Coken For Colorado

Background:

Inspired by people like Rosa Parks, Harriet Tubman, Cesar Chavez and Rachel Carson, I've been making a difference in other people's lives most of my life.

I've always identified with people who show compassion and stand up for what's right for their community.

I'm currently director of the Western Clean Energy Campaign, fighting against the development of new coal-fired power plants in the West and for renewable energy and energy efficiency.

I served as chair of the Democratic Party of Denver from February 2007 to February 2009. During my two-year term the party nearly tripled its annual average income and increased its donor base from a few hundred people to more than 6,000. I also oversaw a major upgrade to the party's Web site and email system. I served as a House District captain for two years before that. And I was U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette's political director in 2004.

Over the past two decades, I've been actively involved in efforts to fight poverty, homelessness and hunger; improve education, healthcare and the environment; support workers' rights; and encourage progressive, pro-choice women to run for political office in Colorado.

For example:

I co-founded Hands on DC, an all-volunteer project that creates better schools and brighter futures for students in the District of Columbia.

I served as deputy director of the Congressional Hunger Center, a nonprofit training program for motivated individuals seeking to make a difference in the struggle to eliminate hunger and poverty, and as executive director of the National Student Campaign Against Hunger and Homelessness, which seeks to end hunger and homelessness in America by educating, engaging and training students to directly meet individuals' immediate needs while advocating for long-term solutions.

I helped develop the Southeast Tennis and Training Center in Washington, D.C., a first-of-its-kind facility that has served as a catalyst for community rebirth by helping urban kids learn to play tennis, sportsmanship and team play while developing good study habits and academic skills that can lead to better employment opportunities.

I was a founding member of the Colorado BlueFlower Fund, which raises money for progressive Democratic pro-choice women candidates for state and local office.

And I've personally raised $23,000 to fund local charities that provide support services to people who are HIV positive and/or suffering from AIDS and to find a cure for AIDS. She's also raised money for Children's Hospital and to fight MS.

I've also has served as:

* Acting director of development for the Public Education Network, a national association of local education funds and individuals working to advance public school reform in low-income communities across our country.
* National campaign director for Americans for National Parks, National Parks Conservation Association, where she worked with a number of labor organizations and others to prevent the outsourcing of National Park Service jobs to lower-paid workers.
* Chief strategist for Service Vote 2000 (now 2008), which mobilizes young people who volunteer, to get out and vote.
* Delaware GOTV director for the Democratic National Committee: Gore-Lieberman 2000.
* Former Chair of the Board of Directors of Denver SCORES, which works to strengthen urban public school communities through writing, literacy and community service.
* President of Main Street Colorado. As one of the top strategists for House Speaker Andrew Romanoff, Jennifer played a key role in expanding the Democratic majority in the statehouse in 2006.
* A trainer for Democracy for America and Latinos for America. She's trained thousands of Democratic activists nationwide to have a say in the democratic process.



My husband, David White, is a flight nurse with St. Anthony's Flight for Life. And I have two school-age stepchildren.

Goals:

I'm running to bring my experience in creating and implementing programs that make a difference in people's lives to the Statehouse. For the last 22 years, I've organized people at the grassroots level to enact and implement sound public policies that protect our environment, care for our most vulnerable, and provide economic opportunities for youth, workers and communities. With the crisis our state faces, we need a grassroots organizer like me in the Statehouse - someone who knows how to mobilize people to get things done.

Our campaign has been conducting an informal survey of House District 4 residents and discovered, unsurprisingly, that the top three issues are healthcare, careers, and the economy. Notice I use the term “careers” and not “jobs,” because we talk about jobs as if just being able to go to work, without long-term security, is good enough. The bar is far too low when it comes to employment in Colorado. We don't need more jobs. What we needs are careers for our recent graduates and our recently unemployed workers. Jobs are something teenagers have after school; careers are long-term, lucrative, and provide Coloradans with healthcare, retirement funds, and a safe workplace to build and serve the state of Colorado. I will sponsor legislation to reach this goal and vote for measures with the intent to expand opportunities for Colorado workers and their families.

This is not to say that we don't also need to re-prioritize our budget in a real, sweeping way. In order for the state to appropriately fund the programs that help care for our most vulnerable populations, we need to find creative solutions to the limitations placed on the legislature by TABOR. Last cycle, I supported Amendment 59 and would support any measure that rids the state of the stranglehold placed on our budget by out-of-state interests and so-called “fiscal conservatives.” Lawmakers cannot be hamstrung by conservative fanatics. We have real problems here in Colorado, and the only way to solve them is to end the constraints placed on the state's checkbook and be able to spend taxpayer money in an effective, efficient, and intelligent way. Repealing Arveschoug-Bird and the 6% limit was a step in the right direction; but if we are going to be able to sustain and improve the lives of Coloradans, we're going to need to do more.

My legislative agenda will include bills that support labor unions, expand healthcare coverage for all Coloradans, and reform and improve our public education system. I understand that these are broad concepts, but only after I've sat down with representatives from the stakeholder groups affected will I draft a bill.

We need a more cooperative lawmaking process, to determine the unintended consequences and the effects of provisional legislation before it even goes to committee. We must work out the kinks before anti-union, anti-healthcare reform, and anti-government interest groups and legislators amend and destroy good bills before they are voted on. Far too often, good bills get railroaded and sabotaged in committees, and we must understand the implications of the measures we vote on before they get to the house floor. Crafting good public policy has been my passion for the last 22 years. If elected, I will bring my passion, integrity, and resolve to the state house to build a better Colorado for all, hand in hand with the workers, families, and organizations that seek to expand freedom and opportunity.

Issues:

Healthcare, Careers, Economy

Grassroots Support:

The short answer: A huge role. I've been a grassroots organizer all my life, from Hands On DC, NJPIRG, Project Partnership, all the way to my work in Colorado elections. And as you know, I've been a trainer for Democracy for America for five years teaching activists across the country how to mobilize the people in their local communities. There is nothing more fulfilling for me then to conduct a training and see the lights go on in someone's eyes when they realize they now have the tools to win a campaign or run for office.

I'm unwilling to get elected without feet on the street, knocking on doors, and a real movement of passionate voters and activists working for me. In fact without the grassroots, I simply will not get elected. This is why I've started early by organizing meet and greets with the most active primary voters in my district. Through these meet and greets, I've been able to connect with seasoned campaigners and excite others who haven't been involved previously. My campaign is about empowering leaders - whether new to the game of political campaigns and elections or brand new.

DFA Values:

My social progressiveness has been hard-wired into me since college. The second I realized that all people want accountable government and social justice, I started working toward those goals. I want to help the world move forward, I want justice and security for those of us who haven't yet been fully recognized by society, and I want the State of Colorado to move forward with a progressive clean-energy agenda. We have the potential to be the clean energy capitol of the world. Governor Ritter said he wished he had copyrighted the phrase "New Energy Economy", and I want to do that with our actions as a state. Fiscal responsibility is doing with taxpayer money what couldn't be done alone. It's about taking care of our poor, our children, and our seniors without losing half of the funds to bureaucratic waste. It's about investing in education, so that our children will grow up to have the careers they need to compete in the global economy. And it's about restraint, having a rainy-day fund so that in lean times we don't have to cut programs like Old Age Pension, Senior Homestead Property Tax Exemption, or raid Veterans or Education funds for roads and bridges. It's time to rewrite the budget and release the state of Colorado from the stranglehold that TABOR has had us in for a long time. Quite frankly it's time to return to our core democratic values of old - leveling the playing field so that all in society have an opportunity to prosper and lead healthy, happy lives.