AURORA | Aly DeWills-Marcano has announced a bid as the third candidate to run in the Democratic Primary for House District 41.
The seat is currently held by Rep. Jamie Jackson, who was appointed via vacancy committee last year after Sen. Iman Jodeh vacated the seat. Jackson has also announced that she is running for election to the seat, which encompasses parts of central Aurora.
“Simply electing Democrats is not enough,” DeWills-Marcano said in a statement. “We need bold, passionate, experienced leaders who are ready to fight against fascism and take action to create a more equitable state for all of us.”
DeWills-Marcano describes herself as a disability activist and community organizer, and now plans to apply that knowledge and experience as a state house representative to fight for accessibility and immigration rights.
“This is a critical moment for our district, our city, our state, and our country as a whole,” she said in a statement. “It’s not the time to uphold the status quo or make excuses for the inhumane, for-profit detention of our own community members.”
DeWills-Marcano said she has built a career fighting for Colorado’s working families, including three years in Congressman Jason Crow’s office and three years at the Colorado Economic Defense Project and the CARE Center, which runs a hotline for people in housing crisis.
DeWills-Marcano and her husband, Colorado Transportation Commissioner and former Aurora City Council member Juan Marcano, regularly speak about their experiences as renters and have rented in House District 41 for the past decade.
“I grew up experiencing poverty, housing instability and homelessness, and now I work every day to break that cycle and prevent other Colorado families from falling into that spiral,” DeWills-Marcano said in the statement. “I am a renter with a disability in a city that is increasingly less accessible and affordable; I work every day to break down barriers. I am ready to bring my life experience and professional experience to the table to create real solutions.”
Accountability, awareness, and transparency regarding the ICE’s for-profit corporation, the GEO Group facility in Aurora, are also something DeWills-Marcano said she feels strongly about.
“I was part of the team that demanded and enforced Congressional oversight of Aurora’s GEO immigration detention facility — and now I am running to stop GEO’s influence on our government,” DeWills-Marcano.
Aurora’s ICE facility has been running nearly at capacity and has long been criticized for a lack of transparency, sub-standard medical care and living conditions, and inhumane treatment of the immigrants detained there, according to the statement.
“Aurora is the most diverse city in our state, and one of the most diverse in the world,” DeWills-Marcano said. “Immigrants make our community better and richer, and it’s unacceptable that we also allow GEO to profit from the business of caging and degrading our neighbors. The whole world is watching ICE and their daily brutality right now, and I will not rest until they are held accountable and until GEO cannot manage a facility in our neighborhood.”
DeWills-Marcano, who is disabled by a degenerative health condition, uses a wheelchair and other mobility devices, and said she is already doing what she can to create change at a local level, the statement said.
During each regular Aurora City Council meeting, DeWills-Marcano condemns the council’s inaccessible chambers and demands renovations to make the chambers accessible to people with disabilities. At one recent council meeting, she was temporarily trapped inside the elevator that people with disabilities are required to use in the city council chambers.
“Every meeting, I ask our council members to make their chambers more wheelchair-accessible,” she said in the statement. “I will keep asking until they do. Like so many of my fellow disabled people, I’ve learned to break down all sorts of barriers, and I plan to bring those skills to our Capitol.”
About 11% of Coloradans are disabled, and none of the Colorado state legislature use mobility aids, according to the statement.
“We need representation for our entire community, not just some of us. We need representatives who know how to break down barriers instead of capitulating to corporate interests.”
Aurora Public Schools board director Anne Keke has also announced she is seeking the House District 41 seat.
“Immigrants make our community better and richer” – you’re right, they do.
Criminals who are in the country illegally – do not. They’re also not immigrants.
I’ll never vote for someone who doesn’t understand the difference.
She is a socialist like her husband. Socialists are taking over Aurora. I hope there is a Republican soon otherwise I will vote for Annie Keke.
Aurora’s chronically aenemic retail/dining economy is the ROOT CAUSE of the city’s infrastructure woes including ADA compliance. Fixing that requires improving regional draw — ATTRACTING VISITORS TO SPEND IN AURORA in a manner that doesn’t give away tax dollars.
Directly related: We pay over $ 8 million per year for cultural facilities and over 90% goes to subsidize other cities’ culture, nightlife and retail/dining economies. So where does DeWills-Marcano stand on the grotesque inequity that defines the Denver Scientific and Cultural Facilities District?
The Denver SCFD is coming up for reauthorization in 2028 across most of seven counties and the legislature will draft the fine print we’ll be voting on. Over the years, its largely been Democrats who have failed to protect Aurora from this economic sodomy– but GOP has also been wholly ineffective.
Equity would be to distribute SCFD taxes where collected. Period.
Inequity is the status quo where Denver’s Big 5 cultural corporations take the first ~64% right off the top while a growing list of small non-profits across seven counties beg for the crumbs — fueling a mass Stockholm Syndrome of abusive dependency that’s been going on for nearly four decades.
So which candidates believe Aurora is worthy of nice things and which can be counted on to bend a knee to party leadership to keep Aurora a sh__hole?