Sen. Jessie Ulibarri

Senator Jessie Ulibarri won his race for a four-year term representing Senate District 21 in the 2012 election. In his first year as a legislator, he served as Vice Chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee and as a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee. During the 2015 session, he will serve as Chair of the Joint State Veterans & Military Affairs Committee. Senator Ulibarri will also sit on the Economic Opportunity Poverty Reduction Task Force, the Legislative Council, the Local Government Committee, and the State, Veterans, & Military Affairs Committee. Additional, he was named Minority Caucus Chair.

He was born and raised in the area he now represents, starting his life in Commerce City, and spending his earliest years in the Lamplighter Trailer Park in Federal Heights. He graduated from Thornton High School and enrolled at the University of Colorado-Boulder after graduation. At the age of 19, he became the Legislative Liaison from the University of Colorado Student Union, and began lobbying to ensure student perspectives in every policy debate regarding the ability for any student to receive a high quality and affordable public higher education.

Sen. Ulibarri graduated from CU, and became the first person in his family to receive a bachelor’s degree. He went on to work in non-profit advocacy, and over the last decade has worked to promote policies that safeguard opportunity and fairness. His employment history includes working as a policy fellow with the office of Congressman Luis Gutierrez (D-Illinois), as Public Policy Director with the ACLU of Colorado, and as Senior Managing Associate for JVA Consulting.

He now lives in Commerce City with his partner, Louis, just five miles from his childhood home. They are raising two kids, Israel and Silvia. While in the Senate, Sen. Ulibarri intends to fight for an economy that works for everyone, not just the wealthy or well-connected.