The results of Colorado’s 2018 midterms will mean two more elections before the end of the year, both for soon-to-be-vacant state Senate seats.

Democratic Sen. Matt Jones of Louisville ran for the Boulder County Board of County Commissioners and won. He will be sworn into office on Jan. 8.

The same happened to Democratic Sen. John Kefalas of Fort Collins, who won a seat on the Larimer County Board of County Commissioners. He also will be sworn in on Jan. 8.

The General Assembly’s eagle-eyed attorneys in Legislative Legal Services anticipated what was to come and wrote on Oct. 30 that there are no rules about when a member of the General Assembly resigns if that lawmaker wins a seat to another office.

In fact, the two senators could continue to hold seats in the state Senate AND serve on the county commissions to which they were elected, the attorneys opined. However, people generally choose not to do that because of the potential for conflicts of interest, the opinion stated.

The state Senate already has a member serving in two capacities: Democratic Sen. Dominick Moreno of Commerce City, who is in line to be the next chair of the Joint Budget Committee, is also a member of the Adams 12 school board. He was appointed to that seat earlier this year and has said he does not intend to run for the seat in the next election, which will be next November.

The notion of holding both seats drew laughs from Kefalas and Jones. That’s not what the voters who elected them to the county commission intended, Kefalas told Colorado Politics.

Once upon a time, a lawmaker anticipating a resignation could time it in such a way that the successor could conceivably hold office longer than the eight years mandated by term limits (two terms in the Senate, four in the House).

A trip down Memory Lane, if you will, to the 2008 session, and the brief sojourn in the state House of Republican Douglas Bruce (yes, the TABOR author and convicted tax felon), who was appointed to the House District 15 seat vacated by Republican Rep. Bill Cadman of Colorado Springs. Cadman went over to the Senate to fill out the term of Sen. Ron May, who resigned in October 2007.

Bruce was appointed to the seat on Dec. 1, 2007, but chose to wait to formally take the oath of office until Jan. 14, 2008, six days after the session started. That delay meant he would serve out Cadman’s term until the November 2008 election, and then could run for four more terms of two years each. In effect, it gave him the possibility of almost nine years in the General Assembly, about a year more than term limits technically allow.

The voters, however, decided otherwise and Bruce lost in the primary to eventual winner Rep. Mark Waller.

The “Bruce option” will not be available to Jones’ and Kefalas’ successors. After Bruce’s move in 2008, the rules were changed to make sure that wouldn’t happen again.

According to state law, a lawmaker’s resignation occurs on the effective date listed in the letter of resignation that is submitted either to the chief clerk of the House or the secretary of the Senate, whichever is appropriate.

Here’s where the rules changed: Once a successor is chosen by a vacancy committee, that person must be sworn in within 30 days of the certification of the appointment by the appropriate chamber or the convening date of the General Assembly, whichever happens first. That would prevent someone from taking the oath of office after the session starts, as Bruce did in 2008.

Kefalas said he is leaning toward a resignation in December. Among those interested in the post: Reps. Jeni Arndt and Joann Ginal, both of Fort Collins.

Those interested in Jones’ seat include Rep. Mike Foote of Lafayette, who chose to run for Boulder district attorney rather than seek another term in the House. He lost in the primary.

Foote is among the most ardent Democrats in the General Assembly on fracking as well as setbacks for oil and gas drilling, as was Jones. For example, during the 2017 session, Foote persuaded the House to kill a supplemental appropriation for the Department of Law. The action was intended by Democrats to send Attorney General Cynthia Coffman a message that she was acting too much like an advocate for the oil and gas industry in lawsuits challenging local government authority on fracking. The House signed off on a second version three weeks later.

Foote won’t be alone in contesting for the seat. Annmarie Jensen, who describes herself as an “advocate for public interest organizations” and who worked on behalf of nonprofits at the state Capitol for many years, also intends to seek the vacancy appointment.

Among Jensen’s clients, until she retired at the beginning of the year: the Erie-based League of Oil and Gas Impacted Coloradans.