A former Lake County assessor is running to represent several mountain communities in the Colorado state House next year. 

Miguel Martinez, who was first elected Lake County assessor in 2014 before resigning in 2023 amid verbal harassment allegations, recently announced his bid for House District 13, which spans Chaffee, Grand, Jackson, Lake, Park and Summit counties. He is running as a Republican. 

The district is currently represented by House Speaker Julie McCluskie, a Dillon Democrat who is term-limited and cannot run in 2026. The district leans Democratic, with McCluskie winning her last election in 2024 by more than 10 percentage points, or a difference of 5,678 votes. 

In a press release announcing his candidacy, Martinez called himself a “non-career politician rooted in family values.” 

Martinez’s campaign platform is primarily aimed at protecting taxpayer money and pushing back against “backroom deals.”

He vowed to end “secretive” land-use and urban renewal authorities and “abusive” increment financing districts, which allow developers to recoup a portion of property tax revenue for their projects and are meant to incentivize community revitalization.

He also said he would be against “developer sweetheart deals that siphon millions in 

property taxes from classrooms, hospitals, ambulances, and mountain roads—handing them to 

connected insiders instead.”

Other campaign priorities include:

• Enforcing the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights, a 1992 voter-approved amendment to the Colorado Constitution that limits government revenue, and has been the subject of repeal efforts by some state Democrats 
• “Fully funding” law enforcement 
• Promoting affordable energy and “practical solutions”
• Defending parental rights and putting education dollars into classrooms
• Protecting veterans and families from “wasteful spending”

“Growing up working in my family’s Leadville businesses, I saw rising taxes and government 

favoritism crush hard-working families,” Martinez said. “As assessor, I exposed these schemes 

and paid the price.”

Martinez claims he was pushed out of his role as assessor “illegally.” 

According to a July 2023 article by the Leadville Herald, Martinez faced charges related to a verbal altercation in November 2022 with the county’s deputy assessor and subsequent communication with the assessor’s office staff. Employees reported feeling harassed and threatened by Martinez, and that Martinez was not fulfilling his job responsibilities. 

Martinez ultimately accepted a plea deal that required him to resign from his position on July 13, 2023. He pled guilty to one misdemeanor count of harassment. Remaining charges were dropped, but protection orders filed against him by the assessor’s office staff remained in place, and Martinez was sentenced to one year of unsupervised probation. 

A December 2022 article from the Chaffee County Times reports that Martinez, before his resignation, was barred by county commissioners from entering county facilities due to the incident with the deputy assessor and his interactions with a commissioner. 

In his campaign announcement statement, Martinez said, “I’ve fought the insiders before. I’ll do it again at the state Capitol.”

Martinez is one of three candidates for House District 13 who are currently registered with the Colorado Secretary of State’s Office. The other candidates are Chris Floyd, a current Lake County attorney, and Consuelo Redhorse, current president of the Summit School District board of education. Both are Democrats. 

The primary election for each party’s nominee will be held in June 2026, and the general election for the seat will happen in November.