Our Democratic Elected Officials

Local Elected Officials

Randy Fischer: House District 53

Randy has sponsored legislation that addresses community priorities, including strengthening our economy, improving our school, curbing the cost of health care, safeguarding our water and our air, increasing funding for higher education, supporting clean renewable energy, protecting families, children and seniors, and beating back special interests.

Randy has served on the House Transportation and Energy Committee; the House Education Committee; the Severance Tax Interim Committee; and on the Agriculture, Livestock and Natural Resources Committee.

Thanks to so many of you for contacting him with your ideas, concerns and questions, and for attending my town hall meetings, community forums and coffees. It is because of input from involved citizens that he knows better how to serve you.

Randy sincerely hopes that you will put your support behind him again. He pledges to continue to listen to your ideas, to remain open and accessible, to work hard on your behalf, and to stand up for you in the Colorado Legislature.

http://www.randyfischer.org/
http://www.state.co.us/gov_dir/leg_dir/House/members/Hou53.htm

John Kefalas: House District 52

John Kefalas has been involved in local, national and international peace, justice and environmental work for 30 years. He joined the Peace Corps in 1979 as an Agricultural Extension Worker in El Salvador. He visited the northern border of Nicaragua with Witness for Peace, worked in Chiapas, Mexico, with Schools for Chiapas and participated in a delegation to Israel/Palestine with The Compassionate Listening Project.


He has served on the boards of or worked with such Colorado and community-based groups as: the Colorado Housing Investment Fund Coalition, Affordable Housing Coalition of Larimer County, Northern Colorado Cross-Disabilities Coalition, Fort Collins Area Interfaith Council, Older Americans Coalition, Fort Collins Housing Authority, Colorado Women's Lobby, Colorado Consumer Health Initiative, Governor's Task Force on Welfare Reform, Martinez Park Neighborhood Association, the Colorado Children's Campaign and the Colorado Fiscal Policy Institute.

John most recently directed the Colorado Progressive Coalition's Tax Fairness Project, a grassroots organizing campaign that educates Coloradans about the impacts of state and federal budget decisions on families and communities and mobilizes people to change unfair tax and fiscal policies.

John is a 1978 graduate of Colorado State University and has Masters of Art in Teaching from Fairleigh Dickinson University in New Jersey. He was a teacher in the Poudre School District, a migrant health outreach worker for Larimer County, an employment and training counselor for Larimer County and an advisor for Project Self-Sufficiency of Loveland-Fort Collins. He worked with Catholic Charities as a public policy advocate and community development coordinator for seven years.

He is a husband, father and grandfather who has been married for 25 years and has two sons, both of whom received their education in the Poudre School District. His younger son, Tim, is a recent graduate of Colorado State University; the other is married, a father and serves in the United States Army in Germany. He served in Iraq from 2004 – 2005. Harlan just completed a 15-month deployment in Afghanistan and has been reunited with his wife and two daughters. John's wife Beth works as the Special Music Coordinator at Redeemer Lutheran Church in Fort Collins.

John has worked on community issues such as the economy, health care, education, the environment and energy, public safety and effective government/deliberative democracy/civic engagement. For more information on his opinions of these issues, go to his web site at http://www.johnkefalas.com/.

http://www.state.co.us/gov_dir/leg_dir/House/members/Hou52.htm

Bob Bacon: Senate District 14

As a citizen of Fort Collins for over 40 years, Bob knows the community well. Teaching and working with many scores of students and their parents, his many contacts while on the school board, as well as in the legislature, have allowed him to have firsthand knowledge of issues and concerns affecting our citizens.

Education
Bob is a passionate advocate for education, from early childhood, through K-12, and on to community college and university. As just two examples of his extensive commitments to the full spectrum of education in Colorado, in the 2008 state legislature, Bob authored bills to permit local school districts to provide resources for full-day kindergarten, and he successfully advocated for funding for buildings at both CSU and the Larimer Campus of Front Range Community College.

Economy
Jobs, particularly in the high tech sector, are threatened in our community. The state must do all it can to encourage and aid the entrepreneurial efforts and retraining of those who have suffered from downsizing and outsourcing. In the 2008 state legislature, Bob led the fight to create bioscience grants totaling $27.5 million for CSU and other universities. Bob supported and sponsored numerous economic stimulus bills in the 2008 legislature, including a bill to incentivize small business job creation, and to reduce taxes on airplane manufacturing in Colorado. The highlight of Bob’s economic work in the 2008 legislature was his sponsorship of SB 170 which allowed a 20 year extension of the Downtown Development Authority in Fort Collins. Governor Ritter came to Fort Collins and signed the bill in Old Town Square.

Health care
Affordable and readily available health care is a concern to all Coloradans. Fixing our health care crisis is a major undertaking, and Bob will continue to work hard in the state legislature to move health care reform forward. In the 2008 legislature, Bob voted to give healthcare to 50,000 children who did not have health insurance, and to allow parents to keep children under the age of 25 on their family health insurance. Much more work needs to be done to address our health care crisis, and Bob is committed to the work.

Environment
Bob believes that what’s good for the environment is good for the economy, and Bob knows that Fort Collins citizens want a healthy and clean environment. For the last four years, Bob has received a 100% rating from Colorado Conservation Voters for his pro-environment votes in the state legislature. Fort Collins citizens have consistently voted to support open space programs, and Bob authored a bill to purchase over 5,000 acres in the Livermore area to add to the Rabbit Creek natural area for the enjoyment of Larimer County citizens. In the 2008 legislature, Bob was a co-sponsor of the bill to help local communities protect land and ground water supplies from radioactive waste produced by uranium mining.

2008 Senate Committee Assignments
Chair, Local Government Committee
Chair, Capital Development Committee
Member, Education Committee, Judiciary Committee and Capitol Building Advisory Committee

Bob welcomes your phone calls and emails. As your State Senator, he pledges to listen and to fight for the best, fair, and visionary public policy to address the needs of the citizens of our city and state.

http://www.baconforsenate.com
info@baconforsenate.com
http://www.state.co.us/gov_dir/leg_dir/Senate/members/Sen14.htm

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State Elected Officials

Joseph Garcia: Lieutenant Governor

Before he was elected Lieutenant Governor, Joe was president of Colorado State University - Pueblo. During his four-year tenure at the University, Joe helped the university overcome financial difficulties, stagnant enrollment and a mediocre reputation through aggressive marketing and non-traditional solutions.

For example, Joe helped to energize the campus by working with local alumni and parents to bring back a football program that was abandoned in 1984. Men's wrestling and women's track and field also made their return and a new football stadium was constructed entirely with privately-donated funds. Other new facilities included new residence halls and a new student recreation complex, while other facilities were significantly renovated and expanded. The effort contributed to a two-fold increase in freshman enrollment at the school in only two years.

While president of CSU-Pueblo, Joe also served as co-chair of the Governor's P-20 Education Task Force, helping guide the development of a significant education reform agenda. He also served as one of three Colorado commissioners on the Western Interstate Commission on Higher Education (WICHE), an organization that he now chairs.

Joe earlier served as president of the second-largest community college in Colorado, Pikes Peak Community College. There, he oversaw three campuses that serve more than 16,000 students annually. Before serving at PPCC, he was a White House appointee serving as the Secretary's Representative for the Rocky Mountain States for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

He also served on former Gov. Roy Romer's Cabinet as the Executive Director of the Colorado Department of Regulatory Agencies, where he managed and maintained budgetary responsibility for agencies such as the Divisions of Banking, Financial Services, Real Estate, Insurance, Civil Rights, Securities and the Public Utilities Commission.

Joe has also been actively involved as a board member for many non-profit agencies such as the YMCAs of Pueblo, Colorado Springs and Denver, Pikes Peak Legal Aid, the Colorado Springs and Pueblo Economic Development Agencies, The Colorado Housing and Finance Authority (where he served as Board President), the Pikes Peak Child Nursery Centers Inc., the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities, and numerous other civil rights, educational, and cultural organizations.

Born into a military family with deep roots in northern New Mexico, Joe has lived in cities ranging from the Western United States to Western Europe. Joe earned a business degree from the University of Colorado and a juris doctorate from Harvard Law School.

An avid mountain climber and mountain biker in the summer and snowboarder in the winter, Joe could not imagine calling anywhere else his home and is proud to have passed his love of Colorado and the outdoors on to his four children, Mateo, Dolores, Joaquin and Jose.

http://www.colorado.gov/ltgovernor/

John Hickenlooper: Governor of Colorado

Gov. John Hickenlooper's ambition for Colorado is even bigger than his name.

A geologist-turned brewpub pioneer who had never run for political office (not even student council) before running for Denver Mayor in 2003, John was elected Governor of Colorado on Nov. 2, 2010. His boundless energy, enthusiasm and creativity are generating tremendous optimism and confidence in Colorado's future.

After being laid-off as a geologist in the 1980s, John struggled for a while until he came up with the crazy idea to open Colorado's first brewpub. As John likes to say, "I didn't know anything about starting a business. I didn't even know what a pro forma was."

But John went to the library, got books on how to write a business plan and started the long process of making his vision a reality. Although he had to interview with more than 20 banks, he eventually opened The Wynkoop Brewing Co. in the dilapidated warehouse district of downtown Denver. His vision proved successful, and his brewpub and restaurant are now mainstays of Denver's community, and the beating heart of the lower downtown neighborhood.

As the mayor of Denver, John's business abilities, partnered with the team he put together at the city, played important roles in the success he achieved after taking office. In 2005, after serving only two years as mayor, Time Magazine placed him among the top five "big-city" mayors in the country. In 2008, John brought a new level of attention to the Mile High City, successfully marketing Denver as an ideal place to host the 2008 Democratic National Convention.

Born in Narberth, Pa., John lost his father at a young age and was raised by his notoriously frugal mother. Having lived through the Great Depression, John's mother never wore a dress she didn't sew herself, and she washed plastic wrap and aluminum foil for reuse.

John has carried those lessons of frugality and budget consciousness throughout his life, and as an entrepreneur and politician, they have been crucial to his success.

John moved to Colorado in 1981, after earning a master's in Geology at Wesleyan University, and found work with Buckhorn Petroleum. With the collapse of the oil industry in the 1980s, John was laid-off, providing him with the opportunity to tap his entrepreneurial skills.

When he opened the Wynkoop Brewing Co. in 1988, the Lower Downtown section of Denver was a rough neighborhood. To the surprise of his business partners, John made a point of advertising near-by restaurants in his brewpub. Though his friends told him he was nuts, John understood that the real competition was television: if they could create an attractive atmosphere that would pull people off their couches, every restaurant in the area would benefit. His efforts helped revitalize the area and turned "LoDo" into the dynamic, bustling community it is today.

As Denver began the construction of its new football stadium, John got involved in the negotiations, ensuring that the new stadium stay true to its original name, the famed Mile High Stadium. Ever the believer in good marketing, John was concerned that the city was about to lose its one landmark with "Mile High" in its title. His work helped create the first brokered naming deal in the nation, for what is now Invesco Field at Mile High Stadium. John's leadership on the deal and his connection to the community got his friends talking about a run for mayor.

In 2003, without ever having run for public office, John entered the race for mayor. Despite opposition from seasoned political veterans, he captured the attention of voters with his outsiders' perspective and business prowess, and he won by a landslide 2-to-1 margin.

Before ever taking office, he tossed aside regional conflicts - announcing to suburban mayors that the days of "Denver first" were over. John pushed aside partisanship and reached out to Colorado's Republican Governor to bridge a new, city-state partnership. Just like he did in his early days in LoDo, John knew that as the state and region succeeded, so would Denver and vice-versa.

As mayor, John consistently honed a creative, innovative and efficient edge to government. He overhauled the city's financial system, created the city's first chief financial officer and streamlined many City services.

In 2005, John introduced GreenPrint Denver, a plan to improve Denver's urban environment by increasing efficiency and decreasing greenhouse gas emissions, promoting "green" urban design, and implementing an aggressive waste reduction campaign. The effort has reduced energy use at Denver International Airport by 11 percent per passenger, increased recycling throughout the city by 69 percent, and reduced water use at City Hall by a million gallons per year.

In 2008, John successfully marketed Denver's long-shot bid for the 2008 Democratic National Convention. As promised, John avoided using public funds for the campaign. Instead, he traveled the country to garner support from leaders in the Democratic community, procuring the necessary funding to host the convention. The event put Colorado on the international stage and brought more than $260 million into the local economy.

John's most ambitious campaign, his mission to reduce homelessness in Denver, saw great success. Denver's Road Home provides employment assistance and housing for the homeless. The success of this program become a model for other cities, illustrating how they can combat homelessness within the inner city.

Overall, his tireless efforts to improve the city of Denver paid-off. Despite shrinking budgets and managing the city through two national recessions, a recent citizen survey found that Denver's overall community quality rating improved to 86 percent in 2010 from 78 percent in 2002.

John ran for Governor of Colorado on a jobs creation and economic development platform. In using his experience as a jobs creator and consensus builder in government, he wants to increase opportunity for the people of Colorado.

John has the experience to manage our state through these tough economic times, and he recognizes what businesses need to grow in order for them to hire more employees. He can do more than just talk about making government more efficient, he can point to his accomplishments as Mayor of a major city.

And perhaps most importantly, John has a track record of bringing people together to solve problems instead of stoking the same old partisan squabbles.

His ambition is for Colorado is a shared ambition - that we all join together as One Colorado to solve the challenges faces our state. Because this is Our Colorado.

http://www.colorado.gov/governor/

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Federal Elected Officials

Michael Bennet: US Senate

Michael Bennet served most recently as the Superintendent of the Denver Public Schools. As a dedicated public servant with comprehensive experience as a businessman, Michael has a proven record of facing tough tasks at critical times. As Superintendent, Michael worked to improve student achievement and classroom performance, while also overseeing a halt to years of budgetary cuts in the Denver Public Schools. While serving as Chief of Staff to Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper, Michael was credited with leading the way on balancing a historic budget deficit. Prior to his service to the city, Michael was a Managing Director at the Anschutz Investment Company, where he managed the restructuring of over $3 billion in corporate debt. Representing Colorado as our state’s U.S. Senator, Michael will use his understanding and leadership on complex financial and economic issues to be a voice for Colorado’s working families.

Almost four years ago, Michael inherited a School District whose achievement rates were flat and, where, for year after year, budgets were cut. With the help of Denver Public Schools’ principals and teachers, Michael has turned this around. Achievement and graduation rates are up, with Denver’s kids growing faster than all the kids in the state on every single test at every single grade level with the exception of one math test.

As Superintendent, Michael worked hard to end the annual cycle of budget cuts at the Denver Public Schools. 2008 was the first in five years that the district did not have to cut its budget, and this year Denver was able to invest an additional $18 million in its schools and classrooms to enrich the academic environment for children. As a result, programs such as comprehensive Early Childhood Education have been enacted allowing over 2,000 four year olds to now have a full day Early Childhood Education. Additionally, for the first time in Denver’s history, over 90% of five year olds have access to full-day kindergarten. These improvements are closing the achievement gap suffered by low-income children.

Michael, working with the Denver Classroom Teachers Association, revolutionized Procomp, a system of differentiated pay that pays teachers more for driving student achievement, serving in a high poverty school, or bringing a special set of talents, like the teaching of math or special education. Although the changes proposed were controversial, nearly 80% of Denver’s teachers voted for the new proposal.

Prior to serving as Superintendent of the Denver Public Schools, Michael served for two years as Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper’s Chief of Staff. Michael oversaw the balancing of an historic budget deficit, the renegotiation of several collective bargaining agreements, and a complete redesign of the police oversight function. Michael, along with the Mayor, was widely credited with putting together a first rate, diverse team to lead the City through unprecedented fiscal challenges.

Prior to moving to Denver, Michael served as Counsel to the Deputy Attorney General at the Department of Justice during the Clinton Administration.

Michael earned his bachelor’s degree with honors from Wesleyan University and his law degree from Yale Law School, where he was Editor-in-Chief of The Yale Law Journal.

Michael married Susan Daggett, a successful natural resources lawyer, in 1997. Michael and Susan are the proud parents of three daughters, Caroline (9), Halina (7), and Anne (4).

http://www.bennetforcolorado.com/

Mark Udall: US Senate

Mark began his career in public service in the Colorado State House in 1997. Since 1998, he has represented Colorado's Second Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives. He is currently running to serve Colorado in the United States Senate.

Mark is known for his willingness to elevate the policy debate above partisan politics in order to find workable solutions to difficult political issues. Most recently, he worked across party lines to pass legislation to reduce wildfire risk and bark-beetle infestation in Colorado, and to pass legislation to protect the natural beauty of the Roan Plateau while still allowing some access to the area's mineral wealth.

Mark is also known for taking leadership in difficult political environments. He voted against the rush to war with Iraq in 2002 and against the PATRIOT Act, despite immense political pressure to support both bills in the wake of September 11. As co-chair of the House Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Caucus, Mark championed efforts to provide government support for the development of sustainable and renewable energy resources before energy resource diversity was widely recognized as an essential component to a sound energy policy.

Throughout his time in public office, Mark has worked hard to promote issues important to Coloradans. He is a member of the Armed Services Committee and has co-authored legislation to strengthen our military and to develop new strategies for combating terrorism. Mark has also served on the House Natural Resources Committee, House Small Business Committee, and House Agriculture Committee. He has successfully passed legislation promoting energy conservation, developing bio-mass fuels and protecting Colorado's wilderness from the effects of climate change. He also is responsible for sparking the clean-up of Rocky Flats—turning the closed nuclear trigger facility into a wildlife refuge.
Mark believes that public service requires a commitment to helping Coloradans make their government work for them. He has a strong record in responding to constituent concerns, and providing assistance to citizens working with government agencies.

Mark lives in Eldorado Springs, Colorado. His wife, Maggie Fox, is a prominent environmental attorney. He has two children, Jed who is a freshman in college, and Tess who is a senior in high school. He is an experienced outdoorsman and mountain climber. He has climbed many of the toughest mountains in the world-including all of Colorado's "Fourteeners."

http://www.markudall.com/
http://markudall.house.gov/HoR/co02

Sen. Udall's Local Contact:

Barack Obama: President of the United States

Background
Barack Obama was born in Hawaii on August 4th, 1961. His father, Barack Obama Sr., was born and raised in a small village in Kenya, where he grew up herding goats with his own father, who was a domestic servant to the British. Barack's mother, Ann Dunham, grew up in small-town Kansas. Her father worked on oil rigs during the Depression, and then signed up for World War II after Pearl Harbor, where he marched across Europe in Patton's army. Her mother went to work on a bomber assembly line, and after the war, they studied on the G.I. Bill, bought a house through the Federal Housing Program, and moved west to Hawaii.

It was there, at the University of Hawaii, where Barack's parents met. His mother was a student there, and his father had won a scholarship that allowed him to leave Kenya and pursue his dreams in America. Barack's father eventually returned to Kenya, and Barack grew up with his mother in Hawaii, and for a few years in Indonesia. Later, he moved to New York, where he graduated from Columbia University in 1983.

Remembering the values of empathy and service that his mother taught him, Barack put law school and corporate life on hold after college and moved to Chicago in 1985, where he became a community organizer with a church-based group seeking to improve living conditions in poor neighborhoods plagued with crime and high unemployment.

The group had some success, but Barack had come to realize that in order to truly improve the lives of people in that community and other communities, it would take not just a change at the local level, but a change in our laws and in our politics.

He went on to earn his law degree from Harvard in 1991, where he became the first African-American president of the Harvard Law Review. Soon after, he returned to Chicago to practice as a civil rights lawyer and teach constitutional law. Finally, his advocacy work led him to run for the Illinois State Senate, where he served for eight years. In 2004, he became the third African American since Reconstruction to be elected to the U.S. Senate.

Political Career
It has been the rich and varied experiences of Barack Obama's life - growing up in different places with people who had differing ideas - that have animated his political journey. Amid the partisanship and bickering of today's public debate, he still believes in the ability to unite people around a politics of purpose - a politics that puts solving the challenges of everyday Americans ahead of partisan calculation and political gain.

In the Illinois State Senate, this meant working with both Democrats and Republicans to help working families get ahead by creating programs like the state Earned Income Tax Credit, which in three years provided over $100 million in tax cuts to families across the state. He also pushed through an expansion of early childhood education, and after a number of inmates on death row were found innocent, Senator Obama worked with law enforcement officials to require the videotaping of interrogations and confessions in all capital cases.

In the U.S. Senate, he has focused on tackling the challenges of a globalized, 21st century world with fresh thinking and a politics that no longer settles for the lowest common denominator. His first law was passed with Republican Tom Coburn, a measure to rebuild trust in government by allowing every American to go online and see how and where every dime of their tax dollars is spent. He has also been the lead voice in championing ethics reform that would root out Jack Abramoff-style corruption in Congress.

As a member of the Veterans' Affairs Committee, Senator Obama has fought to help Illinois veterans get the disability pay they were promised, while working to prepare the VA for the return of the thousands of veterans who will need care after Iraq and Afghanistan. Recognizing the terrorist threat posed by weapons of mass destruction, he traveled to Russia with Republican Dick Lugar to begin a new generation of non-proliferation efforts designed to find and secure deadly weapons around the world. And knowing the threat we face to our economy and our security from America's addiction to oil, he's working to bring auto companies, unions, farmers, businesses and politicians of both parties together to promote the greater use of alternative fuels and higher fuel standards in our cars.

Whether it's the poverty exposed by Katrina, the genocide in Darfur, or the role of faith in our politics, Barack Obama continues to speak out on the issues that will define America in the 21st century. But above all his accomplishments and experiences, he is most proud and grateful for his family. His wife, Michelle, and his two daughters, Malia, 10, and Sasha, 7, live on Chicago's South Side.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/

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