The November 2022 state legislative elections in Colorado were swept by the Democrats. The lower house of the state legislature – the state House of Representatives – is now in session at the state capitol in Denver. There are 46 Democrats and 19 Republicans.

The Colorado state legislature is organized on a political party (partisan) basis. The party with the most members gets to name the key leadership posts and select the committee chairpersons. The Democrats are the majority party, so they have named the key leadership posts such as speaker of the House and majority leader.

In the Colorado state House of Representatives, we counted a total of 18 Democratic Party leaders – seven in formal leadership posts and 11 serving as committee chairs. Of these 18, four were men and 14 were women.

We also checked to see if state House of Representatives leaders were from safe Democratic seats (55% or more Democratic in statewide general elections) or were from competitive seats (46% to 54% Democratic in statewide general elections). It turned out 14 of the 18 were from safe Democratic seats and only four were from competitive seats.

That is important. State representatives from safe Democratic seats are more likely to serve the more liberal and progressive members of the Democratic Party. State representatives from competitive seats, who have had to appeal to general election voters in order to get elected, are mainly interested in advancing the more moderate views of all voters.

Let’s take a closer look at the Democratic Party leadership in the Colorado House of Representatives:

Representative Julie McCluskie (District 13) is from Dillon in Summit County. She was designated speaker of the House by her Democratic colleagues in the House. She has served in the House for four years, starting in 2019. She previously was chair of the state legislature’s most powerful financial committee – the Joint Budget Committee (JBC).

Prior to being elected to the House, McCluskie served as director of public communications for the Summit County school district.

McCluskie’s selection as speaker illustrates the rise of importance of the ski counties to the Democratic Party in Colorado. Summit County contains a number of ski resorts such as Breckenridge. These ski counties have voted increasingly Democratic in recent decades and are now an important part of the Democratic statewide coalition.

Unlike most of the other Democratic leaders, McCluskie sits in a competitive seat that has averaged 53% Democratic in recent statewide elections.

Monica Duran (District 23) of Wheat Ridge, a north Denver suburb, will serve as majority leader in the Colorado House. She has served four years in the House and will be the top assistant helping the speaker with her organizing duties.

Duran watched her mother and siblings “march alongside Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta fighting for better working conditions, fair wages, and the right to unionize.” She notes she was a domestic violence survivor and a homeless single mom of a young son. She worked for more than three decades in the dental industry, including at a dental practice in Jefferson County.

Duran was elected from a safe Democratic seat that routinely votes 61% Democratic in statewide general elections. She is a member of the Colorado Democratic Latino Caucus.

Jennifer Bacon (District 7) of Denver will be the assistant majority leader. Previous to election to the Colorado state legislature, Bacon was vice-president of the Denver School Board. A native of Miami, Florida, she received a bachelor’s degree from Tulane University and a law degree from the College of William and Mary.

Bacon first took her seat in the Colorado House at the start of the 2021 session. Her district is quite safe Democratic, having averaged 83% Democratic in previous statewide elections. She is African American.

Note the top three leadership jobs are held by a white (McCluskie), a Latino (Duran) and a Black (Bacon).

Iman Jodeh (District 41) of Aurora is a majority co-whip. As one of two Democratic Party whips in the House, it will be her main job to get Democrats down to the House floor to vote for major bills backed by the Democratic Party leadership.

Iman Jodeh was born and raised in Colorado. She attended public schools in the Cherry Creek section of the Denver suburbs. Her parents moved from Palestine to the United States in 1974.

Her district is safe Democratic (66% Democratic).

The other majority co-whip is Andy Boesenecker (District 53) from Fort Collins. He is an ordained minister of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. He also works in educational fundraising.

His safe Democratic seat votes 72% Democratic.

Mandy Lindsay (District 43) is majority co-caucus chair and hails from Aurora. She describes herself as a stay-at-home-mom and a businesswoman whose business shut down due to the coronavirus pandemic. She then worked in a coronavirus vaccine clinic and as a legislative aide at the State Capitol in Denver.

Lindsay was one of the few members of the Democratic leadership in the House to have a Democratic primary. Her safe Democratic seat votes 73% Democratic in general elections.

The other majority caucus co-chair is Brianna Titone (District 27) from Arvada. Her background and training are in geology, but she has worked as a mining consultant and a substitute teacher at a Catholic Jesuit school.

Her safe Democratic seat is not all that safe at 56% Democratic.

As for the committee chairs, here are two examples:

Emily Sirota (District 9) from Denver chairs the House Appropriations Committee. At the same time, she sits on the powerful Joint Budget Committee.

Marc Snyder (District 18) from Manitou Springs chairs the House Finance Committee. He has more political experience than many of the leadership, having previously been mayor of Manitou Springs. His seat in the House is competitive at 50% Democratic.

Much of the responsibility for producing successful legislation at this session of the state legislature will rest with this 18-person Democratic Party leadership team in the Colorado state House of Representatives.

Tom Cronin and Bob Loevy are news columnists who write about Colorado and national politics.