On the drive to meet Lindsay Gilchrist, her campaign signs still line 23rd Ave. in mid-December. It’s a sign of the support from the community for the newly-elected member of the Colorado House of Representatives.

As we sit down at Spinelli’s Market in Park Hill, she’s not far from where she grew up. Gilchrist, her wife, and three children now live in the neighborhood and she’s on her way home after a busy day getting ready for the legislative session ahead. She’s already at work crafting bills before she assumes office on January 8.

The Denver-born, East High School graduate talks to Front Porch about the road ahead and the path that brought her to the statehouse representing District 8, which includes the main part of Central Park and Park Hill.

Q: How’s the new job so far?

A: It’s such an honor. I’m so excited. I spend a lot of time connecting with voters to make sure that they know who I am. I’m also thinking about policy, which is the reason I ran. I love policy, and I love government, and I love trying to figure out how to find solutions. It’s been great to build relationships with other legislators and start to build friendships and figure out who has expertise where, so that we can lean on each other for different things.

Q: What are your priorities?

A: I have a lot of background in child welfare, both professionally and personally. My wife and I have three kids, two we fostered and adopted. We’re still certified foster parents, so we do a respite for other foster families who need someone to watch the kid who’s in their care. We do that mostly for single parents, plus parents who are caring for medically fragile children, and I feel like that’s a good fit for us and our kids love it and it’s part of their story, too. That’s a real passion of mine.

I’m working on several bills related to foster care. Not a lot of legislators have a lot of experience, and particularly personal experience, with the system, and I feel like that’s an important voice to bring to the table when we’re talking about human services.

Public safety was also something that I heard when I was knocking on doors. Education, public safety, and housing were the three issues that came up all the time. I’m passionate about working on gun violence prevention legislation, and I’m starting to explore some legislation around insurance access and mental health care. I have personal experience with kids who came from the foster care system, and how you navigate that and get the right providers.

Q: How does the national political climate impact Colorado?

A: I’ve never been more proud to be from Colorado than in this election. The voters said we believe in being welcoming. We believe in being a state that can be hopeful and inclusive. Now, we have to be practical about how we solve issues.

We can do it. To me, how to solve this sort of partisan and negative vitriol that comes from national politics is to get to know people and have hard conversations and don’t shy away from talking about issues with people that you disagree with.

Part of that came from my days working in Sen. Ted Kennedy’s office. He was so good at working with anybody. He was a firebrand liberal and urgently passionate about progressive issues. He would run a bill with a staunch conservative if they could find the one thing that they could agree on.

We can always find one thing, especially on the immigrant rights issues, and transgender rights, anything that we’re facing with this new administration, you have to get down to specifics instead of talking about generalizations.

We’re talking as a caucus about how we protect individuals’ rights, especially in the immigrant community and LGBTQ community. It’s just so critically important. What I love about governing is that you do have to think in specifics. When you’re writing a bill, it’s very specific.

Q: How do you get people to agree?

A: You have to find common ground. You can disagree on a million different things but know that there’s a common thread in everyone and we have to see each other as people.

I’ve had time to reach out to all legislators, introduce myself, start to build relationships. That’s how you do this well: You have those relationships, and you trust someone when they say, “Hey, I’m an expert in this area, this is what I think they should do.”

Q: What keeps you up at night?

A: I think that it’s important to have a healthy level of “Can I do this?” and always be thinking that because you always want to strive to do better. The number one thing is how we look at legislation and issues holistically. I’m going to do this thing in child welfare but, systemically, how is this going to change in the long term, and what am I going to do next year? Thinking long term, thinking holistically, really wanting to do the job well, honoring the voters, and working hard. It’s all deeply important to me.

Another challenge is, how do you do that, and then also have integrity in everything else you do: be a good mom, be a good partner, a good community member, a good friend? That is critically important. I have three kids, two with special needs, and that is always weighing on me, ensuring that I’m there for them. I think it makes me a better legislator to have that context.

Q: Did you have a favorite moment from the campaign?

A: One of my favorite moments was going to caucus at East High School and standing in front of the community and asking for their vote. And when they introduced me, and I stood up, there was a lot of cheering that I had just not expected. I was a bit taken aback. It was an honor to be able to be back in my high school, where I played basketball and volleyball, and be asking my community to believe that we can do this together.

Q: How do you stay optimistic?

A: I’m a very doggedly optimistic person, especially in this very trying time. And if I can provide some hope for people, that’s what we all need: to believe that we can do better and be better, and the government can be a place where we come together, solve big challenges, and is not a divisive place.

I truly believe that, because I’ve seen it. I spent some time in Eswatini, in southern Africa, doing HIV prevention and seeing the direct impact of the world coming together and saying, “we’re fighting, we’re going to fight this epidemic of AIDS everywhere.” And we truly changed the trajectory of the disease because of the world investment.

Q: What do you want voters to know?

A: It’s such an honor and I want folks to reach out and tell me what they hope for, for the state, what I can be doing to help, and whether that’s a constituent issue in the district, or a large policy issue, reach out. I want to be accessible and will work hard to honor their votes and work hard to make Colorado a better place.

Photos courtesy of Lindsay Gilchrist