| 9/21/2006 8:48:00 AM | Email this article • Print this article | Gordon visits with local Dems
by Ali Helgoth
Mail Staff Writer
Democratic candidate for Colorado Secretary of State, Ken Gordon, spoke to a group at Bongo Billy's Salida Café Tuesday about his political past and how it plays in to his political future.
Gordon, who spoke to a dozen people, will face Republican candidate Mike Coffman in November.
A Michigan native, he has served as a public defender in Denver and owned a law practice before being elected to the Colorado House of Representatives in 1992.
During his time in the House, he was assistant minority leader from 1996-1998 before being elected to the Colorado State Senate in 2000 where he served as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee and was a member of the Senate Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee from 2000-2002 before becoming assistant minority leader from 2003-2004 and majority leader in 2005.
Some of the better-known legislation he introduced includes environmental protection and a bill requiring a paper trail for electronic voting machines. The paper trail decided the victor of a contested Salida City Council position last November when the machine indicated incumbent Ron Stowell won, but the paper trail indicated challenger Hugh Young won.
He said his priorities included environmental legislation, pro-education legislation and anti-tobacco legislation.
As Secretary of State, Gordon said he plans to focus on increasing voter participation, decreasing monetary influences in politics and redistricting.
He told the group that he plans to speak to young people about the importance of voting and the political process.
"If 50 percent of the people vote, we live in half a democracy," he said.
He also said that decreasing the power of money in politics is possible, citing his own decision to not accept donations from political action committees while running for office.
It is something he said he believes is important because it freed him from influence when proposing and voting legislation.
Gordon said he would like to make redistricting, something required to occur every 10 years by statute, a non-partisan activity. Gerrymandering has caused the Colorado Court system to get involved in the latest attempts at redistricting.
Some solutions he said he has considered are creating a bi-partisan committee to redistrict or to have a non-partisan create the districts.
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