Beth (Beth) H. McCann (D-SH08)
Email - Web Site

Capitol: 303.866.2959
FAX: 303.866.2218
District: 303.358.9247
Representative
Colorado House of Representatives
Room 271 Colorado State Capitol 200 East Colfax Avenue
Denver, CO 80203-1784

District Office:
650 Detroit Street
Denver, CO 80206
Elected: 2008    Next Election: 2014
Spouse: Christopher Linsmayer   DOB: 2/10/1949
Committee Assignments
ChairmanHouse Committee on Health, Insurance and Environment
MemberHouse Committee on Public Health Care and Human Services
Counties Representing
Denver

Bio

Beth McCann is beginning her third term representing House District 8 in east-central Denver. She is chairwoman of the Health, Insurance & Environment Committee, sits on the Public Health Care & Human Services Committee and the Legislative Oversight Committee for the Health Benefit Exchanges, and has been deeply involved in healthcare reform throughout her legislative career.

She sponsored a bill to require insurance companies in the individual market in Colorado to offer at least one child-only health insurance policy without regard to pre-existing conditions. This allows families who do not have health insurance available through work, or who cannot afford individual policies, to at least have insurance for their children even if they have serious health needs.

She has sponsored bills to prohibit gender bias in premiums charged for health insurance in the individual market and to require health insurance companies in the individual and small group markets to offer maternity and contraceptive coverage on these policies.

She has served on the Judiciary Committee as vice chair and on the Finance, Appropriations, State Affairs and Local Government committees.

Before taking office, Rep. McCann was deputy attorney general in charge of civil litigation and employment law in the Colorado Attorney General’s office. A former Denver prosecutor, she was Denver’s first manager of safety in the early 1990s under Mayor Wellington Webb.

Rep. McCann began her legal career as a law clerk for U.S. District Court Judge Sherman G. Finesilver. She then served almost eight years as deputy and then chief deputy district attorney in Denver, prosecuting hundreds of cases, including child abuses and murders. She continued her career in private practice for seven years with the Denver law firm of Cooper & Kelley, earning a partnership in that firm in 1985.

Rep. McCann is a founder and former president of the Colorado Women’s Bar Association. She served as first vice-president of the Denver Bar Association and on the board of governors of the Colorado Bar Association. Rep. McCann also served on Gov. John Hickenlooper’s transition team as a member of his public safety committee and on Denver Mayor Michael Hancock’s search committee for a new chief of police.

She has been active in community and nonprofit organizations, including serving as chairwoman of the long-range planning committee for the Denver Botanic Gardens. She is a board member of the Tony Grampsas Youth Services Program, which distributes grant money throughout the state to programs that work with youth to help keep them from getting into violence and crime and was a board member of the Denver Legal Aid Foundation.

Rep. McCann earned her law degree at Georgetown University Law School. She graduated magna cum laude from Wittenberg University in Springfield, Ohio with a B.A. in American studies. She and her husband, Christopher, have two children — a son, Chris, who graduated from East High School in 2007, and a daughter, Lizzy, a 2010 East grad who’s now in college.