Physical therapy at Craig Hospital and access to the amazing adaptive sports programs that only the Colorado Rockies can provide gave David his life back after his helicopter crash. After growing up an Air Force brat and an Army Aviator, Rep Ortiz knew that Colorado would be the place he would finally be able to choose to call a permanent home. 

When David bought his first house, housing opportunities were relatively affordable and accessible. If he were to try and settle in his beloved community of Littleton now, he would not be able to afford the available housing opportunities. Providing a variety of opportunities for affordable/accessible housing is essential to ensuring we can continue to attract young professionals, new families, and allow our wise elders to age in place. 

At the State Capitol, David helped pass Senate Bill 159 – the Revolving Loan Fund, which invests $150 million in affordable housing projects across Colorado. Working across the aisle, Rep Ortiz and all legislators also worked tirelessly to invest $550 million from ARPA funds on making housing affordable in Colorado.

Our children deserve to learn in a safe and robustly funded environment. Our teachers should earn a wage that allows them to live in the communities they teach in. Our young adults, especially those fighting to keep our community safe, should not be saddled with crushing student loans simply for wanting to work hard to better their lives.

David knows that education can be the great equalizer. Public education is what allowed his family to go from being sharecroppers and migrants to teachers, pilots, nurses, entrepreneurs, nonprofit managers to elected leaders. David will work tirelessly and build coalitions around bold and creative funding ideas that will provide a safe and equitable learning environment for our children and young adults without overburdening our taxpayers. 

In his first term, David helped our students and schools by

• Creating the Educator Pay Raise fund, which invests funding into our school districts to increase our teachers’ salaries.

• Making the School Leadership program permanent, so our principals are given the training and resources they need to provide quality education for our students.

• Creating the Post-secondary Services Advisory committee, which will improve higher education for students with disabilities.

• Requiring institutions of higher education to permit veterans to audit courses, aiding them in their future careers.

Rep. David Ortiz has done the work and will continue to ensure that every Coloradan can live a life free from fear. In order to fight crime and promote real justice, Rep Ortiz knows we have to balance giving law enforcement more tools to be effective and providing resources to our people to prevent crime where it starts, which he did by supporting the Fentanyl law and legislation that will fight against catalytic converter theft. 

The Fentanyl bill balances giving law enforcement and prosecutors more tools to go after dealers and distributors of fentanyl and other drugs with fentanyl in them, while also ensuring we secure significant funding to treat those that are battling addiction.  The Anti-theft of Catalytic Converter Law will ensure that those that purchase catalytic converters second hand track who they purchased them from and ensure that the individual selling is not selling stolen products. This bill gives real tools to law enforcement to track and stop those attempting to steal and sell, and it deters with harsher punishments for those that commit these thefts.

Rep Ortiz also believes we need to strengthen the trust and bond between law enforcement and the community. We do that through ensuring transparency and accountability for our officers. We can support our law enforcement by providing funding and grants for partner organizations that might be better suited to handle certain situations that law enforcement might not be properly trained to handle, like nonviolent mental health crises.

Besides giving law enforcement more tools and increasing trust through transparency and accountability, Rep Ortiz believes that we tackle crime by bringing down recidivism, the rate at which a prior offender re-commits crime and enters back into the criminal justice system. Colorado’s largest expenditure is putting people in cages. Rep Ortiz was proud to expand access to our Veteran Treatment Courts. For veterans that committed a nonviolent crime that can be traced back  to undiagnosed and/or untreated PTSD and mental health issues, plead guilty, but instead of going to jail they go on probation and remain out of jail as long as they meet certain gates around mental health treatment, peer to peer mentorship and more. Veteran Treatment Courts have the highest success rate of all specialized courts at 80% success. Rep Ortiz is proud to fight crime through combating recidivism and keeping our veterans out of jail with mental health treatment.

Rep David Ortiz has a proven track record on tackling crime holistically by ensuring law enforcement and DAs have the tools they need, promoting trust through transparency and accountability, and combat recidivism through successful programs that empower those that want to help themselves. 

In his first term, David has supported many measure to help reduce crime and recidivism in our state, including

• Expanding the Community Crime Prevention Initiative, investing over $4 million in direct grants for small businesses, local governments, and schools for community-led crime prevention efforts.

• Created the Offender ID Assistance Program, assisting those who have served their time in getting an ID and helping them get a job to reduce recidivism.

• Co-sponsored legislation creating new grant programs that support law enforcement recruitment and retention to combat workforce shortages.

• Co-sponsored legislation to empower local authorities to crack down on human trafficking.

• Supported work opportunities for inmates to promote their rehabilitation to help reduce recidivism.

 Small businesses give Littleton and Centennial its unique character and are the backbone of our economy here in HD38 and all Colorado. They are there for us when we want to have a relaxing breakfast downtown with our loved-ones, having a fun night out with our friends, or they help get us the supplies we need for our own businesses and work. 

Importantly, for many of us in HD38, they are supporting growing families and our children, giving us fulfilling jobs and economic stability. David will always have the back of our small businesses and is committed to doing everything he can to help them thrive and stay afloat during hard times.

In his first term, David has always sponsored and voted for legislation evening the playing field for small businesses, including

• Cutting taxes for small businesses through the SALT Parity Act, keeping nearly $500 million of your hard-earned money in our State.

• Investing $600 million to keep our unemployment insurance system solvent so small businesses aren’t on the hook for higher premiums.

• Supported funding for the Community Revitalization Grant Program, providing millions of dollars to support businesses and families working on main street.

• Supported modifying the Mainstreet Business Recovery Loan Program, making it easier for our small businesses to get the money they need to bounce back from the pandemic

As a veteran who survived a catastrophic helicopter crash during his service, advocating for our veterans has always been a top priority for David. He began advocating for veterans at the Colorado Capitol back in 2017, and, now as a legislator, he has the honor of writing and passing the legislation himself. For David and many veterans, the transition back to civilian life is full of many challenges, which is why our the veteran community and our veteran service organizations are so critical in providing support. David is constantly working with members of our veteran community to lift their voices as the Capitol.

In his first term, David has helped our veterans by

• Creating a $1.6 million Suicide Prevention program, providing no-cost, stigma-free behavioral health treatments for our veterans.

• Provided grant funding for veteran-owned organizations to create mobile veteran-support units for rural and homeless veterans.

• Established Veteran Hiring Preferences for veterans transition out of military services and into the workforce.

• Making Veterans and Service Members a protected class against discrimination in the housing market.

• Requiring institutions of higher education to permit veterans to audit courses, aiding them in their future careers.

• Expanding access to our Veterans Treatment Courts for veterans that committed a nonviolent crime that can be traced back  to undiagnosed and/or untreated PTSD and mental health issues.

As the first person to use a wheelchair elected to the Colorado State Legislature, David has fundamentally changed the landscape and narrative at the Capitol. Because of him and his work, the Capitol and the House Chambers are now wheelchair accessible, and David has helped the Capitol pass the most groundbreaking disability rights legislation in decades. Expanding accessibility and disability rights is not only a personal matter for David, but it affects all of our lives. Making Colorado accessible opens the doors to new opportunities for everyone and allows us to keep doing what we love, even if we are temporarily or permanently disabled by an injury or accident.

In his first term, David passed first-in-the-nation disability rights laws, including

• Making Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act a part of Colorado Law.

• Giving wheelchair users the Right to Repair their own wheelchairs, so they can quickly have their mobility and freedom back.

• Requiring car rental companies to make accessible features available on their website, so EVERYONE can enjoy and explore our great state.

• Expanded the equitable right to vote for Coloradans with print disabilities the option to securely cast their vote electronically so they can exercise their right to vote from home like every other Coloradan

• Created the Postsecondary Services Advisory committee, which will improve higher education for students with disabilities.

 Just as our forefathers wanted to limit the concentration of power and promote compromise when founding our system of government; unions are a means of the worker to decentralize power and to negotiate for fair pay, better benefits, safer work environments, and better employment practices. They are not a detriment to the economy, rather the key to growing a healthy economy that works for all - strengthening the middle class.

We need to keep gaining ground on ensuring equal pay for equal work. We need to guarantee that insurance companies and all healthcare institutions are devoting the same amount of resources to women’s health as they are to men’s health. Women should always retain the basic human dignity and right of making decisions over their own bodies and health. 

Given the recent decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, it is incredibly important that we protect American women's bodily autonomy. Rep. Ortiz believes strongly in a woman’s constitutional right to choose and make decisions for herself and her body. The reversal of Roe v. Wade is evidence of the successful politicization of the Supreme Court by fundamentalists and we have to do everything we can to protect a woman’s right to choose and have access to reproductive choice. Already, at the state Capitol, David has worked with his fellow legislators to pass the Reproductive Health Equity Act (RHEA), staying up until 4am when RHEA was heard in his committee and then enduring a 26-hour debate on the House Floor to ensure the bill was passed. You better believe that David will continue to fight for your rights if re-elected.