Know Your Legislator: Claire Levy

Claire Levy will replace Tom Plant in representing Colorado House District 13, which covers Clear Creek, Gilpin and western Boulder counties and includes Nederland and Idaho Springs. Plant was term-limited, and Levy, a Democrat, beat Libertarian candidate Rand Fanshier in November with 85% of the vote.

The Basics:

Age: 50
Home: south Boulder
Web site: www.clairelevy.org
Contact: claire@clairelevy.org, (303)543-7275
Past Experience: Levy is an attorney who has practiced law since 1982 in a variety of fields, beginning with criminal law, then civil trial law (briefly), and currently has a private practice specializing in land use and local government law. 

What are your top three goals as a lawmaker?

Overall, my goals are to be effective at passing legislation; to work across the aisle for the good of Colorado as a whole; and remain involved with the organizations in my community.  In terms of legislation, my goals are to make significant progress on increasing energy efficiency and use of renewable energy, make health insurance more affordable to small businesses, and increase funding for education at all levels.

What do you expect will be your first piece of legislation?

My first piece of legislation will be a bill to require local governments to include energy efficiency measures in their building codes so that we waste less energy heating, cooling and lighting our homes and bring down utility bills for all Coloradans.

What are you most looking forward to as a legislator?

Digging into proposed legislation to work towards meaningful progress in the areas I outlined above.  I look forward to the policy discussions that will occur in committee hearings and at caucus meetings, and I look forward to working with other policy leaders in Colorado.

What aren’t you looking forward to?

The specter of late nights and voting on bills and amendments when we are too tired to make sense.  I am optimistic that we won’t have terrible partisan bickering, but I’m not looking forward to efforts to sabotage good legislation for political gain.

Why did you run for the legislature?

I ran for the legislature to work on the big issues we face as a state at the dawn on the 21st century.  The trends show health insurance becoming beyond reach for more and more people.  The United States is not doing its part to confront the challenge of global warming and so we must address climate change at the state level.  The new global economy requires a highly skills, adaptable work force.  We must embrace these issues and find solutions.

Read all of the “Know Your Legislator” profiles here.