April 08, 2009 01:24 AM UTC

Sen. Veiga to Retire, Move to Australia

•  
• by: Colorado Pols

From Politics West, fire up the vacancy committee:

Sen. Jennifer Veiga, the first openly gay lawmaker in the legislature, plans to resign at the end of this session and move to Australia with her partner.

“We’re really excited,” she said. “It’s the right thing for us to do now.”

Veiga has been with her partner, Bronyn Russell, for 15 years next month. Russell is from Australia and wants to be closer to her mother, who had to move into assisted living a year ago, Veiga said.

Veiga, D-Denver, has served in the legislature since first being elected in 1996. She was House minority leader before becoming a senator, where she’s chairwoman of the Senate Business, Labor & Technology Committee…

Veiga in 2002 publicly announced she was gay after being told some Republicans planned to use it against her in her election campaign. She had never hid her sexuality before, but had not publicly talked about it either.