December 12, 2014 11:04 AM UTC

Jenise May's Soft Landing a Win-Win

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• by: Colorado Pols

Lynn Bartels at the Denver Post reports that outgoing Rep. Jenise May, narrowly unseated this year as part of an anomalous Adams County "mini-wave" for Republicans, is taking an advisory job with the House Majority staff where her experience can remain useful:

May said she wouldn’t have taken the position if she didn’t think she could be “helpful or productive” for the House Democratic caucus. She’s a retired state employee who served as deputy director of the Colorado Department of Human Services, and most recently was one of six members on the powerful Joint Budget Committee.

The Democratic majority's fiscal expertise took a hit with the loss of Rep. May this year to Republican JoAnn Windholz. There's nothing untoward about retaining Rep. May's skills for the upcoming session, and there is precedent for the rehire of outgoing legislators–more often term-limited legislators, trying to compensate for the continuous loss of institutional memory term limits result in.

In this case, it's an expert legislator who wasn't supposed to lose.