Expensive battle over direction of policy at the Colorado Capitol plays out in Democratic legislative primaries (2024)

Democratic legislative primaries this year across the Front Range have become an extraordinarily expensive — and at times mean-spirited — battle over the direction of policy at the Colorado Capitol.

The stakes are significant.

The makeup of the historic Democratic majorities at the statehouse will determine the future of laws on housing, environmental regulations, taxes, and worker and consumer protections — policy areas where bills have lived or died based on the votes of a single Democratic lawmaker on a key committee.

While each of the contested Democratic legislative primaries have unique dynamics, they generally look like this: union-backed candidates promising progressive policies and to be a thorn in the side of Gov. Jared Polis running against business-backed candidates who support liberal goals but who are also vowing to be team players responsive to companies’ legislative concerns.

All of the districts where large sums of money are being spent in the primary lean heavily in Democrats’ favor, meaning whoever wins the primary will almost surely win in November, too.

About $3 million had been spent on Democratic primaries for House and Senate seats through the beginning of this week —an amount eclipsing the sums spent on legislative primaries in Colorado in past years. Spending on legislative races used to be focused on the general election and races between Democratic and Republican candidates, but Democratic dominance in Colorado over the past three election cycles has changed that dynamic.

“Because the Democrats hold a supermajority in the state House of Representatives, and because they are one seat short of a supermajority in the state Senate, the business community and the moderate Democratic stakeholders have taken a strategy of trying to elect more moderate Democratic lawmakers in the Denver metro area and Boulder,” said Democrat Joe Miklosi, a former state lawmaker who now lobbies at the Capitol. “And participating in the primaries is the most effective way to do so.”

The money being spent in Democratic primaries is meant to send a message on housing, health care, energy and tax policy. And Miklosi, who was in the minority for part of his time serving at the Capitol, said the dollars are being dropped as part of a long-term play to shape the makeup of the legislature.

“If you can impact a political career at the nascent stage, you can be more influential than once the elected official has spent years in office,” he said.

Another sign of what’s at stake: Even the governor has entered the fray, endorsing candidates in Democratic primaries whereas in years past he has mostly sat on the sidelines.

“This is the first time that he has endorsed against an incumbent legislator,” a spokesman for Polis said in a statement, referring to the governor’s endorsem*nt of attorney Sean Camacho over Rep. Elisabeth Epps in the Democratic primary in House District 6. “The governor has made these decisions based on who he believes will help continue making Colorado the best place to live, work and raise a family.”

One Democratic primary that illustrates what’s playing out this year is in House District 4, where Rep. Tim Hernández, a Denver Democrat backed by the Democratic Socialists of America, is facing a challenge from former federal immigration judge Cecelia Espenoza, a self-described “pragmatic progressive” who says Hernández is too far to the political left.

“My first goal would be to ensure that I’m working collaboratively in the legislature and helping to bring the temperature down from what I understand it’s been the last couple of years,” Espenoza said. “I want to work effectively with my colleagues.”

Hernández sees things differently.

“The fights are really clear,” Hernández said. “In the statehouse, moneyed interests — powerful interests — are interested in maintaining a culture that is harmful to poor people, that exploits workers. And we need somebody who’s willing to go out there and take on the hard fights.”

Colorado Labor Action, a political group funded by unions, and the Colorado Education Association, the state’s largest teachers union, had spent about $100,000 through the beginning of the week to help Hernández. Meanwhile, A Whole Lot Of People For Change and Fighting For A Stronger Colorado, two state-level super PACs whose donors are mostly hidden, had spent about $150,000 to help Espenoza.

Here are some of the major issues these races could decide.

Housing

In interviews with The Colorado Sun, the Democratic candidates in races stretching from the Denver metro area up to Fort Collins expressed broad support for the Polis administration’s approach to increasing the supply of housing through land use changes that promote density.

But there’s a divide in how far the candidates think the legislature should go in prioritizing renters.

The more liberal candidates, like Hernández, want to lift the state’s prohibition on rent stabilization, which would allow cities to cap how much landlords can increase rent from one year to the next. An effort to do so passed the House in 2023, but lost by a single vote in a committee in the more moderate state Senate.

The governor opposes the idea, fearing it will stifle the housing market, and supporters didn’t revive the bill this year.

“If we’re not willing to take it on and make him (Polis) publicly veto it, it’s much harder to make it a conversation point of the next governor’s race,” said Bryan Lindstrom, a public school teacher and labor union activist who is running as a Democrat in a contested primary in House District 36 based in Aurora. “We have to be willing to take on fights that we may not win in order to win them in the future.”

Progressives also favor stronger protections for tenants facing eviction and poor living conditions — regulations that some moderates say go too far and drive up costs for landlords.

Some candidates say they want to increase state funding for low-income rental housing.

“We’re not building enough,” said Democrat Kyra deGruy Kennedy, a political consultant who used to work in health care. She’s running in the primary in Lakewood-based House District 30, where her husband, Rep. Chris deGruy Kennedy, is serving his final term. “And we’re not requiring reasonable affordability standards.”

But a number of the business-backed candidates say the state should do more to promote homeownership instead.

“A mortgage is functionally rent control,” said Rebekah Stewart, a Lakewood City Council member and music therapist who is running against deGruy Kennedy. “I want to make sure that folks in my community have an opportunity also to start building generational wealth.”

Stewart says she wants to help negotiate a compromise on the state’s construction defects laws, which govern the extent to which builders are liable to homeowners for shoddy work. Business groups have long blamed liability insurance costs for the lack of new condominiums being built, while some consumer advocates say homeowners need strong protections for an investment as large as a home.

Michael Carter, a criminal defense attorney and school board member who is running against Lindstrom in Aurora, said his top housing priority is providing financial assistance to first-time homebuyers.

“Sometimes people get into affordable housing debates in which they are trying to create lifelong renters, and that doesn’t solve the problem,” said Carter, an Army veteran who said he bought his first home with the help of a federal home loan program for the military.

Espenoza, who was endorsed by the Colorado Association of Realtors, said she used to own a rental property that she leased to family members at a low rate.

“The final straw was the licensing requirements that I was going to have to do in Denver,” Espenoza said. “If you just keep saying we’re going to take it out of the pockets of landlords, it goes directly (out of) the pockets of renters. If you’ve never owned the property, or been a landlord — which the majority of the people who are pushing these issues haven’t — you don’t understand these basic economics.”

The Colorado Apartment Association’s Small Donor Committee has given $6,200 each, the maximum amount allowed, to the campaigns of Democrats Espenoza, Camacho, Michael Carter and Ethnie Treick, all of whom are running for the House in primaries, as well as a lesser amount to Idris Keith and state Rep. Lindsey Daugherty, Democrats who are running in primaries for state Senate.

The Realtor Small Donor Committee has given $6,200 each to Daugherty, Espenoza, Camacho, Carter, Stewart, Keith and Treick.

The economy and taxes

On economic issues, progressives in the legislature have sparred repeatedly with Polis in recent years over worker protections and tax policy, fights that are mirrored in some primaries —but not all.

Rep. Mike Weissman, a term-limited Democrat from Aurora who is now running for state Senate against Keith, has been at the center of the tax policy fight, sponsoring measures to redistribute refunds owed under the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights away from higher earners and toward lower-income workers and the middle class.

He suspects votes like that are why there’s so much untraceable campaign money flowing in his race.

“I think what is going on right now is that certain powerful interests who would rather legislators like me not be doing bills like the ones I’ve done, for example, to make our tax code more fair, are simply trying to prevent somebody like me from continuing to serve our community,” Weissman said.

His Democratic opponent in Senate District 28, attorney Idris Keith, declined in an interview with The Sun to take a position on how TABOR refunds should be distributed.

He chafed at Weissman’s criticisms about campaign spending.

“In eight years he’s done nothing to stop it,” said Keith, who was endorsed by the Colorado Chamber of Commerce. “I agree there’s too much money in politics.”

(Weissman has sponsored a handful of bills aimed at increasing transparency around campaign finance reporting requirements and attempting to limit spending, but dark money in politics has grown exponentially since a 2010 U.S. Supreme Court case.)

When asked why he thought the chamber had endorsed him, Keith replied: “I believe that what they want to see is a strong economy in Colorado. If we don’t have small businesses, if we don’t have this arm of the community that’s locally owned, the bigger chains are going to drive all of the local businesses out of business.”

The race in Senate District 28 has drawn more state-level super PAC spending than any other legislative primary this year, at nearly $1 million through the middle of this week. Keith has benefitted from more than $500,000 by a group with hidden donors, while Weissman has been supported by about $200,000 from Colorado Labor Action and a group called Better Schools For A Stronger Colorado, which is funded by a Portland, Oregon-based nonprofit that doesn’t disclose its donors.

Weismann has been endorsed by the state’s labor community, including the Colorado AFL-CIO and Colorado Education Association.

Polis this year drew the ire of labor organizers when he vetoed three union-backed bills he said would have harmed businesses and schools. Environmental groups have also criticized his administration for not going far enough to regulate oil and gas emissions.

In the Fort Collins-area race for House District 52, environmental nonprofit Conservation Colorado is backing Yara Zokaie, a tax attorney, in her Democratic primary bid against Ethnie Treick, a former lobbyist for Xcel Energy.

Zokaie said she wants to eliminate a major oil and gas industry tax break, the ad valorem tax credit.

“I’m very strong on environmental issues,” Zokaie said. “I am running against an oil and gas lobbyist, so we’re a little different.”

(Treick did not lobby for the oil and gas industry, but for a utility company that uses energy from natural gas to generate electricity.)

Treick dismissed Zokaie’s criticisms and says she’s committed to reducing oil and gas emissions. One of her priorities is making sure utilities reach 100% renewable energy by 2050 —and she said her time as a utility industry lobbyist gives her the experience to get it done.

Treick pointed to legislation on community solar gardens and a 2010 measure aimed at reducing coal plant emissions as a few of her environmental successes.

“I worked at the Colorado Capitol for six legislative sessions helping to pass environmental legislation,” she said. “I have the experience building coalitions, working with diverse groups of stakeholders, and getting legislation through the process and to the governor for signature.”

Treick is benefitting from spending by the state-level super PACs A Whole Lot of People For Change and Assuring Quality Healthcare Access For Colorado, both of which are mostly funded by hidden donors. Zokaie is getting help from Colorado Labor Action and Better Schools For A Stronger Colorado.

Nearly $400,000 had been spent by super PACs in the race through midweek, making it the second most expensive Democratic legislative primary so far this year in terms of outside spending.

Change vs. pragmatism

Treick isn’t alone in touting her ability to work with business groups and other stakeholders to get things done. It came up time and again from candidates aiming to distance themselves from their more progressive counterparts.

“People want to see folks representing them who know how to work together and really get things done and be able to move the needle in real people’s lives,” said Stewart, the Lakewood council member. “And, you know, less time spent fighting with each other and more of that energy used to work together and pass policies that really create opportunities for the people who we’re trying to serve.”

Her opponent, Kyra deGruy Kennedy, agrees — politics and relationship-building are part of the job. “We’re not going to be able to get an assault weapons ban passed if we don’t do the politics,” she noted.

The two candidates align on many issues — such as redistributing TABOR refunds to lower income households and asking voters to approve a progressive income tax that raises taxes on higher earners.

But, deGruy Kennedy said, achieving progressive goals also means having people willing to fight against the status quo in key positions. She points to the Joint Budget Committee — long led by moderates in both parties — as an example.

“We need folks who have an equity lens on JBC, who really understand that money and equity are deeply related and we have to behave like they are as a state,” deGruy Kennedy said.

In other races, candidates are characterizing their race as a fight for the future of the party.

“There cannot be a clear divide between corporate Democrats and progressive Democrats as there is right now in this primary cycle,” said Lindstrom, the Aurora school teacher.

Carter, the Aurora school board member who has been endorsed by the governor, says Lindstrom’s attacks are off-base — and offensive.

“What I think is disingenuous is people trying to label me as not being progressive,” said Carter, who touted his efforts to raise teacher pay in Aurora. “I am a Black lawyer in Arapahoe County. My existence is progress. And so I do not buy into that narrative of one’s more progressive than the other.”

The Senate District 19 Democratic primary is another race where the definition of “progressive” is subjective.

Westminster City Councilman Obi Ezeadi says he is inherently more progressive because of his life experience as a first-generation American.

“We need to stop electing lawyers and CEOs and start electing more nurses, more teachers, more firefighters — more working class people,” Ezeadi told The Sun.

(Ezeadi has heavily funded his own candidacy and his resume includes stints at corporations. His City Council page says he is an investor.)

His opponent, Daugherty, the state representative who is also a lawyer, said her record in the legislature — including on guns and abortion — speaks for itself. Her experience makes her the best choice, she says.

“Look at my voting record and look at the types of bills that I run,” she said. “I think I am progressive.”

Daugherty is getting financial support from A Whole Lot of People For Change, Better Schools For A Stronger Colorado and Assuring Quality Healthcare Access For Colorado — groups that have supported both more liberal and more moderate candidates in Democratic legislative primaries. She’s also been endorsed by the governor and a mix of moderate and progressive Democrats serving in the legislature, as well at the Colorado Chamber of Commerce and the Plumbers Local Union 3.

Ezeadi, who has been endorsed by a handful of sitting Democratic lawmakers himself, as well as the Colorado AFL-CIO and Colorado Immigrants Rights Coalition, said his campaign is funded by individual donors, which is a sign of strength and progressive independence.

About $350,000 had been spent by super PACs through midweek to influence Democratic primary voters in Senate District 19.

Colorado Sun staff writer Sandra Fish contributed to this report.