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DENVER, CO – Speaker-designate Jennifer Bacon, D-Denver, today released the following statement after House Democrats selected her to be the next Speaker of the Colorado House:
“I’m deeply honored to continue serving my district and the great people of Colorado, and to demonstrate that we all rise together. Colorado voters have made it clear that they trust Democrats to lead our state because we deliver on our promises. I’m ready to continue our progress as the next Speaker of the Colorado House.
“For years as an advocate, educator, school board member and now your Speaker-designate, I have always put our communities at the forefront of every decision. It’s up to us to safeguard Colorado from the Trump Administration, and I intend to redouble our efforts to protect our rights.
“Democrats stand united in fostering a Colorado where students receive a high-quality education, families can afford to fill their fridge and the air we all breathe is clean.”
House Democrats will have 49 members in the 76th General Assembly. This week, Democrats secured supermajorities in both the House and Senate. With historic wins, the democratic caucus in the House is the largest in 90 years. This is also one of the most diverse ever elected in Colorado, with more than two-thirds of the caucus women.
Speaker-designate Bacon was elected to the General Assembly in 2020 and represents House District 7, which includes Denver’s far northeast neighborhoods of Green Valley Ranch and Montbello. In 2022, she was elected Assistant Majority Leader, making her part of the first all-woman leadership team. Speaker-designate Bacon is a long-serving member of the House Education and Judiciary Committees and is a member and former chair of the Black Democratic Legislative Caucus of Colorado.
During her time in the legislature, Speaker-designate Bacon has led the way in expanding educational access and opportunity for young people, reforming our criminal justice system, modernizing labor and workplace protections, protecting consumers and improving our air quality.
Speaker-designate Bacon has sponsored bills to combat discrimination in K-12 schools and create new career pathways for students after graduation. She was also a proud sponsor of the new school finance formula, which created a modernized, student-centered method to distribute resources. She is a tireless champion for workers, sponsoring the equal pay for equal work law and the 2025 and 2026 Worker Protection Act.
Bacon has championed many criminal justice reform laws, including helping justice-involved Coloradans re-enter the workforce to reduce recidivism, creating the right to visitation for Coloradans who are incarcerated, codifying Miranda Rights in Colorado law and creating school programs to disrupt the school-to-prison pipeline and provide essential intervention and prevention for at-risk youth. She also expanded the effective Extreme Risk Protection Order law to include teachers and save Colorado lives.
Speaker-designate Bacon safeguarded Coloradans’ right to vote, helped combat intimidation at the polls and established an equity study to dive deeper into the impacts of slavery on Black Coloradans. In addition, Speaker-designate Bacon has passed bills to combat pollution and protect Colorado’s environment, including free transit during ozone season and the 2024 legislative package to improve air quality.
Speaker-designate Bacon earned a JD from the College of William & Mary in Virginia, a Master’s in Education from Florida International University, and a Bachelor’s in Business Management from Tulane University. She was a math teacher, school administrator, lawyer, and community organizer before joining the legislature. Speaker-designate Bacon was elected to the Denver School Board in 2017, and was named vice president of the board in 2019.