Graciela Garcia Irlando

Civil Rights

I support ensuring equitable voting access by opposing any voter suppression efforts aimed at making our democratic processes less accessible to women and LGBTQ Coloradans. I support upholding the separation of church and state in our laws to protect women and LGBTQ individuals from religious exemptions that permit discrimination in healthcare, public services, and the workplace. I support strengthening enforcement of anti-discrimination laws to guarantee that the rights and absolute dignity of every person in Colorado are unconditionally protected. I support strengthening policies to close the gender pay gap and pay inequality. Learn more

Criminal Justice / Public Safety

I support expanding community-based mental health crisis response teams that dispatch trained clinicians and peer support specialists rather than relying solely on police response to mental health crises. I also support using unarmed civilian responders for traffic infractions to reduce unnecessary escalation, which has cost too many lives, especially in communities of color. I support immediate, evidence-based solutions that look beyond carceral and punitive measures, but rather approach community safety with holistic, services-based solutions. Learn more

Education

I support fully funding our public schools to overcome the chronic 4 billion shortfall caused by the Taxpayer Bill of Rights (TABOR) by championing state revenue measures and uncoupling education from TABOR restrictions. I also support keeping public education public and strongly oppose vouchers, tuition tax credits, and the diversion of public funds to private or religious institutions. Learn more

I support treating educators as the professionals they are by paying them fair, living wages and protecting and expanding collective bargaining rights to all public school professionals. I also support reducing class sizes, protecting defined-benefit pensions like PERA, and providing housing support for educators to be able to afford to live in the communities they teach in. Learn more

Environment / Energy

I support holding the fossil fuel industry financially accountable for the damages they have caused by creating a Colorado Climate Superfund. I support mandating cumulative health impact assessments during the permitting process to evaluate the total, compounding burden of toxic emissions on our communities. To ensure accountable compliance, I support implementing penalties that go beyond the standard fines that corporations simply treat as a cost of doing business. I support implementing fee-based mechanisms on polluters and high-consumption industrial users to heavily fund state environmental enforcement agencies until we can fully dismantle TABOR. I also support ensuring that any new industrial infrastructure is subject to legally binding community benefit agreements to protect frontline neighborhoods, require union workforce, and real-time monitoring and reporting. Learn more

I support a comprehensive legislative framework that ties together clean energy, economic justice, worker protections, and community resilience into the bold response this moment demands. I support accelerating our state's transition away from fossil fuels and making mass-scale public investments in renewable energy technologies with battery storage, alongside equitable residential solar incentives that benefit all income levels, especially low-income and middle-income households. I support expanding the scope of Colorado's Office of Just Transition so that workers and communities reliant on fossil fuels can access unemployment relief and build alternative and substantive economic opportunities, high-paying union jobs, and continue to live and work in the communities they know and love. I support prohibiting any new commercial or industrial developments, including data centers, unless they are entirely powered by renewable energy, ensuring that developers - not taxpayers or ratepayers - fully fund their own new energy infrastructure needs or dependencies on our collective grid. Learn more

Guns

I support comprehensive gun safety legislation to protect our communities, women, and children from gun violence. I support universal background checks, an assault weapons ban, red flag laws, and requiring gun owners to carry firearm insurance. I also support holding parents accountable if they fail to securely store their firearms that are later used by minors in acts of gun violence. Learn more

Healthcare

I support bold measures to shield residents from the financial distress of medical bills. I support banning the garnishment of wages for unpaid medical bills, and I support lowering caps on interest rates and fees for medical bills. I also support measures to expand financial assistance to low-income and uninsured patients, as well as subsidizing health insurance premiums to keep coverage affordable. Learn more

I support treating physical, mental, and preventative care as equally essential parts of healthcare. I also support investing in and rebuilding access to inpatient and community-based mental health services to ensure families get help before crises escalate. Learn more

I support a universal, publicly funded healthcare system that removes profit from care and puts patients first. I support keeping public services public, and I fiercely oppose the privatization of our essential social safety nets, including our healthcare system. Learn more

Housing

I support safe, stable, and affordable housing initiatives designed specifically to meet the needs of aging adults and individuals with disabilities. I support income-qualified tax relief and anti-displacement measures for our elderly neighbors to ensure they are not forced out of their homes due to skyrocketing property taxes or inflated costs of living. I support investing in evidence-based solutions like the Neuro-inclusive Housing Initiative to increase the supply of supportive, affordable housing for neurodiverse individuals to ensure they do not face displacement or homelessness as their caregivers age. I support expanding state income tax deductions for ABLE accounts so that individuals with disabilities can build financial independence and save for housing without jeopardizing their essential public benefits. Everyone deserves the right to be in a home and to age in place with dignity in the communities they know and love. Learn more

I support prohibiting private equity firms and corporations from ownership of existing single-family homes, because neighborhoods should be for families, not shareholder profits. I support granting tenants the right of first refusal when a landlord sells their property, as well as rebates and incentives for first-time homebuyers to create pathways to homeownership for working people. Learn more

I support rent stabilization, just-cause eviction protection laws, and efforts to extend legal representation to lower-income tenants to protect from unjust evictions, rent hikes, and displacement. I support banning corporate landlords from using computer algorithms to coordinate and price-fix rents. I also support protections against deceptive pricing practices so landlords are forced to advertise the full cost of a lease upfront to prevent renters from being stuck in leases with hidden, mandatory charges. Learn more

I support eliminating exclusionary zoning and occupancy restrictions, which have historically been used for economic and racial segregation. I also support land use reforms like lot splitting, transit-oriented development, and building more neighborhood-design aligned middle and high-density housing, such as triplexes and quadplexes as well as condos and townhomes. Learn more

Immigration

I support a ban on any law enforcement masking and concealed identities to ensure that communities know who is policing them and to provide accountability for actions taken against community members. Every person in this state, regardless of immigration status, is entitled to constitutional protections such as due process and freedom from unlawful search and seizure. I support holding any public servant or state actor legally accountable if they violate the constitutional rights of Coloradans, including immigrants who are protected equally under the law. Learn more

Legislation

I support strict regulations on data collection, retention, and sharing to protect patients seeking abortion and gender-affirming care from digital surveillance. I support limiting the use of automated license plate readers, location tracking, and data that period tracking apps can store or share, that could be weaponized to criminalize healthcare decisions. I support clinic safety legislation to protect patients and providers from harassment, ensuring everyone can access care without intimidation. Learn more

Social Services

I support strengthening service management systems to ensure providers and services are strategically coordinated so that families can navigate and advocate for the services they need without loopholes, technical barriers, or unaligned or contradictory timelines or requirements between various services. I support protecting essential services, food security programs, and home supports that seniors and people with disabilities rely on to live dignified, connected, and independent lives. Learn more

Wages / Job Benefits

I support strengthening unions and making it easier to organize, because when workers can secure better wages, safer working conditions, and good benefits, it stabilizes families and local economies. I support the Worker Protection Act to remove the mandatory 75% second-election vote requirement in Colorado’s Labor Peace Act, ensuring workers have a fair path to form a union and negotiate a contract with their employer. Learn more

I support requiring Project Labor Agreements and Community Workforce Agreements on state-funded projects to ensure that publicly funded projects pay appropriate wages, offer strong benefits, and utilize a local workforce. Learn more