Kathleen Curry, Colorado’s only independent state legislator, has opened a campaign office and has also submitted a petition to be on the November ballot as an independent candidate, in the 61st House district.

Whether she is on the ballot as an independent, or must run as a write-in, she is campaigning. She won’t know whether she is on the ballot until a U.S. District Court judge rules in the lawsuit over Colorado’s law on how soon independent candidates must have left their party. Curry left the Democratic Party last year to become an independent. If the law that will be in effect next year were in effect now, she would be on as an independent. But the law in effect this year does not allow her to be on the ballot because she left the Democratic Party too late; she should have left by June 2009.

Her campaign headquarters is at 54542 US Highway 50, Gunnison. No one has been elected to a state legislature as a write-in candidate, anywhere in the United States, at a general election, since 2006, when Massachusetts write-in candidate Pam Richardson was elected in the Middlesex 6 House district.

Curry will have two general election opponents, Democrat Roger Wilson, and Republican Luke Korkowski.