After 30-plus years as a Democrat, I’ve become increasingly disillusioned with party politics at the state and federal level. As a Democratic state senator, I pushed back against party leaders who tried to tell me how to vote, even when it was against the values of my own constituents. My reward for showing an ‘independent streak’ and choosing my constituents over the party was losing a committee chairmanship and other leadership roles. And things have only gotten worse for elected officials and party members who don’t toe the line and follow party orthodoxy, causing hundreds of thousands of former Democrats and Republicans across Colorado to quit the party or register as Unaffiliated. Recently, I also made this difficult but necessary decision, reflecting the political status of 49% of Coloradans. That’s right: nearly 2 million Coloradans and almost half (49%) of registered voters in CD-7 are neither Democrat nor Republican, making Unaffiliated the largest voting bloc in Colorado!