Photo by PHILIP B. POSTON/Sentinel Colorado
AURORA | The ACLU of Colorado on Thursday sued the City of Aurora in an effort to compel officials there to allow activist Candice Bailey to run for a seat on city council despite a decades-old felony conviction on her criminal record.
Bailey in February declared her intent to run for one of two at-large council seats up for grabs this fall, though a felony assault conviction from 1999 precludes her from seeking office under a provision in the Aurora city charter.
“The mistakes of your life shouldn’t stop you from living life to the fullest or being of service,” Bailey, now 43, said in a statement. “This is not just about me, but about making sure that all future candidates with felony convictions won’t face the same barrier I have, and ultimately, for voters to decide who they want to represent their communities.”
Bailey was sentenced to two years in state prison after she pleaded guilty to second degree assault in connection with an incident in Denver on March 6, 1999, according to Colorado Bureau of Investigation records. An attempted first-degree murder charge originally recommended against her was later dismissed.
In their complaint filed in Arapahoe County District Court, attorneys with the ACLU assert that barring felons from running for office violates the state constitution, and that people who complete their criminal sentences regain their full rights, including the ability to run for public office.
“The Aurora laws we challenge today represent arbitrary and unjustifiable discrimination, particularly against people of color everywhere,” Mark Silverstein, legal director for the ACLU of Colorado, said in a statement. “These provisions also violate the rights of Aurora residents, who should be free to choose the candidates they believe will be their best representatives. These biased barriers deprive the voters of that choice.”
There are several crimes dealing with public corruption, such as embezzlement, that carry lifelong prohibitions against running for public office, though Bailey’s assault conviction does not fall under that category, Silverstein clarified.
He said the significance of Bailey’s criminal past should be weighed by voters — not city rules.
“There’s no secret about Ms. Bailey’s conviction,” he said. “If she’s a candidate, the voters are going to know about her history with the conviction, and the voters will be able to vote with open eyes about how they feel about the significance of that conviction. It’s not for the City of Aurora to take the right of the voters away from them … they can consider it, and if they think the conviction is a reason not to elect her as a candidate they can vote no.”
The ACLU fought the same issue when the city council in Colorado Springs passed an ordinance barring felons from seeking office in 2001. Lawmakers in the state’s second-largest city repealed the measure after ACLU issued a demand letter.
Council members in Aurora do not have the same unilateral ability to repeal the felon rule because it is written into the city charter, which can only be changed by a vote of the people.
Among Denver, Lakewood, Centennial, Colorado Springs, Boulder and Fort Collins, only Fort Collins has a felon candidate ban on the books, the Sentinel found earlier this spring.
ACLU lawyers are asking the court to “assure that Ms. Bailey’s constitutional and statutory rights to be a candidate for office and, if elected, to serve in office in the City of Aurora will not be impaired or interfered with in any way on account of her prior felony conviction,” according to the complaint filed shortly after 8:30 a.m. Thursday.
Bailey has been a stalwart advocate for police reform in Aurora, frequently speaking at protests across the city last summer. She currently sits on the city’s police community task force, which recently issued recommendations to city council asking lawmakers to create a new citizen oversight panel afforded subpoena power.
A registered Democrat, Bailey said her motivation to run increased after Councilperson Nicole Johnston announced after forthcoming resignation and Democrat originally seeking the appointment to replace her, Idris Keith, later withdrew his name from consideration.
“We have this hearing aid that is only working at about 20% because people are saying a lot but we’re not taking much in,” she said. “But at some point that is not the requirement of the community to get done, that is the requirement of leadership, and if no one is leading we’re just in a wet paper bag shouting. And that has to stop.”
At least five other people have pulled the initial paperwork with the Aurora city clerk signaling their intent to run for an at-large seat on Aurora City Council, according to city records.
The municipal election is Nov. 2.
Candidate petitions are due to the city clerk, who is also named as a defendant in the ACLU suit, by August. In an effort to give Bailey time to meet that deadline, her attorneys have requested an expedited hearing in front of a judge.
A request for comment to the Aurora City Attorney’s Office is pending.
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ACLU files lawsuit to allow activist Candice Bailey to run for Aurora council despite felony conviction - Sentinel Colorado
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