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Incumbent State Rep. Tony Exum, who was first elected to the seat in 2012 after a 35-year career as a firefighter, has been a champion of Colorado working families. As the coronavirus has wreaked havoc on communities, Exum introduced and passed a housing assistance bill that bridged using federal CARES Act funds for eviction defense and development grants.
Exum believes in high-quality, affordable health care for all and stands ready to take on ways to make health care dollars go further. Another of his priorities has been education. He was part of the sponsoring group behind Breakfast After the Bell, which provides access to nutritional meals for students in schools. This session, he worked on bills to provide emergency assistance to students in state universities and help children in foster care obtain their driver’s licenses. Exum has also focused on investment in renewable energy and protecting public lands, earning him a 100% lifetime score from Conservation Colorado.
Exum is the clear choice in the upcoming election.
Two challengers also have eyes on the seat: Rob Blancken and Susan Quilleash-Nelson. Blancken is a retired water treatment specialist with Colorado Springs Utilities. On his campaign website are the usual Republican positions, but what’s overtly missing is his far-right-wing extremist philosophy. In 2016, Blancken was photographed at the Republican state convention running for national delegate wearing a sign describing himself as a Tea Party member. Blancken has also protested gun violence vigils with other gun rights activists, once even trying to get near the lectern of a vigil with a protest sign. Despite a long history of conservative activism, Blancken suddenly stopped talking about his previously held extreme anti-immigration and anti-gun-safety views. Progressive voters beware.
Libertarian candidate Quilleash-Nelson is a substitute teacher in Colorado Springs. She has previously run for District 17 and ran for the state senate as well. But in all those campaigns and all that time, Quilleash-Nelson has seemingly made no policy statements, public positions on the issues, or even had a website or social media profile to inform people on her candidacy. In a 2012 candidate survey, however, she failed to address a question on the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights (TABOR) while publicly endorsing forcing undocumented graduates of Colorado schools to pay out-of-state tuition for Colorado universities. This is not the kind of representation progressives want in the Statehouse.Tony Exum
Incumbent State Rep. Tony Exum, who was first elected to the seat in 2012 after a 35-year career as a firefighter, has been a champion of Colorado working families.
Incumbent State Rep. Tony Exum, who was first elected to the seat in 2012 after a 35-year career as a firefighter, has been a champion of Colorado working families. As the coronavirus has wreaked havoc on communities, Exum introduced and passed a housing assistance bill that bridged using federal CARES Act funds for eviction defense and development grants.
Exum believes in high-quality, affordable health care for all and stands ready to take on ways to make health care dollars go further. Another of his priorities has been education. He was part of the sponsoring group behind Breakfast After the Bell, which provides access to nutritional meals for students in schools. This session, he worked on bills to provide emergency assistance to students in state universities and help children in foster care obtain their driver’s licenses. Exum has also focused on investment in renewable energy and protecting public lands, earning him a 100% lifetime score from Conservation Colorado.
Exum is the clear choice in the upcoming election.
Two challengers also have eyes on the seat: Rob Blancken and Susan Quilleash-Nelson. Blancken is a retired water treatment specialist with Colorado Springs Utilities. On his campaign website are the usual Republican positions, but what’s overtly missing is his far-right-wing extremist philosophy. In 2016, Blancken was photographed at the Republican state convention running for national delegate wearing a sign describing himself as a Tea Party member. Blancken has also protested gun violence vigils with other gun rights activists, once even trying to get near the lectern of a vigil with a protest sign. Despite a long history of conservative activism, Blancken suddenly stopped talking about his previously held extreme anti-immigration and anti-gun-safety views. Progressive voters beware.
Libertarian candidate Quilleash-Nelson is a substitute teacher in Colorado Springs. She has previously run for District 17 and ran for the state senate as well. But in all those campaigns and all that time, Quilleash-Nelson has seemingly made no policy statements, public positions on the issues, or even had a website or social media profile to inform people on her candidacy. In a 2012 candidate survey, however, she failed to address a question on the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights (TABOR) while publicly endorsing forcing undocumented graduates of Colorado schools to pay out-of-state tuition for Colorado universities. This is not the kind of representation progressives want in the Statehouse.Tony Exum
Incumbent State Rep. Tony Exum, who was first elected to the seat in 2012 after a 35-year career as a firefighter, has been a champion of Colorado working families.
Jillian Freeland
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.
Progressives are split on Amendment 77, known as the Allow Voters in Central, Black Hawk, and Cripple Creek Cities to Expand Authorized Games and Increase Maximum Bets Initiative. Please read the arguments from both sides below to help you make your decision on this amendment.