Colorado House, Election and Leadership updates

Posted by Katie March on November 15, 2024

With a large ballot drop finally coming in from El Paso county, it is looking likely that the House Democrats will lose their super majority in 2025-2026 legislative session. Three democratic seats look to flip to Republican control. The first, in House District 50 held by Democratic Representative Mary Young was called in favor of Republican Ryan Gonzalez in Weld County. The second, will be heading to recount in House District 19, where Republican Dan Woog is up 123 votes over Democrat Jillaire McMillan in Boulder and Weld counties. The third, willalso head to a recount in House District 16, which has Republican Rebecca Keltie up only seven votes (yes, you read that correctly, SEVEN) over incumbent Democratic Representative Stephanie Vigil in El Paso County.  Recounts generally do not change more than a few votes in Colorado, so Woog and Keltie are expected to emerge as the winners in their seats, although with such narrow margins, mort sources are waiting to officially call the races.

What does this mean for Democrats in the House? A lot of people are wondering. The super majority grants a few special powers to a majority party – certain actions like the ability to refer measures to the ballot, override a veto, expel a member of the legislature, and change certain rules, require a 2/3 or super majority vote. However many of the most powerful actions require a super majority in both chambers, which the Democrats did not have last year in the Senate either. So, the power of the super majority had not been used often in the House, even when the Democrats held it.

A more immediate impact of losing seats in the House will be that we will see a change in the make-up of some committees. The majority’s margin of membership directly relates to the proportion of members that they are allowed to have on committees. This means that with fewer members, the Democrats will have fewer committees that have super majority margins. With tighter margins, some bills may not be able to pass if they do not win the support of more moderate Democrats or without bi-partisan support.

Also, the House Democrats concluded their Leadership elections on Monday, after the Senate Democrats and both Republican caucuses finalized their results last Friday – read more here.  The results were to stick with largely the same leaders as last year:

• Re-elected Julie McCluskie (D-Dillon) as Speaker of the House
• Re-elected Monica Duran (D-Jeffco) as the House Majority Leader
• Re-elected Rep. Jennifer Bacon (D-Denver) as Assistant Majority Leader
• Re-elected Co-Caucus Chair Rep. Mandy Lindsay and elected Rep. Junie Joseph and
• Elected Majority Whip Rep. Matt Martinez and re-elected Rep. Iman Jodeh
• The Joint Budget Committee appointments are made by the Speaker but we anticipate those to be Rep. Shannon Bird and Rep. Emily Sirota for another year.

If you have a relationship with one of the members of the newly elected (or re-elected) House leadership, I encourage you to reach out to them and offer your congratulations. You can find many of their legislative emails through this link, or you can reach out to Katie at [email protected] to get their email or cell phone number.

Posted in Advocacy on the Move, Colorado Advocacy.