”

Housing: “The prices we’re seeing are causing a hardship on a lot of people, I can see that. I don’t think the government needs to directly intervene at this time aside from local governments wanting to provide subsidized housing.”

Renewable Energy: “We have an amazing opportunity in Colorado with the amount of wind and sunshine we get yearly. We need to move towards those goals as aggressively as we can, we need to encourage municipalities to do so. Many already have committed to do so faster than 2040.”

Major Issues: Proposition 112. Many people in my district are extremely concerned about that. There are a lot of jobs on the line disproportionally in Weld county, which is my district, more than other districts so I take that very serious. Secondly water. Our farmers are struggling for water as our streams and rivers flow downstream to water golf courses in Arizona and Nevada. That’s not acceptable to me. We have to look at storing our water in better reservoirs and I think we can do that on a bipartisan basis.”

Joe Johnson

Johnson has lived in Colorado since 1994. Elected trustee to the town of Frederick. 

112: Against. “I understand the goal and the purpose of trying to make sure we have a nice safety zone around where the oil and gas is being drawn from the earth but by the same token I think the measure goes a little too far and puts too much restrictions and will increase our energy costs.”

73: Against.  “Our education system is broken. It is broken beyond repair. The problem is that we have government running our education. The solution is the free market. I believe we should give the money back to these parents, stop taxing them so much, and say guess what, you pick the school that makes the most sense for your kids and send them there.”

109 & 110: “We already have a solution for our transportation, we just steal from it. The statement that the 110 proponents state is that funding for roads is not tied to inflation is completely false. It is a percentage tax that we pay on gasoline. More people driving on the roads means more taxes that are raised through registrations and gas tax. The trouble is the money is not spent on our roads, hasn’t been spent on our roads since the 70s when they broke down the divider between highway funds and our general funds. I am adamantly opposed to an increase in taxes. I am a reluctant supporter of the bonds, which is 109. I believe that that forces the government to take care of the roads.

Housing: “All houses issues should be at a local level. All of you have to do is take a look at the places in the larger cities where they do that and you have the low rent district and the crime that comes with it. The solution is having genuinely low cost housing that people can afford. The key is to get as little government involved as possible so that the housing market can fill the demand. That’s the ultimate solution is get out of the way and let the market take care of itself.”

Renewable Energy:  “I personally drive an electric car but there’s a bumper sticker on the back that says ‘powered by coal,’ because the United State’s is not ready for a completely electric infrastructure… Basically, the market needs to be competitive so that the guy who builds the better mousetrap wins. So if you have the government step in and say we are going to subsidize this particular alternative energy. The more cost efficient idea never happens.  We need to get out of the way and let the industry do what it does.” 

Major Issues: “Across the state, probably the number one issue is the roads. Probably because we’ve had so many people move to the state of Colorado. All of the issues out there the infrastructure issue is certainly the biggest just about everywhere in the state.”

Lori E. Saine

Refused repeated requests for interview.