AURORA | Mike Weissman, if elected to Colorado’s Senate District 28, aims to focus largely on curbing — or at least exposing — the influence of money in politics. Campaign finance has always intrigued the lawyer and policy wonk from Aurora, but the issue became more personal this election cycle.
The longtime state representative narrowly beat business attorney Idris Keith in an unexpectedly tight Democratic primary influenced by an unprecedented infusion of so-called dark money from a group seeking to defeat him. The June primary was the most expensive in state history, and the group’s backers remain unknown more than three months later.
Weissman, 47, has a long history of standing up to corporate interests. His own campaign benefitted from about $300,000 in spending from groups known to support public education, environmental conservation and labor unions. The far lesser-known Keith enjoyed about $400,000 in spending from two different groups, including one called Representation Matters, an independent expenditure committee, which is similar to a super PAC and has no traceable bankrollers or agenda.
Reporting by the Colorado Sun shows Representation Matters registered at the Colorado’s Secretary of State’s Office with the specific purpose of helping Keith, a more pro-business Democratic who did not respond to comment for this story. That was on May 20, three days after it had sent out one of its mailers boosting Keith’s campaign. Two days later, as The Sun reported, the group received $320,000 from another state spending committee, Brighter Colorado Futures, which that same week had gleaned $315,000 from a federal super PAC called Democracy Wins. The source of that PAC’s money remains unclear.
Weissman describes the influx of dark money intended to tank his primary bid as “stressful” and “surreal.” He knows he can’t change federal campaign finance laws or reverse policy, including U.S. Supreme Court decisions, letting big and dark money flow into politics. But, if elected to Colorado’s Senate, he said he would try to ensure “we have more and faster information about who is spending money to influence elections.”
“We should be able to find out who these donors are beyond P.O. boxes and, ideally, what is motivating their involvement,” he said. “What experience has shown this year is we have to tighten things up so that there’s less ability to hide what’s going on.”
Senate District 28 straddles Adams and Arapahoe counties, and includes northern Aurora, Watkins and Aetna Estates. It has been represented since 2017 by Sen. Rhonda Fields, who is term-limited out of the seat and running for the Arapahoe County Commission. Democrats more than double the number of Republicans in the district, which has an even higher number of unaffiliated voters.
Pedro Espinoza, 37, won the Republican Party’s nomination for the seat in June. The political newcomer said he was inspired to run because, “I don’t like the way the state and country are going right now.”
He has not debated Weissman — nor even met him, for that matter — but said Weissman’s service in the state House since 2017 “didn’t set the economy or state in the right direction.”
“It’s time for him to step aside,” Espinoza said.
He aims, if elected, to “put more money into people’s pockets” and “curb illegal immigration,” but could not say how he might accomplish either goal. The father of two sons, ages 9 and 20, and one 12-year-old daughter cited another top priority — “protecting female sports” from participation by athletes who were not born biologically female.
“I feel my daughter shouldn’t have to share a locker room with a biological male,” he said.
Asked why he feels so strongly about the issue, he added, “You know, private parts being exposed and all.”
Espinoza has worked for nearly 13 years as a correctional officer at the state-run Denver Reception and Diagnostic Center. Colorado’s crime rate is “skyrocketing out of control,” he said.
Statistics provided by Colorado Bureau of Investigation show a drop in violent crime in the first six months of 2024 compared to the last few years, even though Colorado’s rate does remain higher than the national average.
Espinoza calls for “criminals to be held more accountable” in Colorado, but could not say how or what legislation he might push to make that happen. “I guess can I pass on that for now?” he asked the Sentinel, but did not follow up with specifics.
He had raised about $800 in campaign contributions by the first week in October.
Weissman, for his part, raised about $170,000.
The licensed attorney does not practice law and has worked for nearly eight years representing House District 36, a seat from which he is now term-limited.
As chairperson of the House Judiciary Committee, he was influential in passing laws advancing criminal justice reforms and civil liberties. He has been an outspoken defender of workers’ rights and a reformer of the state tax code to make it work better for small businesses and seniors. He was a key player behind bills updating Colorado’s anti-trust laws, preventing price gouging and restricting multi-million dollar credits that were benefitting insurance companies. He tried limiting developers’ taxing authority through metropolitan districts — a move that was blocked by deep-pocketed home builders.
They or any number of other big-money interests could have had reason to back the dark-money efforts to defeat him in a primary race in which he managed to edge out Idris Keith by six percentage points.
“Basically, if you try this, if you construe your oath on the Constitution, as I do, as standing up for people against powerful interests, the powerful interests will fight back and bid to the extent of almost $800,000 of independent spending against you,” he said.
Aside from exploring ways to ensure more and faster transparency around state political spending, Weissman said he wants to continue his reforming the state tax code, which he describes as a “moral document” he thinks should do more to level the playing field for Coloradans. He also hopes to remove barriers in Colorado’s consumer protection policies to make legal remedies easier to win.
Weissman’s House district includes an apartment complex on Nome Street that Aurora city government shut down in August because of blighted conditions. Senate District 28 includes another complex owned by the same company that has similar blight and became the focus of a widely publicized controversy this summer about Venezuelan immigrants and the presence of Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan prison gang also known as TdA in the city. Weissman slammed Aurora Council Member Danielle Jurinsky and Mayor Mike Coffman, both right-wing Republicans, for scapegoating immigrants over problems caused by “an absentee landlord.”
“Their job, no matter what their political party, is to help their constituents. But here you have public officials having harmed people in their own city,” he said.
He noted his work in the House on legislation empowering the Attorney General’s office to enforce habitability laws on behalf of tenants, but acknowledged the caseload is too high for that office to handle alone. He aims to keep exploring more ways to hold landlords more accountable for blighted conditions in their buildings.
“These issues are challenging and we have more to do,” he said. “That’s part of why I’m running again.”
Meet Pedro Espinoza
Pedro Espinoza, 37, is a Los Angeles native who has lived in Colorado for 22 years.
He received a high school diploma from Aurora Central High School and attended some college at Community College of Aurora studying criminal justice. He served in the U.S. Army National Guard from 2006 to 2019, having fought in Iraq in 2009.
Espinoza has worked for nearly 13 years as state correctional officer at the Denver Reception and Diagnostic Center. The prison is often the first stop for state inmates to be evaluated before being transferred to other prisons.
He is married, has three children — two son ages 20 and 9, and one 12-year-old daughter, and lives in Aurora.
Meet Mike Weissman
Mike Weissman, 47, has lived in Aurora for 18 years — nearly eight of which he served as representative of House District 36. In that seat, he touts having helped pass more than 110 bills and resolutions since 2017.
He has chaired the House Judiciary Committee and recently served on the Committee on Legal Services.
Weissman has been active since 2004 in Colorado’s Democratic Party, which his partner Morgan Carroll chaired for several years.
According to his LinkedIn page, he worked for seven months in 2014 as the party’s voter protection director and as an advisor to the Wilderness Society for nearly two years in 2015 and 2016.
He graduated with a bachelor’s degree in economics from Tufts University in 1999 and from the University of Colorado Law School in 2014
Mike Weissman Q&A
After astonishing property value increases in the past two years, voters and the Legislature have moved to change property tax laws in an effort to reduce property taxes for residents. Did everyone get it right? What would you want to see changed?
We got some things right and some things less than perfect. A variety of factors including COVID’s impacts on residential + commercial property markets and corporate ownership of residential property really drove values up sharply in a short period of time. Property taxes followed those values up, more quickly than a lot of people could bear. So for years the legislature has been working to bring down property taxes so people can make ends meet. In so doing we have to realize that property taxes are what keeps schools and fire departments and libraries and parks open, and we’ve tried to strike that balance. Over the long arc of things, and in particular in the most recent special session, I would have liked to see more emphasis on reductions for primary homes of average or near-average value and for small business properties and less on multi-million-dollar homes; 2nd (or 3rd, or more) homes; and large business properties. Due to limitations in the state constitution though, the legislature doesn’t have total flexibility in these regards. And we have to remember that renters risk being left out of these property tax debates entirely. For years other legislators and I have tried to address that through a variety of means, including income tax credits for people of moderate income (who tend to rent) and seniors who rent.
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?
I have spent years working to make sure our income tax code works to support families and small businesses rather than large special interests and I’m going to keep doing that. The more anyone has left after paying their taxes, the easier it is to meet the cost of housing. I’m also thinking about whether we can do more to enforce city codes and state laws about the quality of housing – working plumbing, heating and cooling, doors and windows that function, etc. Particularly when rent is already high, no one can “afford” to live in sub-standard conditions (especially as winter approaches) or to have to pay out of pocket for repairs. Also, because almost all new housing is built within a “metropolitan district” (which is a specialized kind of government entity with property taxing power) we need to make sure the taxes levied by those districts are commensurate with the infrastructure services provided by those districts.
With available water sources all essentially determined, and water storage projects limited, should the state require that new home and business development be limited to provable, existing water supplies committed to the county or town permitting new construction?
I don’t know if some kind of hard cap makes sense right now, in part because available supply can, at least incrementally, be expanded through conservation measures. Cities and towns can and should use their permitting authority to limit (or eliminate) climate-inappropriate landscaping like turf grass in new construction. I was very glad to see Aurora do a version of this years ago and any city or town in Colorado that hasn’t, should. At a more macro level, growing residential areas can invest in efficiency measures for agricultural water use, so that agriculture continues to have the water it needs, with more being available for other users on the system, whose rights are sometimes junior in priority to agricultural users. This kind of approach has been taken in other western states.
Would you support a ban on assault-style firearms?
Yes, and I have voted for such legislation twice (HB23-1230; HB24-1292) although it has not become law. While I do not tend to use the term “assault weapon,” the fact remains that people can and do exercise their 2nd Amendment rights to self-defense, and hunt, and when necessary, protect livestock without these sorts of weapons.
Highway congestion statewide is a critical problem. Should the state end its toll-lane/Express Lane program and make those lanes on state and federal highways just additional lanes?
Personally I have never loved tolled lanes and drive on them seldom to never. But to transition from tolled to “regular” lanes would probably be a path of years. Because of the 32-year-old TABOR, it has long been and remains harder for CO invest into transportation infrastructure than it is in any other state (i.e. CO is the only state out of 50 with anything like TABOR). This is part of how we ended up with tolled lanes in the first place. Now that they’re here, E-470 and the other tolled highway segments have upkeep costs, and we have to have a way to pay for those somehow. If the voters of the state ever decide to part company with TABOR, it would certainly be easier to put an end to tolled roads, all other things equal.
Mike Weissman on the lighter side
What food do you hate most?
Beef consommé. When I was a kid, we had it once when we had company over for dinner. I don’t think I could finish a single spoonful.
What was the last book you read? Be honest.
Dopesick, by Beth Macy. Immediately before that I finished Demon Copperhead, by Barbara Kingsolver. Both are different takes on the opioid addiction disaster that started to grip this country in the 1990s, through a combination of corporate deception and government regulatory failure. We are still dealing with the consequences.
What’s your favorite TV show of all time?
I was a bit of latecomer to it, but I’d gotten really into Parts Unknown with Anthony Bourdain, and it was a tragedy when he passed on.
Dog person? Cat person? Both? Neither?
More of a cat person. We have two right now, plus a neighborhood cat who isn’t really ours but that we’ve been feeding outside for several months. We had a Samoyed when I was growing up too, and he was a beautiful dog.
Pedro Espinoza Q&A
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Pedro Espinoza on the lighter side
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