More than 200 young politicos – and their supporters – showed up at a Capitol Hill bar on Jan. 11 at New Era Colorado’s annual celebration of the Legislature’s opening day. Lawmakers, campaign operatives and candidates rubbed shoulders with young activists and raised toasts to an ambitious legislative agenda unveiled earlier that day down the street at the Capitol.

New Era executive director Steve Fenberg, who founded the organization in 2006 when he was a CU student, welcomed revelers and vowed the organization would register tens of thousands of young voters in the run-up to this year’s election.

“Part of what you saw today is that there is a really aggressive effort from our party going forward to make aggressive changes,” said state Sen. Michael Johnston, D-Denver. He pointed to two bills that died last year that are back again this session: one sponsored by state Sen. Pat Steadman, D-Denver, establishing civil unions for same-sex couples and another introduced by Johnston and state Sen. Angela Giron, D-Pueblo, to grant a tuition break for undocumented Colorado students at state colleges and universities.

The boisterous crowd filled Prohibition, a sleek watering hole that replaced a dive bar a few blocks from the Capitol last spring.

Johnston praised New Era’s work and charged the crowd with delivering young voters to the polls this year.”What I believe this session is about, and what I believe New Era is about,” he said, “is that if the voice of young people in this state is heard, if we both go out again to register another 30 or 50,000 people, like we did in the last cycle, and if 90 percent of those people turn out to vote, what you will see is a Colorado that actually lives up to the values and the aspirations that you hold.”

– Ernest@coloradostatesman.com