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Simone Aiken
Simone Aiken (Democratic Party) ran for election to the Colorado House of Representatives to represent District 44. She lost in the general election on November 6, 2018.
Aiken completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2018. Click here to read the survey answers.
Biography
Simone received a B.S. in math and computer science with a minor in physics from Colorado School of Mines in Golden, Colorado. She has worked as a computer programmer in the aerospace, email security, health care, and energy industries.[1]
Elections
2018
General election
General election for Colorado House of Representatives District 44
Incumbent Kim Ransom defeated Simone Aiken in the general election for Colorado House of Representatives District 44 on November 6, 2018.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ |  | Kim Ransom (R) | 57.8 | 25,654 |
 | Simone Aiken (D)  | 42.2 | 18,741 | |
| Total votes: 44,395 (100.00% precincts reporting) | |||
| = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey. | ||||
| If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey. | ||||
Do you want a spreadsheet of this type of data? Contact our sales team. | ||||
Democratic primary election
Democratic primary for Colorado House of Representatives District 44
Simone Aiken advanced from the Democratic primary for Colorado House of Representatives District 44 on June 26, 2018.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ | | Simone Aiken | 100.0 | 5,850 |
| Total votes: 5,850 | |||
| = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey. | ||||
| If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey. | ||||
Do you want a spreadsheet of this type of data? Contact our sales team. | ||||
Republican primary election
Republican primary for Colorado House of Representatives District 44
Incumbent Kim Ransom advanced from the Republican primary for Colorado House of Representatives District 44 on June 26, 2018.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ | | Kim Ransom | 100.0 | 7,138 |
| Total votes: 7,138 | |||
| = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey. | ||||
| If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey. | ||||
Do you want a spreadsheet of this type of data? Contact our sales team. | ||||
Campaign themes
2018
Ballotpedia survey responses
- See also: Ballotpedia's candidate surveys
Simone Aiken participated in Ballotpedia's candidate survey on July 12, 2018. The survey questions appear in bold, and Simone Aiken's responses follow below.[2]
What would be your top three priorities, if elected?
| “ | Strong Public Schools: Public education is a treasured American value and the key to unlocking the American Dream. But if Douglas County were a state we would rank 49th for per-pupil student funding — only Utah gets less. The dramatic funding shortfalls were exacerbated by the previous school board's mismanagement which lead to many of our best teachers leaving the district and 11 local schools coming under state improvement plans. Our children deserve better. Cheap, Clean, Energy: Power generation through renewable methods is now cheaper than power generation through fossil fuels. We need to support incentives to make Colorado a hub for manufacturing and utilization of renewable energy, which will create jobs while lowering power bills. Affordable, Accessible, Healthcare: Per-capita healthcare costs are rising precipitously in America. I can leverage my industry experience to help us pursue non-partisan, practical, solutions to cut costs and improve public health. Whether you love or hate the idea of UHC it isn't happening soon. But there are many smaller things we can do now which will make a big difference.[3][4] |
” |
What areas of public policy are you personally passionate about? Why?
| “ | I am tired of people trying to turn every discussion into an ideological slap fight that must be decided based on core principles instead of based on results. I'm a utilitarian personally. What is best is whatever works best. Not what should work best according to a preferred philosophy. What does work best. I'm passionate about pulling people out of the clouds and getting them to focus on the problems in front of us.Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; invalid names, e.g. too many[4]
|
” |
Ballotpedia also asked the candidate a series of optional questions. Simone Aiken answered the following:
Who do you look up to? Whose example would you like to follow and why?
| “ | This is a bit of a loaded question. I can see why most politicians answer a parent or grandparent. Nobody knows them so nobody can read anything into the selection but it is a plausibly honest answer. And my grandpa did work on the Space Shuttle as well as get me hooked on science fiction books as a kid so he was an incredibly formative influence in my life. Even worse a lot of my favorite people are fictional because I read about a book a day if I don't have something else to keep me busy. I like people and characters who pick themselves up and try try again. Who value both success and failure as long as the failure taught them something. And who strive to be fair by acknowledging they have biases and seeking to compensate for them. People who know that personal isn't the same as important.[4] |
” |
| “ | There isn't. In a nutshell I'd say that the measure of a person's heart is what they intend and the measure of a person's head is their ability to implement plans that actually achieve their intentions. One of the biggest lies I see suffusing political media these days is that you can determine someone's intentions from their outcomes. That is not even remotely true. It's not even true in day to day life where well-intentioned help can make people mad. It is absolutely not true in politics where there is significant organized opposition to most anything anyone tries to do. But you have to slog through and try to find ways to get good results.[4] | ” |
| “ | It depends on the role. We elect legislators, judges, and executive offices and each branch of government has different basic requirements to be good at the job. Executive offices, for example, need much better managerial and delegation skills than the others. Judges absolutely can't be activists or advocates lest they call into question the integrity of the judicial system while specific advocacy is actively demanded of legislative candidates. In general I want politicians with the same traits Australian Shepherds are bred for. Intelligence and a desire to help.[4] |
” |
| “ | I have worked for several years as a programmer in many politically sensitive industries including aerospace, healthcare, energy, and email security. I can bring much needed practical knowledge of how things work to people who currently lack direct experience and also have a bunch of lobbyists vigorously lying to them about how things actually work. My hope is that I can get people to deal with practical problems instead of ideological battles. We've got a lot of doctors, lawyers, and teachers at the capital. Engineers are under-represented.[4] |
” |
| “ | To listen to all the people in your district — even the ones that didn't vote for you — and try to advance the majority's interests even when they are not your own. The only time a representative should refuse the majority of their constituents on an issue is when the constituents ask for something unconstitutional or for something that demonstrably will not work to achieve their desired goal. And in the latter case the representative needs to explain clearly why they think the proposal will not work and be willing to re-evaluate if new information is brought to light.[4] | ” |
| “ | A greater respect for facts, for each other, and for good faith debate.[4] | ” |
| “ | Reagan's "Tear Down This Wall" speech. I was 8 and thought it looked very exciting.[4] | ” |
| “ | Being a Network Administrator for the National Park Service helped pay my way through college. I was there for about 4 years but was just summers for the first two. Then they hired me full time after graduation in 2001 when the bubble burst and all the programming jobs disappeared — rendering my degree temporarily useless. Prior to that I technically worked for my family helping renovate houses — every time we moved mom bought a fixer upper in the new town.[4] |
” |
| “ | I got stuck in the truck because the inner door handle fell off in my hand locking me in. His mother watched him turn back from the door and run around to open the door for me and thought I was refusing to get out of the car until he did so — not the first impression I wanted to make.[4] | ” |
| “ | Halloween. It gives me an excuse to sew.[4] | ” |
| “ | I started reading the Game of Thrones series in 2003. It was captivating because of the sheer number of rich, believable, characters. I'd never seen a series that made you change your mind about its characters the way Martin did. The contrasts of how someone sees themselves compared to how other people see them is almost painful. You constantly have the rug pulled out from under you when a new point of view character is added who knows something that your prior sources didn't and that new fact fundamentally changes the meaning of all that came before. The TV show doesn't even remotely do it justice. The books constantly remind the reader that everyone is the hero in their own personal story. Everyone sees themselves as trying to do the right thing. And good intentions don't count for a pile of beans without careful planning to back it up. Both are good lessons for life.[4] | ” |
| “ | I'm happy being me. I'm almost 40 years in the making and I'd like to see how I turn out.[4] | ” |
| “ | I'm a minimalist. You don't own stuff, stuff owns you. Home is where your loved ones are.[4] | ” |
| “ | Why Does The Sun Shine? By They Might Be Giants.[4] | ” |
| “ | When I was young I had to push back so hard against a lot of gendered assumptions that I started resisting on principle. Telling me "girls can't do X" was like waving a red flag in front of me. I had to do it to prove I could. And better than the person who said I couldn't. But this made me almost as controlled as if I gave in to doing everything society demanded. To truly be me I had to tune society out and decide what I wanted to do. Then do, or not do, things because that was what I wanted rather than to prove a point or to avoid being stereotyped as girly. I view my 31st birthday as the major milestone because that was when I admitted to myself that I adore earrings, particularly dangly ones, and got my ears pierced. Anyone who questioned my technical competence because I wear dangly earrings was going to do it anyway. They aren't objecting to the earrings, they are objecting to the second X chromosome, so not wearing them doesn't even actually help.[4] | ” |
| “ | The Senate in Colorado seems a lot less partisan. I see a lot of bills that are party line votes in the House but nearly unanimous in the Senate.[4] | ” |
| “ | Yes and no. I think some of them absolutely should because that brings necessary insight to the chambers. But I don't think everyone needs to. Diverse groups solve problems better.[4] | ” |
| “ | There are a lot of things I could list, but the common thread they all share is lack of adequate funds to meet our obligations ... all paths lead to TABOR as our biggest challenge.[4] | ” |
| “ | Cordial and productive. The last thing politics needs right now is more drama.[4] | ” |
| “ | Of course it is? How is this even a question? Your goal as a legislator is to get other legislators to do things that your constituents want. Knowing them better will help you do this.[4] | ” |
| “ | An independent review board.[4] | ” |
| “ | Education and Health Care.[4] | ” |
| “ | If I end up doing a leadership job anyway then I would want the title and formal recognition of it but it isn't an entry on my To-Do list.[4] | ” |
| “ | Nope. Still content to be myself. What works for one person, particularly in social situations, often doesn't work for someone else.[4] | ” |
| “ | To soon to tell. It depends on how much I accomplish versus how soul destroying the job is.[4] | ” |
| “ | A woman in my district lost her son because he was trying to ration his insulin rather than ask for help when he lost his job. Insulin costs less than $20 a vial to produce but retails in the US for over $320. This high sticker prices are entirely for the purposes of defrauding Medicaid which is specifically prohibited from negotiating drug prices. Insurance companies only pay about $34 after they get their rebates and you can get the same vial over the counter at a Canadian pharmacy for $30. Everyone says that these prices are opaque and nobody knows what they are ... but I coded claims adjudication software for a Pharmaceutical Benefits Manager for a few years so I do know what they are. Rebates in excess of 80% sticker price are common. I've seen them as high as 95%.[4] | ” |
See also
- State legislative elections, 2018
- Colorado House of Representatives elections, 2018
- Colorado House of Representatives
External links
- Search Google News for this topic
- Official campaign website
- Facebook campaign page
- Twitter campaign page
Footnotes
- ↑ Email submission to Ballotpedia, June 30, 2018
- ↑ Note: The candidate's answers have been reproduced here verbatim without edits or corrections by Ballotpedia.
- ↑ Ballotpedia's candidate survey, "Simone Aiken's responses," July 12, 2018
- ↑ 4.00 4.01 4.02 4.03 4.04 4.05 4.06 4.07 4.08 4.09 4.10 4.11 4.12 4.13 4.14 4.15 4.16 4.17 4.18 4.19 4.20 4.21 4.22 4.23 4.24 4.25 4.26 4.27 Note: This text is quoted verbatim from the original source. Any inconsistencies are attributable to the original source.
