House District 56

Joe Biden is one of the nation’s most experienced public servants, having served as a U.S. senator from Delaware for 36 years and the U.S. vice president for eight years. Biden is running on a comprehensive progressive platform.

Biden has championed individual rights throughout his career — from spearheading the Violence Against Women Act to passing laws that expanded the definition of hate crimes to include those based on gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, and disability. Biden led the fight to pass the Brady Bill, which established the national firearms background check system, and helped secure a 10-year ban on assault weapons from 1994-2004. As vice president, Biden oversaw the implementation of one of the largest economic recovery plans in American history in 2009, saving the American automobile industry and millions of American jobs in all sectors of the economy. During the Obama/Biden administration, the United States made significant progress toward a clean energy economy and provided health coverage to millions of Americans via the passage of the Affordable Care Act — a law Biden has vowed to expand and improve.

If elected president, Biden has pledged to work to reverse the damage from the last four years of partisan obstruction and executive branch policies solely benefiting the wealthy and well-connected. Biden supports a $15-per-hour minimum wage and 12 weeks of paid family and medical leave for all workers. He also seeks to address the country's racial wealth disparity, equal opportunity, and jobs gaps by empowering small-business creation and expansion in economically disadvantaged areas. On the climate crisis, Biden proposes net-zero CO2 emissions in the U.S. by 2050 and rejoining the Paris climate accords. On the immediate front, Biden has proposed a national crisis response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Biden’s experience handling the economic recovery with Obama after the Great Recession of 2009 will inform his actions to help individuals, families, small businesses, and local and state governments that are struggling badly as a result of the botched response to the pandemic. Biden will restore the long-standing precedent that public health decisions are best made by public health professionals.

Biden has pledged to defend abortion rights, expand and protect union membership, bring together an equitable and diverse group of experts to handle the nation’s institutional racism crisis, and restore dignity to the office of president of the United States.

Biden is the clear presidential choice for progressive voters.

In this election, he faces Donald Trump — considered by progressives to be the most corrupt, incompetent, anti-progressive president in recent memory and perhaps in American history. Trump’s biggest achievement as president was forcing through a massive tax cut that overwhelmingly favored the wealthiest Americans, making the nation’s historic income-disparity problem even worse. Trump unilaterally withdrew from the Paris Climate Accords, making the U.S. one of very few countries that are not signatories. Trump’s administration has encouraged repeated unsuccessful attempts by Congress to repeal the Affordable Care Act, which has provided health coverage to millions of Americans, including a federal court challenge in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic to dismantle the law. Trump has supported racist immigration practices that contravene international law on the treatment of refugees.

Trump’s decisions have trickled into even the most mundane things, affecting Americans on a daily basis. Trump scrapped a bill requiring airlines to disclose bag fees, blocked consumers from suing banks, ignored the growing crisis over student loans, lifted bans on transferring military equipment to local law enforcement which has exacerbated police-citizen conflicts, particularly in relation to Black Lives Matter protests, and has set off a trade war with China that has done tremendous economic damage to American agricultural producers and manufacturers.

Controversies involving Trump’s presidency are too numerous to list here but include lying about mail voting to such a degree that social media platforms have been forced to remove his misinformation, racist, sexist, and defamatory statements against his political opponents, dispatching federal police to attack protesters in unmarked vehicles, installing corrupt and incompetent tools of special interest into every level of government, nominating federal judges and Supreme Court justices who seek to overturn Roe v. Wade, banning transgender Americans from military service, helping spread baseless conspiracy theories, defending the actions of overt white supremacists and racist nationalists, downplaying the severity of the coronavirus pandemic to the public despite detailed foreknowledge of the coming disaster, pursuing diplomacy with dictators while scorning traditional American allies, and changing federal guidelines to undermine racial equality. For a more comprehensive list, we encourage you to visit the Wikipedia page for Trump administration controversies.

Evidence abounds showing that Trump never disassociated himself from his businesses and has used his office for personal enrichment. And let’s not forget he was impeached over revelations he first blocked military aid to Ukraine and then pushed its president to dig up damaging info on his political opponent as a “favor.”

Trump must not only be defeated, but the margin of victory must be so resounding as to prevent him from calling the results of the election into question as he has already pledged to do.

Former Colorado Gov. and incumbent U.S. Sen. John Hickenlooper did not take the usual path into public office. After being laid off from his job as a geologist, he opened a successful brewpub. But as a small-business owner, he became involved in his community, and he ran for office. He served two terms each as mayor of Denver and governor of Colorado, using his unique perspective to bring people together to get things done.

When Hickenlooper was sworn in as governor in 2010, Colorado ranked 40th among the states in job creation. By the time Hickenlooper left office eight years later, Colorado had the #1 economy in the nation. Under Hickenlooper, when he was governor, Colorado’s economy grew without leaving Coloradans behind. Hickenlooper expanded Medicaid to cover an additional 400,000 Coloradans and cut the uninsured rate by nearly two-thirds. He signed three landmark gun safety laws in 2013 that banned high-capacity magazines and required background checks for any firearm transfer. On the environment, Hickenlooper made Colorado the first state to limit methane pollution from oil and gas wells. Working with the General Assembly, Hickenlooper signed legislation to ensure every eligible registered voter in Colorado gets a mail-in ballot, made voter registration more accessible, and pushed for numerous other election reforms that have made Colorado a model for election innovation. He also signed historic legislation granting in-state tuition to DREAMers.

Hickenlooper has vowed to improve and build on the Affordable Care Act and supports a federally administered public health coverage option. Hickenlooper recognizes the existential threat of climate change and favors a bold, science-based approach. He supports commonsense policies on gun violence, including restoring an assault weapons ban. Hickenlooper was the first governor of Colorado to apologize for the Sand Creek Massacre and has committed to listening to the voices of marginalized communities and rooting out systemic racism where it lurks in our society, from police brutality to immigration laws to racial disparities in economic status to access to quality education.

Hickenlooper is the progressive voter’s best choice for U.S. senator.

He faces incumbent U.S. Sen. Cory Gardner in this election. While in the Senate, Gardner has been a reliable Republican vote on the overwhelming majority of issues. He has supported Donald Trump’s position on votes 89% of the time, and Politico notes that Gardner is “reliably conservative on most issues.” In 2014, Gardner promised in a campaign ad to speak out when his party is wrong and called on Donald Trump to pull out of the race for president in October of 2016. Since then, however, Gardner has fully embraced Trump and was one of the first senators to endorse Trump’s reelection.

From his earliest votes in Congress, Gardner has consistently sought to repeal the Affordable Care Act. He has voted to repeal the ACA and to replace it with a bill that would dramatically decrease health care coverage and increase the cost of coverage. He was quoted at a private luncheon that failing to repeal the ACA would result in fewer donations to Republicans, suggesting he is not motivated by the common good.

Gardner has rejected most gun safety legislation throughout his career and is a top recipient of donations from the National Rifle Association. He has voted against expanding background checks to include gun show sales, which has been the law in Colorado since just after the Columbine High School shooting in 1999. He even voted against banning gun sales to people on the terrorist watch list.

In a historic change of heart, The Denver Post editorial board declared in 2019 they made a mistake in their 2014 endorsement of Gardner, stating he “has been too busy walking a political tight rope to be a leader.”

This race also has a Libertarian candidate: Raymon Doane. Doane is a Denver native who currently works for the Colorado Department of Revenue as a property tax specialist and business analyst. He previously ran for the state senate in 2016 as a Republican, and in 2018, he first filed to run for state treasurer and then for Congress against Democrat Diana DeGette as a Libertarian.

Doane’s few public statements should give voters pause. While the country has been dealing with the coronavirus outbreak, Doane was quoted as saying, “The federal government should not have to intervene on behalf of local municipalities and states that make poor decisions during a pandemic.” He also has said he thinks public health mandates should be more like “suggestions.” Additionally, among the four policy positions Doane takes on his website, one statement endorsing an unregulated Second Amendment stands out: “The government should NEVER have a monopoly on force. The U.S. Senate must … refuse to vote for any legislation which limits an American’s right to self-defense.” These kinds of statements don’t represent Colorado progressives.

Ike McCorkle is challenging the Republican incumbent for Colorado’s 4th Congressional District. The single father of three kids believes the people in the district deserve a representative who is dedicated to them, not the elite. In order to get Big Money out of politics, he supports a publicly funded, transparent system of campaign financing and wants to see the Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling overturned to limit the influence of special interest groups that are buying much of our governmental leadership.

McCorkle is also an unabashed environmentalist who intends to fight for a Green New Deal not just to address the existential threat of climate change and rapidly transition energy production but to reinvest in rural America and create thousands of good-paying jobs in his district. Other policies he supports are ones that will expand equity and opportunity for everyone, including Medicare for All, tuition-free public college, reducing college debt by imposing a tax on Wall Street speculators, and a universal basic income system.

A retired Marine Corps officer and special operator who served for 18 years, six deployments, and four combat tours, McCorkle seeks to bring dignity and integrity to Congress and restore trust and confidence in government. He is a clear progressive choice who, if elected, plans to bring people with diverse backgrounds and beliefs together to build an American society where we lift each other up so that we all benefit together.

The incumbent he faces is U.S. Sen. Ken Buck, a former prosecutor and district attorney in Weld County who has been in Congress since 2014. His legal career has been marred by numerous ethical scandals, including compromising a case against Republican donors and declining to prosecute a sexual assault, instead blaming the victim. Since he has been in Congress, Buck has toed the party’s extreme right-wing line. He is anti-choice, opposes reasonable gun safety legislation, and has said that being gay is a choice. Buck also voted in favor of the 2017 tax reform bill, which heavily favored the wealthy and corporations while increasing tax burdens on the middle class. With all this in mind, Buck must not remain in office.
 

Jillian Freeland, a retired midwife and entrepreneur, is challenging the Republican incumbent in Colorado’s 5th Congressional District. She describes herself as a millennial mom “fighting for the future I want for my kids and my fellow humans.”

Some of her top priorities are roundly accessible, complete health care coverage and a bigger shift to domestic energy. As a women’s health care provider, Freeland took on insurance companies to make them cover the services that people pay for. She understands what’s broken in the system and wants to work to fix it. On energy, she supports the federal government’s investment in domestic renewable resources as well as creating good-paying union jobs in the process. She also wants to see funding for the education and pensions of workers transitioning out of the fossil fuel industry to make sure they don't get left behind.

In addition to being a fierce protector of reproductive rights, Freeland backs enacting gun safety regulations and eliminating loopholes in our tax code that allow corporations and the ultra-wealthy to avoid paying their fair share. She also thinks we must move away from a punitive criminal justice system to a rehabilitative one that doesn’t treat addiction and mental illness as crimes.

Freeland’s campaign lays her out as an everyday citizen who has struggled to make student loan payments, used the Medicaid and food stamps systems, and owned a small business but one who has also been highly involved in serving her community. She can bring a perspective to Congress that is not often reflected there, and she is a solid choice to support in this election.

Her opponent is incumbent U.S. Sen. Doug Lamborn, a career politician who has served the Colorado Springs area in various roles since his first election to the Colorado House in 1994. Since getting to Congress in 2006, Lamborn has laid low and had only three bills signed into law: a World War I commemorative coin, naming a road in Colorado Springs, and a procedural bill transferring land from the Department of Agriculture. Lamborn has toed the Republican Party line: He’s anti-choice, anti-LGBTQ, and anti-gun-regulation and thinks raising the minimum wage will force businesses to fire workers. A progressive vote would be wasted on Lamborn.

Incumbent U.S. Rep. Jason Crow, a lawyer and former Army Ranger who completed three tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, is running for reelection in Colorado's 6th Congressional District. In 2018, he defeated longtime Republican incumbent Mike Coffman to become the first Democrat ever to represent this district.

Before serving in Congress, Crow spent years helping veterans like himself who struggled to receive benefits, focusing his work on veteran homelessness and substance abuse issues. Then, during his first term, Crow stepped into the national spotlight as one of the seven impeachment managers who argued for Donald Trump’s removal from office during the Senate trial. Crow made the case that Trump put both Ukraine’s safety and the U.S.’s national security at risk by withholding military aid in exchange for political favors.

Crow’s district is the most diverse in Colorado, with 1 in 5 residents being born outside the United States; Crow has said this is what makes his community such a special place to live. He supports protecting DREAMers and passing comprehensive immigration reform and has called for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to end its contracts with private prison companies.

Crow has also focused on instituting campaign finance reform. The first bill he sponsored, the End Dark Money Act, would prevent mega-donors from being able to hide their political contributions. His other priorities include preventing gun violence, combatting the effects of climate change, ensuring small businesses are able to thrive, and fighting for a bold investment in America’s infrastructure.

Running against him is Steve House, the former chair of the Colorado Republican Party and a one-time gubernatorial candidate. He spent 35 years working in the health care industry, yet the biggest point House has made about problems in the health care system is that “we must face the facts and repeal Obamacare.” House apparently doesn’t realize that recent Republican efforts to repeal and replace what’s officially known as the Affordable Care Act—which has been a lifeline for many Americans struggling with health insurance coverage—have been cited as increasing the cost of health care coverage while also reducing coverage throughout the U.S. This kind of regressive thinking can’t be elected to office.

Ilana Spiegel is a highly experienced and well-respected grassroots organizer, columnist, and public education advocate. A mother and a former public school teacher, her platform emphasizes accessibility in higher education, opportunity, affordability, and inclusivity. Her history as a staff developer, coach, and consultant demonstrates that she will follow through on her promise to “fight for Colorado students and families.”

Spiegel’s organizing led to the creation of the Standards and Assessment Task Force, where she worked with stakeholders on legislation to improve standardized testing in Colorado. Spiegel also spearheaded groups such as Taxpayers for Public Education and SPEAK for Cherry Creek to oppose a conservative-majority school board in Douglas County that threatened the vitality of public education. Spiegel organized and spoke at a 2017 teach-in to educate the public about and protest an ALEC (American Legislative Exchange Council) conference where Betsy DeVos was a speaker.

Her fierce advocacy and organizing work proves she will stand for progressive values by fighting rising tuition, encouraging academic freedom, and making higher education more accessible and diverse.

She faces Republican Richard Murray and the Unity Party’s Robert Worthey. Murray is an attorney from Highlands Ranch and frequently refers to his desire to run for regent because of his “double buff” status. While he does say that he’s worried about the cost of college, he seems to have more ideas about how to make CU’s football team better than he does about the cost of higher education. We think voters should not vote for Murray.

Worthey is a music teacher and former Green Party candidate for the 6th Congressional District. He is now running with the independent Unity Party, whose platform mostly reflects a Republican or conservative agenda. He seems to have no published policy positions or public statements reflecting what he would do once he’s in office.
We recommend voting for Spiegel, a candidate whose agenda aligns with our values.

Maria-Vittoria “Guigi” Carminati is a fearless advocate for women and marginalized communities, including survivors of police brutality and domestic violence. An activist and civil rights attorney, she has worked for the Texas ACLU and started her own law firm, The Woman Lawyer.

Carminati is the co-author of several books and articles in space law, is experienced in commercial and civil litigation, and has fought against family separation at the border. On top of that, she has taught at the University of Houston Law Center and helped vulnerable populations seek equity and fair treatment in the face of injustice. These are testaments to her ability to deliver on a progressive vision that prioritizes accessible housing and healthcare, public education, and criminal justice reform.

Carminati will ignite change in her district and at the Capitol, putting “progress back into progressive policy” if elected. She is the clearly preferred candidate.

She is running against Republican incumbent State Rep. Rod Bockenfeld, who was elected in 2019. Bockenfeld has a background in banking and finance. His staunch defense of law enforcement earlier this year during a debate on a police accountability bill shows he will not support progressive criminal justice reform in light of recent protests demanding change. Bockenfeld was also the lone vote against banning the so-called “gay and trans panic defense,” a measure with strong bipartisan support that protects LGBTQ folks from violence and hate crimes.

Kevin Gulbranson is also seeking the District 55 seat. He has served as outreach director of the Libertarian Party of Colorado and Arapahoe County. Gulbranson’s positions on mental health show he prioritizes individual rights and free markets. Policy stances other than those that align with the Libertarian Party are not widely known.

Democratic candidate Brian Mason, who is a deputy district attorney for District 17, has a long track record of seeking justice for victims of violent crime and protecting survivors. He also wants to make some very necessary changes and reforms like seeking alternatives to incarceration and finding new ways to prevent crime instead of just reacting to it. He’s listened to constituents and brought in ideas about addressing racism in the criminal justice system. It’s no surprise that most elected officials in Broomfield and Adams counties are endorsing Mason for district attorney. We also strongly recommend him as the progressive voter’s choice in this race.

His opposition, Republican Tim McCormack, currently works in the district attorney’s office in District 1, but he previously worked for District 17. McCormack certainly has a lot of experience, but his lack of emphasis on criminal justice reform and ending the school-to-prison pipeline should concern voters. Progressive voters would do well to vote for Mason instead.

Amy Padden, the Democratic candidate for District 18, is a seasoned prosecutor with a stunning resume, having worked at all levels of law enforcement. Recently, she has been a deputy district attorney for District 5, and she has been both an assistant and deputy chief U.S. attorney and an assistant attorney general in Colorado. Padden wants to use all of that experience for criminal justice reforms like protecting vulnerable populations and addressing systemic inequities like police use of force and over-incarceration. It’s clear Padden stands for progressive reforms and is the clear choice in this race.

Running on the Republican side is John Kellner. He is a Marine Corps veteran and prosecutor in both Boulder County and District 18 and specializes in cold cases. While Kellner undeniably has lengthy experience, progressive voters should be cautious about the fact that he doesn’t seem at all interested in seriously needed criminal justice reforms. Padden is the preferred candidate in this race.