Ellen Roberts

Ellen Stuart Roberts (born August 27, 1959 ) is an attorney and former Republican legislator in the U.S. State of Colorado.

She earned a self-designed undergraduate degree in environmental policy from Cornell University in 1981.

During college, she spent a semester as an intern in Washington DC, working for her Congressional representative and for the Republican National Committee.

In 1982, Roberts married; she and her husband, Rick, have two children: Caitlin and Ben, both of whom have attended Fort Lewis College in Durango, Colorado.

She moved to Colorado upon graduation and worked as a ranger in Rocky Mountain National Park until 1984.

After being hired by a law firm in Granby, Colorado, Roberts returned to school to earn a J.D. from the University of Colorado in 1986.

She worked as an attorney in private practice in Granby and Hot Sulphur Springs, specializing in estate, probate and business law.

A resident of Durango, Colorado since 1989, she joined the Southwest Colorado Bar Association in 1986 and served as its president, and as president of the Southwest Colorado Women's Bar Association.

As an attorney, Roberts advocated for increased legal services for immigrants and Spanish-speakers in southwestern Colorado

Roberts has focused on health care, constitutional reform, judicial, and financial issues in the state legislature, and, despite being in the minority party, has seen almost all legislation she sponsored signed into law.

She has also carried legislation to strengthen private property rights surrounding oil and gas drilling, and to create a legislative youth advisory council.

Roberts began to re-enter politics after the death of her father in 1992, first focusing on hospice and health care issues.

As a member (since 1999 ) and later chairman of the board of Mercy Regional Medical Center, she pushed for the construction of a new hospital in Durango.

She chaired Healthy 58, a rural health care task force, and in 2001, was appointed to the Task Force to Evaluate Health Care Needs for Colorado, a commission formed by the legislature to study health-care needs in rural Colorado communities.

Roberts sat on the Sixth Judicial District Nominating Commission, and co-chaired the Durango Citizens Steering Committee for a New Library, a successful effort to push for a new local public library that was eventually built on the site of Mercy Medical Center, the hospital Roberts had worked to help replace.

She was a member of the Citizens Health Advisory Council, the High Noon Rotary Club, and sat on the boards of First National Bank and the Community Foundation Serving Southwest Colorado.

In 2004, she won the Durango Chamber of Commerce's Athena Award for professional women in business.

In December 2004, only a month after Larson was elected to his fourth and final term in the state house, Roberts filed for a 2006 candidacy to seek his seat.

She announced her campaign formally in January 2005.

She was endorsed by Larson, and won the Republican nomination unopposed.

As Representative Mark Larson neared the end of his term-limited tenure in the Colorado House of Representatives, Roberts began to work with him on learning the legislative process, in preparation for seeking elected office herself.

She instigated a bill, introduced by Larson and eventually signed into law, to require that remains be handled in accordance with the wishes of the deceased.

She also lobbied the legislature, unsuccessfully, for the creation of an interim committee to study palliative care.

During the general election campaign, Roberts emphasized her work on health care issues and her experience working with Representative Larson in the legislature, and criticized the passage of constitutional amendments creating conflicting fiscal obligations.

Although both Roberts and her main opponent, Democrat Joe Colgan, signed a clean campaign pledge, controversy arose over advertisements run by outside sources.

In particular, Roberts denounced as "misleading" and "unacceptable" a television advertisement criticizing Colgan's record as mayor of Durango.

The ad, which was run by a political group associated with the Colorado Association of Home Builders, was later pulled off the air.

Direct mail flyers sent by right-leaning outside groups during the last weeks of the campaign also misrepresented both candidates' stances on immigration, exaggerating the contrast between their positions.

In addition to her Democratic opponent, Roberts faced unaffiliated write-in candidate Christopher Navage.

From 2006 to 2010, Roberts served as the State Representative for House District 59.

Navage withdrew from the race in October 2006 and endorsed Colgan.

Roberts significantly outraised her opponents, donating over $8,000 to her own campaign, and ultimately winning the November 2006 general election with 52 percent of the vote.

In the 2007 session of the Colorado General Assembly, Roberts was a member of the House Health and Human Services Committee, the Joint Legal Services Committee, and the House Judiciary Committee.

Roberts was one of the most successful Republican legislators at passing legislation through the Democrat-controlled legislature, and has been identified by media reports and commentators as a "standout" legislator and a potential candidate for higher office.

She also organized bowling outings for legislators during her first year in the legislature.

Roberts carried legislation which revised Colorado's surface rights laws, requiring oil and gas companies to minimize the impacts of drilling.

The bill was weakened by lobbying from the Colorado Oil and Gas Association, but represented a breadth of reform that had failed to pass in previous legislative sessions.

In 2010, she was elected to Senate District 6 and served until her resignation at the end of 2016.

In 2015, she was elected to serve as the President Pro-Tem for the Colorado State Senate, a position she held until her resignation.

Born in Hudson, New York, Roberts was raised in Rhinebeck, where she was elected class president in high school.