Vacancy committee elects Meg Froelich in Colorado House District 3

The mad shuffling of political seats in Arapahoe County is finally over.

Inside the Englewood Civic Center on Monday night, a Democratic Party vacancy committee appointed former Greenwood Village Councilwoman Meg Froelich to fill the House seat soon to be vacated by Jeff Bridges, who just two days ago was appointed by a separate vacancy committee to fill the Senate seat held by Daniel Kagan, who last month announced his resignation.

Whew.

A 58-member vacancy committee, comprised mostly of precinct committee members and captains, elected Froelich by a speedy vote of 45-13.

Froelich, who is a documentary filmmaker, beat out the other only candidate: John Stone, a formerly homeless union organizer who worked in 2018 on the successful campaigns of Rep. Kerry Tipper and Sen. Brittany Pettersen and in 2016 for Bridges.

Froelich ran for the House District 3 seat in 2016, but fell 13 points short of Bridges in the primary election. The district covers Englewood, Cherry Hills Village, Greenwood Village and Sheridan.

“We have these majorities. The eyes of the nation are on Colorado,” Froelich told the crowd, nodding to the fact that Democrats now control both chambers of the state legislature. “The whole reason that we’re in this room and the whole reason we’re activists and we knock and we walk and call … is so that we elect people who go to the legislature and advance a progressive agenda. All of it doesn’t matter unless we plant the flag and move the state in a progressive manner.”

Froelich, who’s also served on the boards of NARAL Pro-Choice Colorado and Emerge Colorado, which works to recruit and elect women candidates, added, “2020 is coming tomorrow, and I know how to defend this seat, raise the money and keep Colorado blue.”

When Froelich joins the legislature Jan. 14 — the same day Bridges is sworn in as a state senator — she’ll be the 47th woman in the General Assembly, adding to what already was a Colorado record.

Froelich and Stone hugged after Arapahoe County Democratic Party officials announced the tally. She promised to defend reproductive rights, workers’ rights and LGBTQ rights, and told the crowd that her door at the Capitol would always be open.