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Aug 14, 2023

Kathleen Curry runs for House, returns to Democratic fold

Kathleen Curry, who announced she is running for the Colorado House. Photo courtesy Curry. In 2009, three-term state Rep. and Speaker Pro Tempore Kathleen Curry rocked the Colorado House with the

Kathleen Curry, who announced she is running for the Colorado House. Photo courtesy Curry.

In 2009, three-term state Rep. and Speaker Pro Tempore Kathleen Curry rocked the Colorado House with the announcement she was leaving the Democratic Party to become unaffiliated.

Curry is ready to try again for the state House and return to the Democratic fold. She announced Wednesday she's running for House District 58, the seat currently held by Rep. Marc Catlin, R-Montrose, who is term-limited in 2024.

She changed her voter registration in June.

Her party switch in December 2009 cost her both the speaker pro tem position, as well as her role as chair of the House Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee. Because the announcement came too late for her to file as an unaffiliated, she ran as a write-in candidate in 2010, but lost. She ran again in 2012 as an unaffiliated candidate but lost in a five-way race to Rep. Millie Hamner, D-Dillon.

At the time she left the Democratic Party, Curry told the Aspen Daily News it would be "misleading to voters to run as a Democrat. They deserve someone who is more aligned with the Democratic ideology.”

More than a decade has passed since then, and the party leaders who took a dim view of Curry's party change have moved on. The party is chaired by a former political operative who is also a newly-minted West Slope rancher, and the current House speaker also hails from the Western Slope.

Curry told Colorado Politics that, when she left the party in 2009, she was frustrated with the party system in general, such as the influence of money in politics. What changed, she said, is an acknowledgement within the party that it takes a team to achieve things.

"You can't work in isolation and get anything done that's meaningful for the folks at home," she said.

She also had some regret about leaving the party in 2009, she said, adding she sidelined herself and she should have stayed to push back from within.

"The values that are important to me, and where the Republican Party has gone in recent history is even less of a good fit," Curry said on Wednesday.

Going back to the Democratic party to be part of the team is the better fit, she said.

But is the party big enough to welcome her back, particularly after the House Democratic caucus swung to the left in the last election.

"I was worried about that initially," Curry said.

But she said the folks affected the most, including in Gunnison, where she lives, welcomed her with open arms.

She acknowledged there are things proposed by the House Democratic caucus that might not sit so well with Western Slope voters.

"We should be able to have civil conversations around that," she said.

In a statement on Tuesday, Curry said she decided to run for the seat "because I believe that strong voices representing western Colorado are needed now more than ever."

"As a former state representative and current advocate for western slope water at the Capitol, I can hit the ground running to serve the citizens of this district. I’m seeking the House District 58 seat to provide effective leadership in Denver on issues important to western Colorado," she said.

Rural communities need someone who knows the issues and has experience bringing together both sides of the aisle to find meaningful solutions that work for the entire state, Curry said.

Curry, a rancher who also serves as a member of the Colorado River Water Conservation District board of directors and as vice-chair of the Gunnison Basin Roundtable, has been working as a lobbyist at the Capitol for West Slope water providers, agriculture producers and wildlife advocates.

She's not a fan of wolf reintroduction or of lifting pesticide pre-emption, which could put her at odds with Gov. Jared Polis.

Curry is the only candidate who has filed to run for the House seat, according to the Secretary of State's campaign database.

The General Assembly's Western Slope lawmakers have teamed up to introduce a trio of bills intended to push ahead Colorado's efforts to reintr…

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