This story was produced as part of the Colorado Capitol News Alliance. It first appeared at coloradosun.com.
Colorado law prohibits political candidates from running for more than one elected office at the same time. Sort of.
Candidates sometimes maintain campaign accounts for state and federal office, or state and municipal office, when their pursuit of those jobs overlaps.
Therein lies the rub. Technically, they are running for two positions at once. Practically, they are not, and state elections officials don’t treat that as a violation of the law.
Take U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet as the most recent, high-profile example. He’s actively running this year to be Colorado’s next governor. But he’s also filed paperwork with the Federal Election Commission to run in 2028 for reelection to the Senate and maintains a federal campaign account for that purpose.
Bennet is technically running for two positions at the same time. Except he’s really not.
The legislature is debating a bill this year that seeks to clear up the apparent conflict. House Bill 1113 would clarify that candidates can run for two elected offices at the same time as long as they are not running for more than one office in a single election.
Right now, the law says “no person is eligible to be a candidate for more than one office at one time.” House Bill 1113 would change it to say “no person is eligible to be a candidate for more than one office to be voted on in the same election at one time.”
County clerks asked for the clarification, said state Rep. Emily Sirota, a Denver Democrat who is a lead sponsor of the bill.
“They thought that statute is not currently clear,” she said.
The conflict is hard for some candidates to avoid because of the nature of campaign finance law. Candidates often have leftover funds at the end of an election cycle that they keep on hand for their reelection bids, even if they are two or four years away.
To adhere to state and federal campaign reporting requirements, they must file for reelection immediately to maintain those funds and continue raising and spending money.
While Bennet is focused on his gubernatorial bid, his 2028 Senate reelection campaign account is still active and showing some faint signs of life. Last quarter, Bennet’s 2028 U.S. Senate reelection campaign raised about $18,500, spent some $47,000 and started the new year with roughly $240,000 in the bank.
While Bennet is not actively running for reelection to the Senate, he is technically a declared 2028 Senate candidate because of his campaign account. He filed to run in 2028 days after winning reelection in 2022.
Plenty of examples
Some of Bennet’s opponents have tried to suggest that the senator is violating the rule in Colorado law prohibiting candidates from running for more than one elected office at once. His campaign has denied any wrongdoing and there has been no enforcement action taken.
Additionally, Bennet is hardly the first Colorado candidate to have active campaign accounts for state and federal office at the same time.
Democrat Brittany Pettersen of Lakewood announced Jan. 11, 2022, that she was running for Congress. At the time, she was a state senator at the end of her first term. Her 2022 reelection campaign for state Senate continued to raise and spend money after she entered the contest in the 7th Congressional District.
Democrat Yadira Caraveo maintained a state campaign account until August 2024. That was nearly two years after the former state representative won her race in Colorado’s 8th Congressional District.
Caraveo’s state account, from her 2020 statehouse bid, was still spending money up until July 27, 2024. She lost her congressional reelection bid in November 2024.
Republican state Sen. Barbara Kirkmeyer maintained an active state Senate reelection account as she ran for Congress in 2022 against Caraveo. Kirkmeyer received a handful of donations to her state Senate account and used the account to make a few expenditures during her congressional bid.
Kirkmeyer lost to Caraveo but was reelected to the legislature in 2024 using money from the account she kept open during her congressional bid.
State Sen. Jeff Bridges, a Greenwood Village Democrat, briefly had overlapping campaigns for state treasurer (this year) and for reelection to the state Senate (in 2028) last year. He dropped the state Senate campaign account about 10 days after announcing his bid to become treasurer.
Sirota pointed out that state lawmakers are allowed to use money in their campaign accounts for expenses related to their work in the legislature. So even if they are term limited or running for another elected position, it makes sense for a lawmaker to keep their account open.
It’s relatively rare for a member of Congress to run for a position in state government. The Colorado Sun couldn’t find any other examples in Colorado recently of a candidate who was a sitting member of Congress keeping an active federal campaign account open while they sought state office.
Greg Lopez, who briefly served in Congress following the resignation of U.S. Rep. Ken Buck, kept his federal account open for 10 days after announcing his 2026 gubernatorial bid. But Lopez, now an unaffiliated candidate and formerly a Republican, didn’t report any fundraising or spending out of his federal campaign account during that stretch.
In fact, he reported having a negative balance of $3,500 in his federal account when he moved to close it in April 2025. And he never filed for reelection to Congress — the account was only used for his special election bid to replace Buck.
Another relevant change in House Bill 1113
House Bill 1113 also has a provision that would require Colorado’s governor, when filling a U.S. Senate vacancy, appoint someone who is a member of the same political party as the senator they are replacing.
If adopted, the change could apply to Bennet, who plans to appoint his Senate successor if he wins the gubernatorial race. Several other states already have the same-party requirement.
State Sen. Cathy Kipp, a Fort Collins Democrat and one of House Bill 1113’s main sponsors, pushed for the change. She’s supporting Bennet’s primary opponent, Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser.
“We just thought that’s the direction that we should move in,” Kipp said. “Following the will of the voters is the right thing to do.”
The change would align how U.S. Senate vacancies are filled in Colorado with how state legislative vacancies are filled.
Kipp said it rankles her that the governor gets to pick a U.S. senator when there’s a vacancy. (State legislative vacancies are filled by a committee.) She initially was pursuing a bill this year that would have required a special election to fill a Senate vacancy, which is how a handful of states handle those vacancies.
“Once we started looking into the logistics,” she said, she found it was not going to work.
The last U.S. Senate vacancy from Colorado happened in 2009, when Democratic U.S. Sen. Ken Salazar resigned his post to become President Barack Obama’s interior secretary. Bennet was appointed by then-Gov. Bill Ritter to fill Salazar’s seat.
