Welcome to Carmen Broesder: Gubernatorial Candidate for Colorado

 Save Rural Hospitals

• Convert at-risk and closing rural hospitals into community-owned cooperatives to keep care local and accountable.
   
• Use farm and interstate trade revenue to help stabilize and subsidize rural healthcare costs.
   
• Establish regional partnerships with established hospital networks to secure staffing, supplies, and specialist access.
   
• Guarantee timely emergency care access for every rural Coloradan, regardless of ZIP code.
   

Save our hospitals. Save our towns.

Protect Family Farms

• Prevent corporate and foreign buyouts of Colorado farmland that strip communities of control.
   
• Build a farmer-owned Farm & Freedom Cooperative Network to strengthen local ownership and bargaining power.
   
• Create direct trade agreements with partner states and cities that pay premium, fair-market prices to Colorado producers.
   
• Expand housing options tied to farm cooperative membership, keeping workers and families rooted in rural communities.
   

Farmer-owned. Community-run. Never huge corporate-controlled, unless co-op requests. 

Housing and Stability

• Expand tiny-home, farmworker, and workforce housing modeled on successful cooperative projects such as Freedom Village.  
• Use cooperative ownership structures to keep housing affordable while securing long-term residency rights.  
• Tie housing development to agricultural, healthcare, and essential-service employment, strengthening rural communities.  

Homes built by and for the community. 

Build an Interstate Trade Alliance

• Position Colorado as a secure interstate trade hub, connecting rural and urban economies across red and blue states.
   
• Leverage constitutionally protected interstate commerce to safeguard food and medical supply chains from political interference.
   
• Establish direct state-to-state and city-to-state trade agreements to stabilize prices and protect producers and consumers.
   
• Model the alliance on successful multistate cooperation frameworks, including existing climate and infrastructure compacts.
   

While others fight, Colorado connects.

Water Sovereignty

• Keep Colorado’s water rights under local and state control, protecting them from privatization and exploitation.
   
• Negotiate fair, enforceable agreements with neighboring states that prioritize Colorado’s long-term water security.
   
• Invest in drought resilience, conservation, and watershed protection to safeguard water for future generations.
   

Colorado water should stay in Colorado hands.

Healthcare Freedom

• Defend reproductive freedom and bodily autonomy statewide under existing constitutional and statutory protections.
   
• Guarantee access to emergency maternal and reproductive healthcare, including in rural and underserved areas.
   
• Prevent rural healthcare deserts by expanding community-owned cooperative hospitals and clinics.
   
• Build durable partnerships with nonprofits, regional health systems, and partner states to stabilize funding and services.
   

Every family deserves access to care, without fear.

Climate Resilience & Disaster Preparedness

Colorado faces increasingly severe wildfires, floods, and droughts. Disasters that threaten rural towns, family farms, and critical healthcare infrastructure. Meeting this challenge requires a proactive, locally driven approach to climate resilience.

• Transform agricultural, housing, and healthcare cooperatives into disaster-ready community hubs with backup power, emergency supplies, and evacuation resources.
   
• Integrate disaster planning with water sovereignty, ensuring reliable access to clean water during emergencies.
   
• Keep rural hospitals open and prepared to serve as community safety and emergency coordination centers.
   
• Build statewide emergency networks that connect farms, hospitals, local governments, and families before disaster strikes.
   

Prepared towns save lives and protect the future.

Protecting Democracy & Election Integrity

As national efforts seek to centralize and politicize election administration, Colorado must remain a model for secure, accessible, and independent democracy.

We will:

• Guarantee safe and accessible voting for every Coloradan (rural or urban, red or blue.)
   
• Defend mail-in ballots and early voting so no eligible voter is left out.
   
• Block any attempt to interfere with Colorado’s election administration or undermine voter access.
   
• Create local election transparency systems that build public trust while protecting voter privacy.
   

Colorado will continue to set the standard for fair, secure, and accountable elections, regardless of political pressure from Washington.

Your vote is your voice and it will be protected.

 Technology & Transparency

Colorado’s rural communities deserve clear information, real accountability, and public trust when it comes to funding, healthcare, and infrastructure.

We will:

• Launch public open-data dashboards so Coloradans can track how state dollars are spent, in real time.
   
• Provide clear, up-to-date reporting on rural hospital funding, farm cooperative support, and infrastructure investments.
   
• Require measurable accountability standards for state agencies and publicly funded programs.
   
• Use technology to connect rural communities, improving access to services, communication, and emergency coordination.
   

Transparency isn’t optional.

It’s the foundation of trust.

Veterans & the Rural Workforce

Veterans and rural workers are the backbone of Colorado’s communities. They deserve stable jobs, clear career pathways, and the ability to stay rooted where they live.

We will:

• Create job pipelines linked to cooperative farms, hospitals, and disaster response systems, providing long-term employment and community benefits.
   
• Offer transition and retraining opportunities for veterans entering agriculture, healthcare, infrastructure, and emergency response fields.
   
• Expand workforce housing and training programs to keep families in rural communities.
   
• Ensure no rural worker or veteran is left behind as Colorado’s economy evolves.
   

Strong families. Strong towns. Strong Colorado.

Safe Haven for Survivors

As protections are rolled back in other parts of the country, Colorado must remain a place of safety, dignity, and healing for women, children, and survivors of domestic violence and persecution.

No one should have to flee their home state to survive & yet today, many families are forced to do exactly that. Colorado has both the responsibility and the capacity to respond with compassion and structure.

We will:

• Establish statewide safe-haven protections for survivors who cross state lines seeking safety.
   
• Expand emergency housing options, including tiny-home communities and farm-based cooperative housing, so families have a secure place to land.
   
• Guarantee confidential access to healthcare, including reproductive care and trauma-informed treatment, without fear of retaliation or exposure.
   
• Train rural hospitals, first responders, and local law enforcement to recognize, protect, and support survivors & not criminalize them.
   
• Partner with nonprofits and survivor-led organizations to build long-term pathways to stability, independence, and economic security.
   

Colorado can lead the nation in providing effective, humane support for families fleeing violence and coercion. Strengthening communities while upholding human rights.

No one should have to run for their life. In Colorado, we open the door, and we keep it open.

 Protect Communities from Forced Detention

The Problem

Across the country, some states are adopting laws and practices that sweep up vulnerable populations (including unhoused individuals, people with mental health needs, immigrants, and peaceful protestors) under the guise of public safety or healthcare.

Recent federal actions have encouraged the expansion of forced institutionalization and detention-based “care,” particularly as rural hospitals close and community services disappear. When legitimate healthcare systems collapse, detention facilities too often become the default response.

These practices disproportionately harm:

• LGBTQ+ youth
   
• Pregnant minors
   
• Migrant families
   
• People with disabilities or mental health diagnoses
   

This approach does not make communities safer. It replaces care with confinement and strips people of due process.

Our Commitment

Colorado will not participate in programs or policies that forcibly detain or institutionalize people without due process, individual rights, and judicial oversight.

We will act at the state level to ensure that care remains care & not punishment by another name.

The Solution

Colorado will enact strong, enforceable protections that include:

• Due process guarantees, ensuring no one is forcibly hospitalized or detained without judicial review and individual rights protections.
   
• Sanctuary policies that protect vulnerable populations, including immigrants and LGBTQ+ youth, from discriminatory enforcement practices.
   
• Transparency and independent oversight for all state-run or state-funded facilities, including healthcare and residential programs.
   

We will also build real, community-based alternatives that address needs without coercion:

• Community-owned cooperative hospitals and clinics, not detention-style facilities.
   
• Integrated mental health services embedded in local healthcare systems.
   
• Housing-first solutions that provide stability for unhoused individuals before crisis escalates.
   

Colorado can choose care over confinement, rights over fear, and solutions that strengthen communities rather than criminalize them.

 Reclaiming Public Spaces Through Art & Innovation

Colorado can turn waste into wonder and public neglect into shared pride. Instead of treating litter and blight as shame, we can transform them into opportunity by inviting local artists, students, and volunteers to reimagine discarded materials as murals, mosaics, and public sculpture.

Community-led programs already show that beauty inspires responsibility. By pairing cleanup days with art grants, youth mural contests, and public installations, we can create cultural events that restore neighborhoods while strengthening civic pride and local economies.

This approach doesn’t just clean our communities, it reconnects people to place, especially young people who deserve to see themselves reflected in the spaces they live.

Building Circular, Self-Sustaining Cities

Colorado can lead the nation in closing the waste loop and building circular local economies that reduce costs and create value.

We will:

• Establish Compost & Soil Exchange Hubs in parks and near farmers’ markets, turning organic waste into free or low-cost compost for local gardens and farms.
   
• Support cities and towns in using repurposed materials for benches, bike racks, walkways, and public amenities through partnerships with makerspaces, trade schools, and universities.
   
• Invest in smart, sustainable infrastructure, including solar-powered compacting bins and rain gardens that capture runoff and debris.
   
• Launch Eco-Innovation Labs that convert hard-to-recycle materials into usable products such as public art, building materials, or insulation.
   

The result: public spaces that are cleaner, lower cost to maintain, resilient, and beautiful. Designed to sustain themselves over time.

Community Safety & Land for the People

Coloradans are asking for something deeply practical and human: safe places to live, heal, and build community without fear.

As governor, I will support voluntary, community-led housing and land initiatives by repurposing unused state-owned and tax-foreclosed properties and not to divide people, but to protect them and strengthen local stability.

This includes converting:

• Abandoned public buildings
   
• Closed hospitals and schools
   
• Underused state land
   

into community land trusts, cooperative farms, resilience hubs, housing, and cultural or healing centers, led by the people most affected by displacement, violence, or economic hardship.

These spaces will not be segregated or top-down government facilities. 

They will be:

• Locally governed
   
• Open and transparent
   
• Built on safety, self-determination, and shared stewardship
   

The state’s role is to make land available, provide legal protection and startup support, and then step back: trusting communities to lead, innovate, and care for one another.

 Colorado deserves leadership that works for the people, not just corporations or simply to be heard. Every proposal in this platform, from turning waste into art to rebuilding hospitals as community cooperatives, reflects a simple truth: when we put people before politics, progress follows.

This campaign isn’t about party lines or empty promises. It’s about rolling up our sleeves, solving real problems, and leaving Colorado stronger than we found it. It’s about building systems that function under pressure, protect our most vulnerable neighbors, and keep decision-making rooted in local communities.

Together, we can build a Colorado that is clean, connected, and compassionate. A place where freedom means opportunity, and community means everyone belongs.

Colorado is at a crossroads.

Together, we can build a future where:

• Rural hospitals stay open
   
• Family farms stay local
   
• Land, water, and freedom stay in the hands of the people & not corporations or political insiders
   

This isn’t about left or right. It’s about neighbors helping neighbors, protecting what makes Colorado home, and ensuring every family has a safe place to live, work, and thrive.

Join us.
Be part of building a resilient Colorado! Rooted in community, fairness, and freedom.