New Colorado Lawmakers Reject Term 'Freshmen'

DENVER, CO – By Alex Burness for The Colorado Independent. The common term for first-time legislators in Colorado, as in many other places, is “freshmen.”

But some among the state’s crop of incoming state representatives have rejected that term because it is gendered and, they say, belittling.

“We would prefer if we were called ‘first-years’ instead of freshmen,” said Sonya Jaquez Lewis, a Democrat from Longmont, “because then you take the gender piece of out it and it lends a bit more equality to the mix. We’re all representatives, all elected, and if you use the term freshmen it gives a connotation that we’re not all equal.”

The incoming lawmakers who want to be called “first-years” — Democrats who’ll serve in the House, mostly — aren’t planning to take any action to make their preferred term the formal standard at the Capitol. They’re just using the term in their own encounters and hoping it catches on.

“People have been in total agreement, no big pushback, no discussion,” Lewis said. “We’ve been using ‘first-years’ in emails, in other communications with each other.”

Some supporting the change say the new terminology is in line with a new outlook the incoming legislators will bring to the Capitol. This class is more ethnically representative, progressive and significantly younger than the groups that have comprised previous legislatures.

READ MORE in The Colorado Independent

(Photo by Rachel Lorenz for The Colorado Independent)