Aurora vote ’24: The race for House District 36

• Is it important to you to build rapport with voters from historically marginalized communities? If so, how would you do that?
  • Of course. This is something I am very passionate about doing already. I was born and raised in Aurora and teach at Hinkley high school and I connect with our Black and Brown community, our LGBTQ+ community, and our youth broadly through my relationships with 300+ students every year over my decade at Hinkley. I also have been an active member in the community through Colorado People’s Alliance and my relationships with 9 to 5 where we have fought for our trailer park communities, our heavily polluted communities, and our unhoused communities. I also have invested myself in becoming fluent in Spanish both to communicate with my family that only speaks Spanish and to be able to go door-to-door and meet the needs of our community. This district is 45% Latino and it is important to me that our representatives can get out into the community, especially the Northwest part that has historically been ignored by the city of Aurora and Adams County.

The legislative sessions adjourned in May:

• What do you think are the two most important bills that were signed into law this year?
• There were so many good bills that passed this year but two of the big ones that stick out to me are:
  • SB24-188- The School Finance bill. Colorado has some of the lowest school funding in the nation and we have been underfunding public education for decades. This bill bought down the budget stabilization factor (the debt Colorado has owed schools). However, this only brought us to 1989 levels of school funding so we still have a big fight for our schools next year.
  • HB24-1098 – Cause Required for Eviction of Residential Tenant- Housing is the number one issue in my community (and most of Colorado). 60% of Colorado feels like their community is in a housing crisis so we need to tackle this issue. Just Cause eviction and other housing policies that passed in 2024 are baby steps and many can be described as Band-Aids but these are the necessary steps to keeping people housed. Keeping people housed costs taxpayers half as much as it does to allow people to become homeless so it is a win for all of us to tackle this issue. But we need to go so much further.

• What two bills that failed do you think should have passed?
  • HB24-1260 Prohibition Against Employee Discipline — We worked hard to get this bill passed the House and Senate and the Governor told us he was going to allow it to pass but ended up vetoing it. This bill would have protected workers from captive audience meetings which is a legal union busting technique. The majority of Americans believe in the rights of unions but corporate interests have a lot of dirty practices to prevent more of them from existing. This bill would have been a great step and I joined hundreds of workers at the Capitol to protest this veto
  • HB24-1307 HVAC Improvements for Public Schools — Colorado has some of the lowest funding for schools in the country. The average infrastructure of a school building is over 40 years old so we have school districts like DPS that have to start weeks later because it’s too hot in August to teach children. I remember teaching in those classrooms with the lights off in 90 degree rooms because these schools don’t have their basic needs met. This is an issue that disproportionately impacts Black and Brown students and students in poverty and I was very disappointed with the Governor vetoed this bill.

• What two bills that passed that you think should not have?
  • There were several bills I was worried about this year but those were amended down to a palatable bill so there was nothing I can think of that I think was horrible but rather there were some bills that I would’ve tried to amend more. The State House has finally gotten a larger delegation of pro-union, pro-public schools and pro-housing people that a lot of the bad bills get cleaned up to where they’re not terrible by the end.
• The Legislative session moves fast. How will you communicate with and get feedback from constituents on specific legislation during the next legislative session?
  • This is an understatement. 700+ bills in 120 days is arguably too much. With that said, the ways I plan to communicate with constituents is to hold stakeholder meetings during the fall to shape my priority bills. I also have a very public email, public job, and public cell phone number to solicit feedback. The Aurora Delegation also hosts monthly townhall meetings to meet with constituents. On top of that I do community outreach going door-to-door every year in the summer and fall. But we can always do better and I will strive to be as representative as I can to my community.
• If you could unilaterally sunset any Colorado law, which one would it be and why?
• There are two that come to mind immediately:
  • I would repeal TABOR which prevents a progressive tax structure that hurts our working class and prevents us from funding essential services like our schools and I would repeal the ban that prevents municipalities from enacting rent stabilization because housing costs are the number one issue around the state.
• Finding and retaining teachers has become a difficult issue in public school. What should the Legislature do to help resolve this?
  • As a teacher, I could write a book on this but I will try to limit myself:
    • We need to establish a minimum salary of $60,000 for teachers statewide.
    • We need to remove unfunded mandates like SB10-191 that remove educators from the classroom
    • We need to fully-fund our schools
    • We need to reduce the amount of high stakes tests that we use. Every teacher will tell you how much money we waste on tests and test prep that do not actually measure what we teach.
    • We need to address the economic conditions for our students and their families so parents aren’t working 2-3 jobs and they can be consistently strong partners in the education system.
• State lawmakers recently passed a handful of measures addressing the problem of affordable housing. What more, if anything, can the state do to address what to many families in Aurora and the metroplex is a critical problem?
  • We have to ban corporations from owning housing. When they can buy up large stocks of housing in one zip code, they can artificially increase the price.
  • We need to establish vacancy fees so landlords are incentivized to rent out their properties faster
  • We need to regulate short term rentals more like hotels/motels
  • We need to remove the ban on rent controls so cities and counties can address rent costs of they choose to
  • We need to address zoning laws so we can build more densely and affordably
• Primarily Denver, but Aurora, too, has absorbed the biggest brunt of an influx of more than 30,000 immigrants over the past year, primarily from South America. Should the state step up its support of municipalities or counties to help care for these immigrants?
  • This is a federal issue that we need to call on our federal government to help us with. I am a history teacher and can go through the long list of foreign policies that have helped lead to this crisis and it is our federal government’s responsibility to address these issues. With that being said, we can’t let the failures of our federal government lead us to throwing our hands up in the air. This is something the state needs to step in and help support. This problem doesn’t start and stop at Yosemite St. and we need all levels of government on this to best serve our communities.
• Despite enactment of the Affordable Care Act and subsequent state legislation, health insurance premiums continue to grow as insurance benefits are reduced. What can state lawmakers do to improve benefits and reduce costs to consumers?
  • The Affordable Care Act was a great first step but it is not far enough. The ACA requires insurance but does not have enough cost controlling measures. We need a national single-payer system. But as I said above, our federal government is failing us so it is up to us as a state to step in and take care of our residence. We need to expand our public option and work to transition to a single-payer system.
• State and local police departments continue to report a lack of resources needed to provide traffic patrol. Should the state mandate the use of speed-check cameras and tickets on state roads and highways to help curb speeding and weaving?
  • I am a strong believer that we drive in a way that meets the design of the road. We address this problem not by increasing penalties or police interactions but by speed mitigating designs. Narrower lanes, roundabouts, speedbumps, etc. There is countless research that supports this as the best way to combat these dangerous behaviors.
• State lawmakers lauded substantive changes to public school funding this year, but for many families, higher education, even community college is unaffordable. Should state lawmakers press for spending changes at state universities and colleges by imposing tuition caps along with funding cuts and regulations?
  • We definitely need tuition caps but not funding cuts. We have already seen historic cuts nationwide to higher education. We do not create a strong, educated, and caring society by making it where only the rich can afford to be educated. We need universal P-16 education.