Denver Director of Policy Matt Ball was selected Tuesday night by a Democratic vacancy committee made up of about 100 party insiders to represent the Denver-based Senate District 31 at the Colorado Capitol for the next two years.
Ball beat out six others for the job, including two state representatives, in five rounds of voting. The Army combat veteran will serve as a senator for two years then must run for reelection before the entire electorate to keep the central Denver district seat.
The vacancy committee was convened after state Sen. Chris Hansen announced his resignation effective Thursday. He was reelected Nov. 5 to a second four-year term in the Senate, but quickly announced he intended to resign because he had been hired as CEO of a utility in southwestern Colorado.
Hansen’s departure so soon after winning reelection led critics to charge he snuffed out the voices of thousands of voters and handed his vacancy committee-appointed successor the power of incumbency heading into the 2026 election.
Hansen says part of the reason he took the job is to help pay for his two sons’ college education. State lawmakers earn about $40,000 a year. Hansen’s predecessor at La Plata Electric Association, Jessica Matlock, earned $545,000 in her last year leading the nonprofit utility.
There were seven candidates seeking the vacancy appointment, including Ball:
- State Rep. Steven Woodrow
- State Rep.-elect Sean Camacho
- Civil rights attorney Iris Halpern
- Monica VanBuskirk, a health care policy expert
- Chris Chiari, CEO and founder of The 420 Hotels Inc
- Shaneis Malouff, chief of staff at the Auraria Higher Education Center
Candidates needed to win a majority of the vote to win the appointment. In every round where no candidate won a majority, the candidate with the least number of votes was dropped.
In the final round of voting, Ball secured 61 votes to Woodrow’s 36.
Ball said he struggled with mental health after his military deployments and would advocate for the issue if selected to fill Hansen’s seat. Ball said he would slash grant programs to help draw down the state’s budget deficit.
Ball, a lawyer, was nominated to fill the vacancy by Qismat Amin, who served as his interpreter in Afghanistan. Ball helped Amin move to the U.S. from the Middle East.
The 107 members of the vacancy committee who participated Tuesday night represent just 0.09% of the 119,000 active, registered voters in Senate District 31. (Some vacancy committee members stopped voting as the rounds continued on.)
Ball is the third person since Saturday appointed by a vacancy committee to serve in the Colorado Senate for the next two years.
State Rep. Iman Jodeh, D-Aurora, was selected Monday night by a Democratic vacancy committee made up of 42 party insiders to serve as the senator for Senate District 29. Jodeh fills the seat of Sen. Janet Buckner, who will resign Thursday after winning reelection to a four-year term Nov. 5.
Jodeh beat out two others for the position with 83% of the vote.
Another Democratic vacancy committee will convene to fill Jodeh’s seat in the state House for the next two years.
On Saturday, a Republican vacancy committee in Douglas County selected former University of Colorado Regent John Carson to fill the Senate District 30 seat of departing state Sen. Kevin Van Winkle.
Van Winkle, of Highlands Ranch, was elected to the Douglas County Commission in November, but two years remain in his Senate term. Like the others appointed this week, Carson must run for reelection in two years if he wishes to stay in the Senate.
Carson beat out two others for the job. There were 136 members of the Senate District 30 vacancy committee, according to Colorado Politics.
The 2025 legislative session in Colorado begins Wednesday.