Sal Pace

Biography

He and his wife, Marlene Valdez Pace, live in Pueblo, Colorado with their three children.

Early life, education, and academic career

Pace, a native of Connecticut is the youngest of nine children, moved to Colorado as a teenager. He attended Fort Lewis College, where he majored in political science and was appointed by the State Board of Agriculture to serve on a search committee for a Fort Lewis College president. He then attended Louisiana State University, earning a master's degree in American Political Theory.

Pace has taught American government at Pueblo Community College and CSU-Pueblo. He has also served on the Pueblo City Schools (D60) Strategic Plan Core Team, as an organizer for Enable America, as a Colorado Democratic Party Regional Director in 2002, and is a member of Sons of Italy of Southern Colorado.

Public service

Pace served as a legislative aide to State Representative John Salazar in the Colorado House of Representatives, where he worked on water and health care legislation. When Salazar was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, Pace continued to work for him, as a District Director, a Congressional staffer, and as the manager of Salazar's 2006 re-election campaign.

2008 election

Pace ran for Colorado's 46th House District. He won the nomination at the Pueblo County Assembly, keeping his only opponent off the ballot, while receiving greater than 70% of the delegate vote. Pace faced no opposition in the August Democratic primary, or the November 2008 general election.

2009 legislative session

After winning a term in the legislature in November 2008, Pace was elected Assistant Majority Caucus Chair by state house Democrats.

Pace ran legislation to create the Fountain Creek Watershed District as well as legislation to protect farmers in the Pinon Canyon area of Southeastern Colorado from eminent domain by the Federal Government.

Following his election, Pace requested that the state auditor investigate the bidding process for a new Colorado Department of Corrections headquarters, in which Pueblo's bid was rated last of five bids, despite being the least expensive.

For the 2009 legislative session, Pace served on the House Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee, the House Appropriations Committee, and the House Judiciary Committee.

Pace sponsored legislation to remove Social Security benefits and severance pay as reasons for lowering state unemployment benefits. Just prior to the start of the 2010 legislative session, Pace was named vice-chair of the House Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee.

2010 legislative session

After Democrats lost control of the House in the 2010 elections, Pace was elected as House Minority leader by his peers; a position he held until 2012.

Pace left an indelible mark on Colorado and national cannabis policy by passing more amendments to the implementing bills for Colorado’s strict medical marijuana regulatory model than any other legislator. He left a mark on various policies ranging from pesticide restrictions all the way to production management.

Pace also created the fist designated funding in the world from cannabis, and saved the Circle Program, which treats co-occurring addiction disorders at CMHIP, via medical marijuana tax revenues. The same amendment also helped save SBIRT, to treat addiction, using the same cannabis funds.

Pace also passed parole overhaul, which eliminated many technical violations, while investing $20 million annually into mental health and addiction treatment.

2010 election

In the general election, Pace defeated Republican Steven Rodriguez by 69% to 31%.

2011 legislative session

Following the 2010 election, Pace was selected by his peers as House Minority Leader for the next general assembly beginning in January 2011. This was a post he held until November 2011.

In 2011, Pace led opposition to the proposed Fiscal Year 2011-2012 state budget, which included $250 million in cuts to education, closing the Fort Lyon Correctional Facility and eliminating an addiction recovery program at the Colorado Mental Health Institute at Pueblo. Pace announced that he would not seek reelection to his House district 46 seat in 2012, and would instead enter the race for Colorado's 3rd Congressional District.

2012 legislative session

In 2012, Pace passed a bill to eliminate the estate tax on farming and ranching land, and he sped up the air-quality approval process for the Pueblo steel mill and cement plant when the businesses faced a backlog at the state regulatory agency. Pace resigned his position as House Minority Leader in 2012 to more-fully devote his attention to his campaign for Colorado's 3rd Congressional District.

2012 Congressional election

Pace's race was touted as a primary example by Time Magazine of the role that so-called SuperPacs can play in winning an election. Having been in a statistical tie in the polls near October 1, the GOP money machine targeted the seat. Without Democrats matching, Pace ultimately lost.

In mid-October, the group popped up in Pace’s district, which is about the size of New York State, and promised to spend $1.3 million there in the campaign’s final three weeks. In one day, Pace spokesman James Dakin Owens said, “They basically matched us dollar for dollar for everything we had raised in the campaign. It was an 800-pound gorilla that just jumped in.”

In May 2011, Pace announced plans to challenge freshman Republican Scott Tipton in the newly-redrawn Colorado's 3rd Congressional District. His campaign has been endorsed by the Fraternal Order of Police, the Rocky Mountain Farmers Union, the United Steelworkers, and the Blue Dog Coalition, among others. The race was considered a toss up, with both candidates statistically tied in early polling.

In the 2012 General Election, Representative Pace faced Republican Congressman Scott Tipton. Tipton was declared the winner having been reelected by a margin of 53% to 41% with the remainder of the vote going to third-party candidates.

Pueblo County

Pace currently serves as a County Commissioner in Pueblo County, Colorado. As one of three Commissioners, each elected County-wide, he represents the 165,000 residents of Pueblo County. Pace was selected by the Pueblo County Democratic Vacancy Committee as the replacement for Former County Commissioner Jeff Chostner's seat.

After his efforts to save the Southwest Chief Rail Line connecting Los Angeles to Chicago, Pace receive the highest national recognition from Amtrak, the President's Safety and Service Award.

He recently helped pass an expanded Southwest Chief and Front Range Rail Commission, which will become Colorado law in July, 2017

Pace created the Pueblo County Scholarship Fund, which continues to provide a scholarship to all graduating seniors attending local colleges using cannabis excise tax revenues.

Pace also helped to lead the largest local job boom in decades, by shaping Pueblo into the regulated cannabis farming capital of Colorado, leading to over a hundred million of outside investments into Pueblo, and thousands of new jobs.

Pace helped to shape the Institute of Cannabis Research at CSU-P, solidly placing Pueblo in the best position to benefit from the impending research boom to occur from medicinal cannabis and relevant research.

Pace led efforts to fund numerous programs from the taxation of regulated cannabis, from Runyon Field improvements to drug prevention counselors in middle schools.

He also forged the successful ballot issue 1A to fund, without raising taxes, community enhancement projects utilizing expiring corporate tax incentives. Future funded projects include Pueblo’s Amtrak stop, Riverwalk expansion, a downtown baseball stadium & youth sports complex, a community center, park improvements, road work, and several other community investment projects