Photo by PHILIP B. POSTON/Sentinel Colorado
AURORA | Arapahoe County Democrats are slated to decide who will make the primary election ballot for two crowded Aurora state House district races during a county assembly meeting Saturday.
In House District 41, which encompasses much of central Aurora between East Mississippi and East Hampden avenues, State Rep. Jamie Jackson is running for re-election, and she’s facing prominent challengers Aurora Public Schools Board Director Anne Keke, and local activist and community organizer Aly DeWills-Marcano. DeWills-Marcano is the wife of former Aurora Councilmember Juan Marcano.
All the candidates are seeking the Democratic nomination for the November Election.
In House District 42, incumbent Democrat Rep. Mandy Lindsay is facing challengers Sarah Woodson, Megan Siffring, both local community activists, and Eric Nelson, a former board member of Aurora Public Schools.
To make the Primary Election ballot, a candidate must win at least 30% of voting delegates at the county assembly. In theory, three candidates could be placed on the June 30 Arapahoe County Democratic Primary Ballot. Candidates can also collect about 1,000 vetted signatures on petitions to get their name on the primary ballot, according to state election officials.
That option has apparently expired for Democratic candidates in House districts 41 and 42.
The county assembly is slated for 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Saturday at Hinkley High School, 1250 Chambers Road. Democrats are scheduled to review and select candidates for all local legislative and county races, as well as choose delegates to a state assembly later this month.
Arapahoe County Republicans are slated to meet in assembly on March 21. Republican candidates for House districts 41 and 42 have not yet been announced.
In House District 41, former APS school board member Eric Nelson created controversy two weeks ago when his campaign submitted 1,635 signatures to the Secretary of State, and 1,606 of those signatures were rejected, with only 29 accepted, according to state records.
“It’s unfortunate, it’s disappointing,” Nelson’s campaign director Jose Silva said. “But we, like many campaigns, have to sometimes pivot, and that’s what we’re going to do.”
Nelson’s campaign staff pushed blame on paid Washington D.C. based petition circulator, Touchstone. Officials there did not return repeated requests for comment.
In House District 41, Jackson, a longtime community advocate, is seeking a full term to her House district. Jackson was selected to fill the seat left open when former Rep. Iman Jodeh moved to the Colorado Senate last year.
She secured the majority of Democratic vacancy committee votes over her opponents, Keke and DeWills-Marcano.
Both are now running against her.
Jackson, a Denver native and longtime community advocate, said she brings extensive experience in criminal justice reform and public health. Previously serving as the Chief Operating Officer at The Naloxone Project, Jackson said she has dedicated her career to saving lives and fostering second chances for people linked to addiction or incarceration.
Her tenure with GEO Group in Denver, which she quit five years ago, drew criticism this week from supporters for DeWills-Marcano. Aurora Councilmember Alison Coombs in an op-ed sent to the Sentinel, tied Jackson to the controversial GEO ICE facility in Aurora, an immigration detention center.
Jackson, in a rebuttal, said she never worked for or at the detention center, and instead worked in GEO programs intended to get incarcerated citizens back on their feet after release from jail or prison.
“I don’t take this role lightly, and I am in this position to do the work,” Jackson said previously. “I have already kept the promises that I made when I first came to the legislature. It is really, really important that the community knows that they are first and foremost in everything that I do in this role.”
Keke cites her experience in education, community leadership and advocacy for families and students.
An immigrant from Cote d’Ivoire and single mother who has lived in Aurora since 2001, Keke said her decision to seek a seat in the state Legislature is rooted in her work with students and families facing economic and social challenges.
“As a proud Aurora community member, immigrant, single mother, and elected member of the Aurora Public School Board, I have seen firsthand the challenges my neighbors and other families in Aurora face,” Keke said in a statement. “That’s why I’m running for the state House. I will work for policies that not only make Colorado a more affordable place to live, but that put the future in reach for the students and families I’ve dedicated my career to serving.”
DeWills-Marcano said that although the House district seat is regularly held by Democrats, just sending a party member to the State Capitol doesn’t meet the community’s needs.
“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. “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.
In the House District 42 race, four candidates hope to make the primary ballot, and eventually win the seat.
House District 42 encompasses much of central Aurora from East Mississippi to East Colfax avenues.
Rep. Manday Lindsay is a small business owner and running for re-election to the HD 42 seat. She was appointed to the seat in 2022 to fill a vacancy left by Dominique Jackson. Lindsay was Jackson’s legislative aide.
Lindsay has previously touted priorities that include creating housing options for all, repealing TABOR to help fund Colorado schools, stewarding the environment, improving access to health care and mental health care, and promoting abortion access.
“In communities like ours, the dream of homeownership is being snatched away (and the opportunity to grow wealth / generational wealth is becoming non-existent) and rents are rising sky-high, and as the cost of housing becomes completely unaffordable, more people will become unhoused,” Lindsay told the Sentinel in 2024.
She has three challengers for a spot on the June primary ballot.
Woodson, an Aurora resident, business owner and community advocate, said she is running to bring people-centered, service-driven leadership to a district she described as challenging and diverse, with communities facing issues tied to affordability, growth and representation.
“House District 42 is a tough district, and it requires leadership that can truly show up,” Woodson said in a statement announcing her campaign. “As a business owner, I understand how policy decisions affect people in real and practical ways. I’m running because this district needs leadership with a clear vision — someone who understands how to build coalitions, values stakeholder and community engagement, and leads from a place of service.”
Woodson is the founder and executive director of The Color of Cannabis, an organization focused on education, advocacy and policy initiatives related to social equity, small-business access and stakeholder engagement across Colorado. Through that work, she said she has collaborated with legislators, city councils and community leaders throughout the metro region, an experience she says has shaped her approach to public service.
Nelson served on the Aurora Public Schools board from 2013-2017. After launching an unsuccessful campaign for a seat in the Colorado House of Representatives in 2016, discrepancies in his public biography came to light and the board launched a formal investigation.
A report presented to the school board found that Nelson had falsified much of the information on his resume. He did not have any of the four degrees he claimed to have, and several diplomas he provided were faked, the report said. He also represented himself as having been a decorated officer in the Air Force, but was only in active duty for two months in 1998 and did not receive any awards. Of the 40 organizations he listed himself as a member of, many could not be reached or said that he was not a member or only had minor involvement, the report said.
He was formally censured by the board but refused calls to step down. Then-Congressman Mike Coffman also urged the U.S. Attorney’s Office to investigate Nelson under the federal Stolen Valor Act for making false claims about military service.
Since then, Nelson has become increasingly active in local issues. Nelson began a campaign for the House District 42 seat two years ago, but withdrew from that.
“I am committed to increasing funding for education, housing affordability, and ensuring the aging population can live with dignity,” Nelson said in a website statement. “Additionally, I will continue fighting for equal rights, economic opportunity, criminal justice reform, and access to mental health.
I hope you will support my campaign so we can create a Colorado that works for all.”
Siffring was born and raised in Kailua, Hawaii, but she has lived in Aurora for 14 years, according to her campaign website. She and her husband, from Aurora, make their home here with their children.
“Megan has always been justice-driven, and consequently outspoken about social issues,” she said in a statement on her campaign website. “All of our diverse backgrounds are what makes Aurora such a great place to live. But People of Color are disproportionally disadvantaged in all aspects of our nation’s society, from healthcare to housing, and everything in between. We need someone in office who not only stands in solidarity, but someone who is not afraid to get loud to bring about equity.”
Is this really the best Aurora can put forward for state leadership?
Take a hard look at this lineup. One candidate was formally investigated and censured by their own school board for fabricating four college degrees, faking diplomas, and falsely claiming military decorations they never earned — even drawing a call for a federal Stolen Valor investigation from a sitting congressman. And now they want us to trust them with legislation?
Another tried to get on the ballot through a petition drive and had 1,606 out of 1,635 signatures rejected — a 98% failure rate — then blamed a Washington, D.C. firm for the mess. If you can’t manage a petition, how do you manage a legislative agenda?
We’ve got a candidate whose primary qualification is three years answering phones for a liberal congressman and running a housing hotline — and who thinks the path to office is accusing opponents of ties to “fascism.” Another was appointed to her seat, never won it outright, previously worked as a legislative aide, runs a small business with an undefined track record, and now wants to repeal TABOR — the one taxpayer protection Coloradans actually voted for.
Then there’s the activist class: community organizers, self-described “equity” advocates, and a cannabis lobbyist — all long on slogans about “bold leadership” and “fighting for working families” but short on any record of actually employing people, meeting a payroll, or balancing a budget.
Not one person on this list has demonstrated private-sector success at the level of the salary they’d earn in the legislature. In the real economy, no one would hire them at that pay. Yet they’re asking Aurora taxpayers to do exactly that.
Aurora deserves leaders who’ve built something before asking to spend our money. This isn’t a candidate field — it’s a jobs program.
Couple of corrections: the first two people you listed, the guy with the stolen degrees and the guy with the rejected signatures, those are the same guy. That’s one guy, Eric Nelson. He did both of those things.
Additionally, you seem to be confused by how much state legislators make. You might be confusing them with US Congressmen, who make obscene money. State Legislators in Colorado make like $40k a year, it’s not even close to a wage that pays for a small house in Aurora. That’s why you gotta watch their money – how are they affording to live the high life, if they are? If you see state legislators living large, they either got daddy’s money OR they’re getting paid off by lobbyists.
The rest of everything you said is opinion and hey, man, we’re all entitled to have bad opinions. Just checking your facts.
GEO’s for-profit re-entry services exploited and left people in tens of thousands of dollars of debt when they were at their most vulnerable. They didn’t provide people with help, they CHARGED people for the right to basic needs and for access to rejoining society, and they made $580 million a year in pure corporate profits doing it. The programs had to be shut down and replaced by Denver County. All this happened under Jamie Jackson’s management – that’s not even mentioning the complicity of working for SEVEN YEARS at the corporation while supposedly never noticing the rampant and very public and reported abuse and dehumanization of immigrants at the detention facility. Don’t let her twist up lies to keep doing it – she literally took lobbyist money from GEO last year, that’s also publicly available information. Vote for anybody but Jackson, she needs to do a lot more to recover and learn a lot more about actual justice instead of detaining people for profits before she should be allowed to serve the public.
Does any candidate have the political courage to get Aurora out of the Ponzi scheme known as the Denver Scientific and Cultural Facilities District?
The Denver SCFD collects over $8 million per year in Aurora — and we have the Fox Theater, the blight surrounding it and one of the weakest retail/dining economies in Colorado. This while Denver’s retail/dining sector burns 59% hotter per capita than Aurora’s. Are we in Aurora really this GULLIBLE?
The Denver SCFD is a Ponzi scheme straight up. Denver’s five Tier I venues have enjoyed straight-line growth in SCFD tax revenue for ~37 years while the number of small Tier III grantees across seven counties competing for the crumbs has skyrocketed. “Ponzi” fits to a tee. The INEQUITY is baked in.
Meanwhile our elected leaders and current candidates just sit slack-jawed. Is it that they can’t pin this gross inequity on TRUMP? I guess its just easier to ignore how the Denver SCFD brutally sodomizes Aurora’s economy. After four decades, we should all be conditioned to such abuse, right?