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State Sen. Chris Hansen to announce resignation to take job in private sector

By November 11, 2024 | updated 12 months ago

Just days after winning a landslide election for his second term in office, Democratic Sen. Chris Hansen of Denver has told 9News he intends to announce his resignation Tuesday.

Sources have told Colorado Politics he will take a job as CEO of the LaPlata Electric Association, a co-op based in Pagosa Springs.

The company would neither confirm nor deny Hansen’s employment. The company has been run by an interim CEO since March.

Hansen has been in the Senate for just under five years. He was initially appointed to the seat in January 2020 by a vacancy committee after the resignation of Sen. Lois Court, who was stricken with Guillain-Barré syndrome. He won his first election to the Senate seat in November 2020.

Hansen was first elected to the state House in 2016, representing House District 6. A native of Goodland, Kansas, he holds a PhD in economic geography from Oxford.

Hansen has been among the architects of property tax measures in the Senate for the past several years, and chaired the state Property Tax Commission set up during the 2023 special session a year ago.

He also initiated quadratic voting, a process by which Democratic lawmakers chose which bills would be funded with dollars set aside after the state budget is completed. Results of that voting were kept under wraps, which led to a lawsuit filed in 2023. A Denver judge in January said lawmakers could not continue to use it without full transparency, and lawmakers complied, releasing the survey results for the first time in April.

Among his other legislative accomplishments, Hansen was a co-sponsor of the 2020 bill to change Columbus Day in Colorado to Mother Cabrini Day and in 2024 co-sponsored the bill to ban drivers from holding cellphones while they’re driving, which goes into effect Jan. 1.

Hansen spent three years on the Joint Budget Committee and has served on House and Senate appropriations committees every year he’s been in the General Assembly.

Hansen ran for Denver mayor in 2022 but failed to advance to the runoff and then endorsed Kelly Brough, who lost to Mike Johnston. Hansen won his 2024 re-election bid on Tuesday with 84.69% of the vote, with his only challenger a Libertarian candidate.

The announcement is expected to launch a domino effect for his successor, who will be appointed by a Democratic Senate District 31 vacancy committee. Among the names already being floated for the seat: Rep.-elect Sean Camacho of House District 6 and Rep. Steven Woodrow of House District 2. Both confirmed their interest with Colorado Politics.

Should Camacho win the vacancy — and sources have said he’s the leading candidate for the job — that would require yet another vacancy committee to choose his replacement.

Katie March, who lost to Rep. Elisabeth Epps in the 2022 primary for the House District 6 seat, confirmed she’s considering “opportunities” that could come her way.

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