After indicating she was initially interested in the job, state Sen. Rachel Zenzinger has decided not to run for Arvada mayor.

The race would have returned the Arvada Democrat to her roots – her first elected office was on Arvada City Council in 2008. She served as mayor pro tem in 2011.

Zenzinger is term-limited in 2024. She told Colorado Politics she’s decided to stay with the state Senate for her final year in office.

Had Zenzinger decided to run for mayor, it would have meant a scramble among Senate District 19 Democrats to replace her for that final year.

Zenzinger said she decided against a run for mayor primarily because of changes taking place with the Joint Budget Committee, which she has chaired since last November. As the panel’s most senior member, she will become the committee’s vice-chair in the fall when the panel’s lead role makes its annual rotation between the House and Senate. 

Zenzinger took charge of the JBC last November at a time when the committee was adding four new members to the six-member panel. A fifth new member, Brighton Republican Sen. Barbara Kirkmeyer, joined after its most senior member, Carbondale Republican Sen. Bob Rankin, stepped down in January.

That required Zenzinger to take on the role of teacher to the committee’s five new members, which yielded in the first consensus state budget from the committee since 2018.

The committee also is dealing with changes within its staff roster. Its director, Carolyn Kampman, announced earlier this year she plans to retire. Kampman has been in that post since 2019, and a member of the JBC staff since 1994. Part of the JBC’s summer agenda will include hiring its next director.

Kampman told Colorado Politics in 2019 she anticipated more turnover in the next five years. 

Zenzinger first joined the Senate in 2013. She replaced fellow Democrat Evie Hudak, who resigned rather than face a recall that also targeted two other Democratic members of the state Senate in the wake of gun control measures adopted in 2013. Zenzinger lost her election bid in 2014 to Sen. Laura Woods, but defeated Woods in a rematch in 2016, and handily won re-election in 2020. 

She was originally named to the JBC in 2017 and was on the committee in 2019 and 2020.

She was replaced in 2021 by Sen. Chris Hansen, D-Denver, in something of a scolding from Senate Democrats for her disputes with the governor.

She returned in 2022 after JBC member Sen. Dominick Moreno, D-Commerce City, was named Senate Majority Leader.