Colorado House District 57 Representative Elizabeth Velasco is nearing the end of her first term in office and is hoping for the chance at a second.
Elizabeth Velasco, like many people in her district, was born in Mexico. When she was a teenager, she and her parents found their way to the Vail Valley where they lived in various mobile home parks through her late childhood. “We had to move a lot,” she told The Sopris Sun. “My parents were never able to buy a home.” Nevertheless, she has called the area home for more than 20 years.
After graduating from Battle Mountain High School, she attended Colorado Mountain College (CMC) while working in the service industry. While studying she moved into employee housing, but continued contributing toward her parents’ expenses and helping support her brother. Today, her parents live in the basement of her home in Glenwood Springs. “So we have a multigenerational household,” she said.
She worked as a high school paraprofessional and started on a path as an interpreter and translator. She took a court interpreting class at Colorado Mountain College and soon started working as a medical translator. For 10 years, she operated a small interpreting business.
“When COVID started, the gaps and the needs were elevated and I jumped in to support,” Velasco recalled. “Me and my team were interpreting at the hospitals in person and were not eligible for vaccines, so I had to advocate for us at the state level to be considered healthcare workers.”
That was the same year as the Grizzly Creek Fire. “Seeing the access gaps there, I jumped in to help at the beginning and then started working with the Incident Management Team, doing translation and interpretation of community meetings,” she recounted. After getting her red card as a wildland firefighter, she went on to work for the Forest Service as a public information officer, deploying to emergency wildfire areas across the country.
“It went very well,” Velasco said of her first term. “Coming from my community background and organizer background, I was ready to do the work. The work we do is around building coalitions, persuading our colleagues and persuading people to work together.”
The representative helped pass 33 bills and served in leadership positions, including as vice-chair of the Wildfire Matters Review Committee. She’s also served in the Agriculture, Water and Natural Resources, Energy and Environment and the Appropriations committees. “I have really enjoyed learning so much from all of the people on the ground, from experts, from colleagues and … educating my colleagues about how things work here in rural Colorado.”
Asked if there’s anything she’d have done differently in her first term, she said, “No. I don’t have any regrets. I definitely didn’t go for the easy things. We had big fights and some bills that didn’t pass — like rent control — but I never shied away from the hard things, like holding polluters accountable and taking on big corporate lobbies.”
Regarding the rent control bill, Velasco said, “For many community members it’s not possible to buy a home … We must be very intentional when it comes to affordable housing.” The bill, HB23-1115, would not have set rent limits at the state level, but would have repealed the state’s prohibition for local governments to set rent controls. It passed in the House, but not the Senate. Velasco said she looks forward to bringing it back, “so that local communities can create their own programs and just have more tools in their toolbox.”
She said, “We are a leader when it comes to clean energy … I have been working with colleagues to make sure that we have strong air-quality regulations for oil and gas and other big industries.” One such bill, SB24-230, would require oil and gas producers to pay remediation fees that will go toward green transit initiatives. She acknowledged that there is a place for fossil fuels in the near future. “Oil and gas is not going away tomorrow, but it is important to hold them accountable,” she stated.
Asked what pieces of legislation Velasco is most proud of, the first that came to her mind was enhancing water quality in mobile home parks, HB23-1257. “This has been a long-standing issue in our communities,” she stated. “We have 300 mobile home parks just in the district.” She recalled residents testifying that their water smelled of sewage, left rashes on their babies, stained their clothing and broke their appliances. “This is an issue that affects our working people, so I’m very proud to start addressing it.”
Another piece of legislation, HB23-1237, which she co-sponsored with Republican Senator Perry Will, launched a study “to make emergency alerting more inclusive with language access, and to our disability community.” She looked back on the Grizzly Creek Fire and the fact that when it started there were no emergency alert services in Spanish, in a county where an estimated 30% of the population is Latino.
When asked what the biggest challenges are facing the district, Velasco echoed her political opponent. “Our housing crisis continues to be one of the challenges that we are experiencing,” she stated. “I have been proud to support the things that we can do at the state level and support our local municipalities and counties to get the funding for affordable housing projects, for workforce housing.” She also advocates for protecting mobile home parks, “because those are the last pockets of affordable housing that are not subsidized.” She acknowledged that there is still much to do as far as affordable housing.
When it comes to working across the aisle, she highlighted working with Republican representatives such as Rick Taggart, Matt Soper, Brandi Bradley and Senator Perry Will, among others. She added that she works with local electeds, whether Democrat or Republican. “I will continue to do so, because we cannot waste time,” she stated.
For more on Velasco’s campaign, visit www.elizabethforcolorado.com