Once again, Democratic women voters have demonstrated their dominance in selecting candidates. Dem women out-voted Dem men in the primary by more than 100,000 ballots. On the GOP side, men and women voters are almost even.

It’s ironic that Dem women’s choice for U.S. Senate was former Gov. John Hickenlooper or former House Speaker Andrew Romanoff.  Hickenlooper’s win comes on the basis of another dominance — Dem voters 45-74 out-balloting Dem voters 18-44 by about 200,000 ballots. Dem women 45-74 outvoted all Dems 18-44. Throw in about 100,000 voters over 75, with Dem women exceeding Dem men by about 15,000 votes, and the age bias built on Dem women voters is in the bones. 

The difference between age bias and Dem women voter dominance is that age consistently wins out in policy. Inside the age bias is a long-lasting belief in incremental change and don’t rock the boat social policy that was an outcome of baby boomer politics of the ’60s and ’70s, when President Richard Nixon, with his southern strategy, defeated Sen. Hubert Humphrey and ended President Lyndon Johnson’s progressive feats. 

Hickenlooper, born in 1952, is on the early end of the baby boomer generation. Romanoff, born in 1966, is at the tail end. Hickenlooper identifies as moderate and pro-business, a full-throated supporter of capitalism and free markets. Romanoff supports Medicare for all and the Green New Deal.

With current state House Speaker KC Becker term limited, state government in 2021 will likely be led by three men, Gov. Jared Polis, Senate President Leroy Garcia, and current House Majority Leader Alec Garnett.  U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette will be one of only two women elected to represent the state at the federal level.

Colorado’s legislature has many women, and that is unlikely to change in 2021. But bills representing issues important to women face rough sledding as they often involve increasing taxes or expense to businesses. The Democratic governors of the state, elected by women majorities since 2006, have been unwilling to change this dynamic.

Financing public education is the longest and dreariest example. For over a decade, public k-12 schools have been underfunded. At the same time that Colorado’s governors constrained dollars for public schools, they supported legislation that forced school districts to spend more money on fruitless standardized testing, test preparation, teacher assessments based on testing, and PERA. 

Governors Bill Ritter, John Hickenlooper and now Jared Polis did/have not put their shoulders to the wheel of convincing voters to change Colorado’s constitution to support public school financing based on tax reform.

Now it looks like parents will have to deal with their school children in a “hybrid” learning situation in 2020-21, with their kids in school part-time and at home part-time. This change will put working-age women in a huge bind for child care. A bill to increase the child care credit failed. Of seven bills supporting early childhood care, only one passed with minimal state funding.

Family leave was another disaster. Ultimately no bill was offered, even though the issue was top of the line for Democrats in 2020. Business interests don’t like the expense and COVID provided financial cover for postponing the issue. Fortunately, a sick leave bill did pass. It took the sponsorship of House and Senate leaders, Speaker Becker and Senate Majority Leader Steve Fenberg, to get that legislation through.

As of now, women’s voting dominance in the Democratic party is not enough to move more progressive social policy through the sausage maker. Social change is in the air, certainly, with Black Lives Matter finally, after sixty years of mostly ignored civil rights struggle, ascending in police reform. Medicare was passed in 1965, in large part to support the many women over 65 then who had no medical insurance. So far no dice for extending that idea in 2020.

At some point soon, Democratic women voter dominance, Democratic women political leadership, and age will converge. There will be a tipping point for women that, among other achievements, will keep our air clean and our mountaintops shining in Colorado sunlight.