Denver, Colorado
Dafna Michaelson Jenet represents Colorado’s House District 30, which stretches from northern Aurora to rural Adams County east of Denver International Airport and back into parts of Thornton and Commerce City, where she resides. Representative Michaelson Jenet serves on the House Education committee and as the Chair of the Public and Behavioral Health Care & Human Services Committee, and. Chair of the Legislative Audit Committee. This is her third term as a Colorado State Representative, having been elected for the first time in 2016. Rep. Michaelson Jenet's legislative work has covered broad swaths of policy around the school to prison pipeline, laws around domestic abuse and sexual assault, military and veteran educational opportunities and primarily focuses on mental health and healthcare access, especially centered around youth. Her big goal for the 2021 session is to push Colorado to be the first state to require insurance companies to cover annual mental health wellness exams for all Coloradans at no cost to the consumers.
Prior to her work in the legislature, Rep. Michaelson Jenet traveled to all 50 states, one state each week for 52 weeks, in search of ordinary people doing extraordinary things to solve problems in their communities for which she was featured on CBS Sunday Morning. She chronicled her experiences in “It Takes a Little Crazy to Make a Difference,” published by Motivational Press. The book won the 2015 social change category of the International Book Awards and earned her a place on Conversation Magazine’s “25 Women Changing the World” list and a mention in CNN’s Intriguing Person column.
After the 50 States Project, Representative Michaelson Jenet and her husband, Michael Jenet, co-founded the Journey Institute, which works building communities around problem solving ideas through the TEDxCherryCreek platform and has introduced a publishing arm to publish “stories that otherwise may not be told.” Her second book, “Peanut’s Legacy,” details the loss of the pregnancy of her son at 20 weeks and her journey through her grief. “Peanut’s Legacy” was named as a finalist in the International Book Awards in the social change category.
Representative Michaelson Jenet has an MBA from the University of Denver’s Daniels College of Business and a bachelor’s degree from Yeshiva University’s Stern College for Women. She and her husband have three children: Eytan and Gavriella Michaelson and Ryan Jenet, an active-duty U.S. Marine.