Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold blessedly is term-limited; that’s the good news.
The bad news is another Democrat of the same political mold announced her candidacy Monday to run for the seat in the 2026 election — Amanda Gonzalez, the current clerk and recorder of Jefferson County.
Boo and Hiss.
Gonzales says she purposefully picked Jan. 6 to make her statewide political debut so she could recall the specter of the protest that went wildly wrong and interrupted a critical session of Congress prompting cries of insurrection.
Gonzales told the Colorado Sun:
She wants to prevent the kind of election misinformation that led to the deadly riot at the U.S. Capitol four years ago in the wake of Donald Trump’s 2020 presidential election loss.
PeakNation™ will recall that one protestor was the only person killed that day. A second person died of a drug overdose and three people died of natural causes. But we digress.
Gonzales ran for county clerk in 2022 to protect democracy, she says.
Just a reminder the job of a county clerk and recorder is to issue motor vehicle titles and registrations, record real estate records, issue marriage licenses, passports, liquor licenses, and maintain voter rolls.
It was also her job to run elections in a legal and fair manner, not to get bogged down in partisan politics.
By the way, her experience includes only one election as a county clerk. She cut her political teeth as director of Common Cause in Colorado, a national group that was formed to overturn the Citizens United Supreme Court case and stymy political speech.
But wait, there’s more from the Sun:
If elected, Gonzalez plans to focus on advocating for legislation that would make it easier to vote in Colorado. As Jefferson County’s clerk, she pushed for a new state law that requires jails to offer in-person voting to inmates.
But seriously, why again should Coloradans support her?
She also pointed out how she would be the first Latina and first openly queer secretary of state in Colorado if elected. (She identifies as bisexual.)
That is probably all that many Democrats even need to know about her.
The Sun doesn’t mention any Republicans considering a run for secretary of state but reports that other Democrats considering it include state Sens. Steve Fenberg, Jeff Bridges, and Jessie Danielson, and former Jefferson County Clerk George Stern.
Questions to ask CO Democrat Sec. of State candidates:
Do you support a performance audit of the Election Division, in response to the ballot-counting machines password leak?
Will they accept Jena Griswold’s endorsement?#copoliticshttps://t.co/3oHbCWzFlD
— Rob Fairbank (@robfairbank) January 6, 2025