Colorado Democratic Party Elect Officers

The Colorado Democratic Party elected its new officers on Saturday, April 1st. A crew of State Central Committee members from all 64 counties in Colorado cast their votes at the gathering held in Downtown Denver.

There were three candidates for Chair of the party to succeed, Morgan Carroll who had been the chair for the past 6 years. Shad Murib, Tim Kubik, and Howard Chou were all very qualified to lead the party. Each candidate brought incredible skill to the table. Ultimately, Shad Murib of Eagle County was elected by 52% of the vote. I am confident that Chair Murib will bring positive impacts to the party. Thank you to TIm Kubik and Howard Chou for their well run campaigns. I hope to see them continue to be involved with the party.

Excerpted from CPR - click the link for the full article.

"A longtime political professional, the 35-year-old is a native of Littleton and a first-generation American of Lebanese descent.

Murib said his job will be to protect and expand the state’s Democratic majorities in the statehouse and Congress, including defeating Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert. But he also promised a focus on rural and local politics, saying the “next frontier” was to win more elections for sheriff and county commissioner offices.

“Sheriffs across the state refuse to enforce our gun safety laws. We have Republican county commissioners who won't build affordable housing. They won't enforce the oil and gas laws meant to keep our neighborhoods and schools safe. And Republican county clerks are straight up inviting corruption into their election offices, right?” he said, an apparent reference to the criminal charges against former Mesa County clerk Tina Peters.

Murib continued: “Republicans have majorities in these seats across the state, and I believe the next frontier of Democratic politics must be local.”

In addition, Douglas County's, Indira Duggirala was elected to the position of 1st Vice Chair. I was pleased to see Indira step up into the state leadership team. She's been a vital member of our Douglas County leadership. Scott Mangino was elected as 2nd Vice Chair. Josh Turpin was reelected as Secretary and Rosanna "Dondi" Reyes was elected to another term as our Treasurer.

The State Central committee added several Vice Chair positions to our leadership team. Those being Vice Chair of Operations, Vice Chair of Geographic and Community Outreach, Vice Chair of Cultural and Demographic Outreach and Vice Chair of Public Relations and Marketing. Those elected to those positions are Jarrod Munger, Amy Paschal, Stephanie Bowman and Sheena Kadi.

I expect we will see many changes occurring over the next few months as this new team gets their feet on the ground. I will keep you all as informed as I can. If you aren't already subscribed, be sure to subscribe to the CDP newsletter.

Angela Thomas

Chair, Douglas County Democratic Party

Transgender Day of Visibility

TOWN HALL TRANSGENDER RIGHTS: At last night's Town Hall, one of the top focuses of the GOP was the Women's Athletics a/k/a anti-trans kids bill. It was the only area of questioning last night where my temper was tried and I kept the responses as milquetoast as possible to avoid escalating with them.

Today is Trans Visibility Day. And Axios published a data heavy article on anti-trans legislation. A key component to keep in mind is that this focus on Women's athletics is not a random choice of focus. Axios shows a majority of Americans support laws protecting Trans people, but a majority support requiring Trans kids to play on sports teams that reflect their gender assigned at birth. So anti-Trans efforts are focused on this narrow wedge issue, which as I explained last night, is used to put a definition into law that there are two genders and you can only be the one assigned at birth. Basically defining Trans kids out of existence in law. So it is important to always push back on this issue, but it needs to be done with finesse as it has been chosen by anti-Trans activists as it puts them on their strongest foot.

State of play: The legislative proposals come at a time when roughly eight in 10 Americans believe there's some discrimination against transgender people in our society, a 2022 Pew Research Center survey found.

• The survey also found that most Americans favor laws to protect trans people from discrimination.

• But the survey also gave a clue why conservative Christians and Republicans have focused on high school athletes in many bills: It said about six in 10 Americans favor requiring transgender athletes to compete on teams that match their sex at birth.

https://www.axios.com/.../31/anti-trans-bills-2023-america

Representative Bob Marshall

#transgenderdayofvisibility #transrights #transyouth

*This post is solely the opinion of the author and not necessarily the opinion of the Douglas Co. Democratic Party.

Doug Co School Board Public Comment 3-28-23

I am a 30 year veteran of teaching middle school, I understand the importance of

#inclusion and #diversity to a child’s well-being and #education. I’ll start by pushing

back against 3 words that have been twisted in education. First, WOKE simply

means caring and recognizing injustice. CRT is an example of a lie told oft enough

becomes the truth. The Nazi architect of useful misinformation utilized this

strategy to turn Germans against Jews. Yes, Nazis. The shouted lie of CRT has the

sole purpose of diminishing Black History. And last, the ugliest of all dog whistles,

is calling teachers groomers. Let’s remember that more children are groomed and

assaulted by religious leaders and family members than teachers by a factor of

1000s.

The Hanover survey stated that respondents are concerned about #transparency in

school structure including our school board.

I don’t trust Mr. Peterson. And I had hoped for better from Superintendent Kane.

It appears that decisions are guided by huddling with organizations such as FAIR,

CPAN, and Moms for Liberty, groups that are opposed to public education. Mr.

Peterson, in particular, is clearly influenced by and steeped in harmful

misinformation from such groups. He has dismissed sound research regarding

child abuse and identity, turning instead to the inaccurate perceptions put forth

by small minds and smaller hearts. I ask you to become more WOKE. Get out of

your silo.

How do religious forces rate such an outsized influence in our district? Very few

Hanover survey respondents, indeed only 20%, consider religious belief as criteria

for school matters. 20%! Where are Mr. Peterson’s values regarding

representation? Shouldn’t ALL your constituents have a voice, not just those who

gave you obscene amounts of money and pressure you to follow their lead, no

matter how disrespectful to the families you represent?

My final concern... Wow, once again the DCSD has opened themselves to another

Civil Rights lawsuit. According to the Hanover website they assist the clients to

craft survey questions and responses. It appears some agency of the district

included responses asking about religious beliefs. School boards are a local

government entity and are expected to follow the law and separating matters of

church and state.Constitution.

Despite the loud, aggressive, uninformed voices trying to insist America is

a “Christian Nation,” recent surveys show 40% of Americans claim no

religious affiliation and almost 10% practice a faith other than Christianity.

Please stop inserting your Christian beliefs where it is both illegal and

unwelcome.

Katie Barrett, Castle Rock

*This is solely the opinion of the author and not necessarily the opinion of the Douglas Co. Democratic Party.