CELEBRITY FRIDAY: The Next Governor of Colorado Could Be Openly Gay Jared Polis

Openly gay Congressman Jared Polis, 42, has announced that he is running to become Governor of Colorado. Polis has represented a Boulder-area Congressional district (CO-02) since 2007 and is one of the wealthiest members of the U.S. House, with assets estimated in the $400 million range. If elected to succeed termed-out John Hickenlooper in 2018, he would become the first openly gay governor of a state, although Kate Brown of Oregon is the nation's first elected LGBT governor (she is bisexual). Brown was Oregon's Secretary of State when the previous governor resigned and then won election as the incumbent governor. Polis' task of winning a competitive election as an openly LGBT person to become chief executive of a state would be a landmark achievement.

CELEBRITY FRIDAY: Kate Brown To Become United States First Openly Bisexual Governor (D-OR)

Kate Brown will become the nation's first openly bisexual Governor today when she is sworn in next Wednesday after Oregon Governor John Kitzhaber resigned announced his resignation in the wake of an ethics scandal. Brown was formerly the Secretary of State of Oregon (since the state does not have a Lieutenant Governor!)

The Washington Post The Fix blog reports:

An open LGBT governor has never been elected, although New Jersey did have an openly gay governor briefly in 2004, after Gov. Jim McGreevey (D) came out as gay and admitted an affair with a man he had appointed to a key job. He resigned three months later. 

Brown is married to husband Dan Little; she has publicly discussed her bisexuality in past campaigns. She is already arguably the highest-ranking bisexual elected official in America; Rep. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) became the first bisexual member of Congress in 2013. There are about 525 openly LGBT public officials in office at all levels of government, according to the Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund. Most of them are Democrats, said interim executive director Denis Dison, and only about 20 are Republicans.

Strange we haven't had an openly LGBT person elected as Governor yet, but maybe that will happen soon, maybe if Brown decides to run for the office in 2016?