Politics around the holidays can be challenging for families, and for some politicians, it can be even harder.
Monica Duran knows that all too well. She is one of the top Democratic leaders in Colorado. At the statehouse, she serves as the House majority leader, meaning she manages the chamber floor and the hundreds of bills that come through the House each legislative session. But in her actual house, the Democrat has long been outnumbered by Republicans.
“I think that's been really helpful for me to not just be tunnel vision and just see my side of how I feel,” said Duran.
Her two sons are conservative. So was her late husband, who died from cancer a few years ago. They all voted for President Trump.
“I voted for him three times, and a lot of his platform I agree with,” said Patrick Ellis.
Ellis is 44 years old and lives in Wheat Ridge and is one of his mom’s constituents. He said she’s the only Democrat he’s ever voted for.
“I found instead of really focusing in on the handful of issues we don't agree on, is (focusing on) the ones that I do agree with my mom. So what she does for victims, for women, what she's done for animals.”
He said he’s learned a lot from his mom, but when it comes to the issues, she’s never managed to change his mind. And he’s never changed hers.
“I’ve tried. I think it worked the same way as when you tried to convince me,” he said during an interview with his mother with CPR News. “I think you'll hear what I'm saying, you'll understand my perspective, but it will run into a core belief that you have where there is no changing that.”
Duran said the family has long been very vocal about politics and doesn’t hold anything back.
“When it gets to that point where we're kind of heated, I will say just time out. Family comes before politics. It just has to.”
The ease and admiration between the two is apparent. Ellis studied political science in college and at one point thought he’d have a career in politics. But he went in a different direction and now hosts a motorsports podcast. Still, he follows it closely. He said a love for politics was something his Republican grandmother, Duran’s mother, instilled in him as a child. She was a first-generation American.
“She would always tell me how grateful she was to have been born in this country and to have the opportunities that she had that did not exist in Mexico for her parents.”
Ellis was also the driving force behind Duran’s first run for office, for the Wheat Ridge City Council.
“I was working, and he said, ‘Mom, why don't you do that for yourself? You've always wanted to.’ And you always think, ‘Well, what do I have to offer? I mean, what do I know about any of this?’”
She’s a domestic violence survivor from her first marriage. Ellis was a toddler then, and they went through some tough times when she left.
“He was my son that I had when I was homeless; it came out of a domestic violence situation.”
At the state legislature, Duran has championed policies aimed at helping victims of crime and domestic violence and providing more money for services to support victims. She’s also backed Colorado’s stricter gun laws, including things like training standards for concealed handgun permits.
There have been policy disagreements that have spilled into her personal life and impacted her family. Duran’s sons are strong backers of 2nd Amendment rights, and her advocacy for laws such as waiting periods for firearm purchases and age limit restrictions led her son, David Duran, to move out of the state a year and a half ago.
“My younger son is passionate, extremely passionate and very vocal. He's moved his family to Wyoming because of the direction Colorado is going,” she said.
David didn’t want to be interviewed for this story, and Duran says it can be hard to hear his stance on the Colorado gun laws she helped pass.
“I acknowledge the fact that, ‘yeah, you're right,” she said. “I have ran those policies and I realize they've impacted what you feel are your freedoms and your choices that you want to be able to make and how you want to raise your daughter, my granddaughter.”
She said she misses having her granddaughter nearby, but she’s still close to her son and his family.
“And he's happy. He's got 80 acres. He hunts whenever he wants, and he is teaching my granddaughter to shoot. Right now, with a Pellet Gun, but he is teaching her the safety, and I have to respect that even though it might make me cringe thinking a 6-year-old has her own storage place for her gun,” she said.
For Patrick, the key to keeping their family bond strong has always been respect and recognizing that people are so much more than their party affiliation or who they vote for.
“It's not the biggest focal part of our relationships, he said. “My mom is my mother. She's my best friend. She's somebody I can confide in. I don't look at her as somebody who votes entirely different than me.”
Over the holidays, Duran said she and her sons plan to get together. David loves to cook for the family, whether it’s tacos or carnitas or tamales.
“He takes after his Dad, so he will make many different dishes, Mexican dishes…and I know Patrick loves it. I love it.”
She jokes that her sons have turned out okay, even if they are “far right”. She said at least they have conviction and belief and care about their community. But Duran still holds out the tiniest bit of hope that someday one of her sons may change his mind.
“That little light bulb might go off in his head, and he might say, you know what? My mom was right all along.”
