Mark Ferrandino

In September 2007, Rep. Mike Cerbo resigned from the legislature in order to become director of the Colorado AFL-CIO. Ferrandino was elected to Cerbo's seat in the Colorado House of Representatives in September 2007 by the 2nd District Vacancy Committee on a vote of 23–3.[14] Both Ferrandino and his opponent in the vacancy election, Doug Williams,[16] were openly gay; Ferrandino became the first openly gay man to serve in the Colorado General Assembly. He served as one of four openly LGBT members of the legislature, alongside Sens. Pat Steadman (D–Denver) and Lucía Guzmán (D–Denver), as well as Rep. Sue Schafer (D–Wheat Ridge).

Ferrandino was sworn into the legislature on October 1, 2007,[17] and was elected to a full term in November 2008. Assuming he is re-elected at two-year intervals, term limits will prevent him seeking a fifth House term in 2014, despite the fact that he would not have served four full terms.

Ferrandino has declared his legislative priorities to include health care, consumer protection, and TABOR reform.[15]

For his first legislative session, in 2008, Ferrandino was named to the House Business Affairs and Labor Committee and the House State, Veterans and Military Affairs Committee.[18] Ferrandino has named health care and education as his top legislative priorities.[11][17]

For the 2008 legislative session, Ferrandino is exploring regulation requiring greater transparency and guaranteed lifetimes for gift cards,[19] and plans to sponsor a bill to direct funds from fines collected from scammers to educate the public about consumer scams.[20] Ferrandino has also sponsored a bill to allow some lesser criminal convictions to be sealed from public inspection.[21]

He has also proposed, with Rep. Sara Gagliardi, the "American Dream Protection Act of 2008," which would allow judges to delay home foreclosures by 90 days, in response to the ongoing subprime mortgage crisis.[22][23] The bill was amended in the legislature to only increase public outreach efforts and notification requirements before passing the state house.[24]

He has also introduced the Colorado Payday Lending Reform Act, which would cap interest rates for payday lending at 36 percent[25] and prohibit additional lending to borrowers already in debt, making Colorado's short-term lending regulation the strictest in the nation.[26] The bill narrowly passed the state house on a vote of 33-30,[27] and passed the state senate on 19-16 after being significantly amended. Ferrandino objected to senate amendments, claiming that they weakened the bill by loosening caps on lending fees.[28] Several weeks later, Ferrandino and Senate cosponsor Peter Groff announced that they intended to kill the bill,[29] but Ferrandino plans on re-introducing the bill during the 2009 session.[30]

Ferrandino stood for election to a full term in 2008. In the Democratic Party primary, he faced former Eagle County commissioner James Johnson.[31] Ferrandino easily won the Democratic nomination with over 81 percent of the vote,[32] and faced Republican Thomas "Doc" Miller in the general election, winning handily.[33][34] Ferrandino's re-election bid was endorsed by the Denver Post,[35] and he easily won a full term in the legislature with 80 percent of the popular vote.[36]

Ferrandino was also a member of the Democratic Party's platform committee for the 2008 Democratic National Convention, one of only three Colorado delegates to that committee.[37]

After winning re-election, Ferrandino was named to a post on the legislature's six-member Joint Budget Committee for the 2009 legislative session,[38] and was tapped as vice-chair of the House Appropriations Committee.[39] He remained on the Joint Budget Committee until his election as Democratic Leader in November 2011.

With Sen. Jennifer Veiga, Ferrandino introduced legislation to allow same-sex partners of state employees to receive health insurance benefits.[40]

In 2011, Ferrandino co-sponsored the Colorado Civil Unions Act, introducing it in the House. State Senator Pat Steadman originally introduced it in the Senate, where it passed with bipartisan support. The Colorado Civil Unions Act was an act to create legal recognition for same-sex and heterosexual couples in Colorado law. The act was killed in the Colorado House Judiciary Committee before it was able to reach a full House vote, where Ferrandino held it would have had the votes to pass.[41]

See: Recognition of Same-Sex Unions in Colorado: The Colorado Civil Unions Act of 2011

In November 2011, House Democratic Leader Sal Pace announced that he would relinquish his leadership position to campaign for Congress in the 3rd district. Ferrandino ran to succeed him and was elected unopposed by the Democratic caucus on November 18, 2011.[42]

In the 2012 General Election, Representative Ferrandino faced Republican challenger TJ Tyrrell. Ferrandino was reelected by a margin of 70% to 24%.[43][44] As the longtime Minority Leader, Ferrandino was elected by his caucus as the Speaker of the House of the State of Colorado.[45]