Denver senator’s resignation, endorsements rankle Democrats and spark reform calls

Denver Sen. Chris Hansen’s decision to leave the state Capitol for a job in southwestern Colorado while endorsing two Democrats to ascend the political ladder behind him has frustrated party officials and sparked fresh criticism of the process that’s served as a gateway for a third of the state legislature.

“The optics are (expletive),” summarized one Denver Democratic official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe internal party frustrations. “They’re terrible.”

Vacancy committees are already an insular, partisan process in which a relatively small group of party officials and volunteers select a replacement for a state legislator who leaves office early. They’ve long been haltingly accepted as an imperfect convenience, but Hansen’s resignation — and his decision to endorse a House member to replace him and then back another person to replace his replacement — has reinvigorated criticisms of the process and sparked accusations of backroom deals and opaque insider politics.

Of the eight people who confirmed their interest in taking Hansen’s seat, Hansen said he wanted Rep.-elect Sean Camacho, a Denver Democrat just elected to the legislature after winning a pricey primary in June, to replace him in the Senate, potentially before Camacho ever serves a day in the House.

Hansen said he also wanted Katie March, who previously and unsuccessfully ran for the Capitol Hill-based seat that Camacho just won, to take over for Camacho should he move to the Senate.

A separate slate has also taken shape: Rep. Steven Woodrow, a Denver Democrat who represents the Washington Park area in the House, is also seeking Hansen’s seat. He, too, would require a replacement, and he’s linked to Emily Parker, a Democratic Party official who confirmed that she would be interested in Woodrow’s seat should it become available.

That’s set up dueling slates of candidates eying seats that aren’t open yet, creating a dizzying waterfall effect that may determine the representation of tens of thousands of Denver voters — largely without public input. All of the seats are also in Democratic strongholds, meaning whoever prevails in the vacancy committees to come will have an inside track to legislative positions that will be easier to hold for years.

The first vacancy committee, staffed by Democratic elected officials and local party volunteers, will convene in the weeks before or after Hansen formally resigns on Jan. 9. The committee will pick one candidate to serve for the next two years in Senate District 31, which covers a large swath of central and east Denver; the winner will then need to run in a normal election in 2026.

If Hansen is replaced by a sitting legislator — like Camacho or Woodrow — a second vacancy committee, to pick their replacements, would be required. Vacancy committees, which select representatives for tens of thousands of voters, typically range from a few dozen people to more than 100. Some are considerably smaller: Rep. Julia Marvin, a Thornton Democrat, was selected by a vote of 9 to 7 last January.

Woodrow said he was not trying to “hand off” his seat to Parker and that he wasn’t seeking to endorse her as Hansen had backed Camacho and March. Hansen said vacancy committee members were free to choose who they wanted, regardless of whom he endorsed, and both March and Camacho also rejected suggestions of backroom deals bolstering their chances.

Still, Hansen’s resignation and the subsequent vacancy-jockeying — including suggestions that Camacho’s appointment is already assured — have exasperated and angered Democratic officials and donors, according to interviews with more than a dozen people.

“To announce you’re leaving a position… then also be so very public and clear about what your plans are for your replacement, and to clearly have had all of these things in the works, it’s just — that’s not right,” said Rep. Emily Sirota, another Denver Democrat.

Shad Murib, the chair of the Colorado Democratic Party, said he was committed to ensuring no legislator was “anointed or hand-picked” and that suggestions to the contrary “should concern us all.”

Thursday’s resignation of another Democratic state senator, Janet Buckner of Aurora, prompted Murib to call for a change to how replacement legislators are picked, and he acknowledged concerns about lawmakers hand-picking their replacements.

“What Chris wants is what Chris wants,” Murib told The Denver Post, describing Hansen’s endorsements. “Sometimes you don’t get what you want.”

As for Buckner, the state Democratic Party is setting up the process to replace her, executive director Karin Asensio said Friday. No one has yet formally filed to compete for her seat at the coming vacancy committee, but Asensio said she expects interest from sitting House members. Should one replace Buckner, yet another vacancy committee would be needed.

Sen. Nick Hinrichsen, a Pueblo Democrat, was recently the subject of a false rumor that he would resign. While he has no plans to leave the Senate, he said he nonetheless fielded a call from a local precinct committee member because others were already jockeying behind the scene to run for his seat in case a vacancy.

“Misrepresented as a backroom deal”

The other candidates for Hansen’s Senate seat include:

• Matthew Ball, the policy director for Denver Mayor Mike Johnston
• Chris Chiari, the owner of Denver’s Patterson Inn
• June Churchill, Denver’s “bike mayor”
• Jaime Lewis, a member for the Regional Transportation District board
• Shaneis Malouff, the chief of staff for the Auraria Higher Education Center
• Monica VanBuskirk, who was formerly the chief policy officer for Colorado’s health exchange

Several of those candidates told The Post they only learned of Hansen’s resignation from the news or on election night, when it began to spread in Democratic circles. Any advanced notice would allow a candidate or their supporters to begin calling members of the vacancy committee to lobby for support. Though Hansen’s resignation was an open secret by Election Day, he also didn’t fully confirm his plans — including when he planned to resign — until a week later.

Adrian Felix, a former secretary for the Denver Democrats, said he received a call from a lobbyist a week before Election Day — and before Hansen’s resignation was public knowledge — inquiring about a vacancy committee in Hansen’s district.

It’s unclear when others knew. Hansen told The Post he didn’t formally accept his new job until after Election Day, but that he was contacted about the role in early September. He said he spoke with Camacho in late October about the seat.

Camacho, just elected to represent Capitol Hill’s House District 6, said that though he had spoken with Hansen several times before his resignation became public, Hansen’s future was “only rumors” then. He denied that he had concrete, advanced knowledge of Hansen’s imminent departure.

He said he wanted to move to the Senate to improve Latino representation in the chamber.

“You’ve got to go make your case to 100-plus people who have individual processes,” Camacho said of the vacancy committee. “I don’t understand how that is misinterpreted as a backroom deal.”

Camacho raised more than $200,000 — plus tens of thousands more in outside spending — to beat Rep. Elisabeth Epps in a June primary. Because Hansen’s replacement could be picked before the legislative session starts in early January, Camacho could move to the Senate without having served a day in the seat to which he was elected.

Steven Paletz, who was briefly the registered agent for a spending committee that supported Camacho during the primary, spoke with Camacho when he learned of his plans to pursue Hansen’s seat. He, like two other donors contacted by The Post, declined to describe his private conversations with the lawmaker.

But, Paletz said, “I think that Democrats can learn a lot from the failures of backroom dealing, and I think them putting everything in the light and putting it up for all voters to have a say is really important.”

He said he was also concerned about who would replace Camacho, should his newly won seat become open. House District 6 is one of the most progressive districts in the state, and Epps is among the most left-wing members of the legislature. Paletz noted that the district also had a large Jewish population; Epps’ outburst against Israel a year ago sparked the campaign to recruit Camacho and unseat her. (Epps did not return a message seeking comment.)

“I supported him for HD6,” Paletz said of Camacho, “and I think he would be great for HD6.”

A frozen committee

Shortly after Hansen’s resignation became fully public, supporters of various candidates — including Camacho and Woodrow — attempted to join the vacancy committee, officials said. The rush prompted James Reyes, the chair of the Democratic Party of Denver, to freeze any additions to the committee, and he also instructed staff not to share the list publicly.

The list has more than 120 members, according to a copy obtained by The Post. Some candidates have also had the list for most of November. The spreadsheet does not say when individual members joined.

Vacancy committees are standing bodies even when a seat isn’t open. They’re made up of elected officials, volunteer precinct organizers and other party officials.

Reyes did not return several messages sent over the past week. Murib said he asked Reyes to freeze the committee, which he said was standard to avoid the potential for “stacking.”

On Thursday, after Buckner’s resignation became public and the need for yet another vacancy committee appeared, Murib acknowledged the concerns swirling in Denver.

“Speculation that lawmakers strategize their resignations to hand-pick their replacements, or climb the ladder of elected office, is also a growing sentiment among the public,” he said in a statement. “While we have worked hard to prevent this from ever occurring, it is incumbent on us to do everything we can to bolster trust in our democracy by acknowledging and addressing this issue proactively.”

Hansen, who was a rumored state treasurer candidate before accepting the La Plata Electric Association job, said he rejected the idea that a backroom deal had been struck to boost Camacho and March,

“It’s going to be up to the vacancy committee to decide who they want to select,” he said. “People ignore endorsements or they think they have importance; that’s up for the committee to decide.”

March confirmed her interest in Camacho’s seat, should it become available. She’d unsuccessfully run against Epps (in a race that also briefly included Camacho) during a contentious 2022 primary. Her husband is also a veteran political operative who was involved in directing financial support for Camacho and against Epps earlier this year.

March echoed Hansen and Camacho’s comments that the vacancy committee was a public process that, she said, “can’t be gamed.”

“I think the process has a lot of challenges and problems,” she said, “but that is the system that we have and that is the only way to get elected.”

Those “challenges and problems” have received renewed attention in the wake of Hansen’s departure and the various machinations that have started churning to replace him. Roughly a third of the 100-member state legislature — including Hansen and Woodrow — were at one point chosen by vacancy committees to replace elected lawmakers.

That’s the product of structural issues, said Hansen, who holds degrees from Oxford University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Legislators work long hours and earn between $41,500 and $44,000, which helps drive some resignations (Hansen’s predecessor at the La Plata Electric Association earned $545,000 in her final year, according to the Durango Herald).