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Lang Sias

Mike A. Leprino Fellow 2023 & 2024

For media inquiries, please contact cinamon@csinstituteus.org

Lang Sias is a former Colorado State legislator, attorney and Navy and Air National Guard fighter pilot.

As a Colorado State Representative from 2015-2019, Lang represented House District 27 in Jefferson County. The ranking member on the business committee, Lang also served on the education, public health and health exchange oversight committees, and was a member of the legislative tax simplification task force and the JeffCo school safety task force. Over 85% of the bills Lang sponsored were bipartisan. He focused on solving problems in the areas of education, health care and small business, and on government transparency and accountability. He played major roles in passing legislation expanding public school choice, increasing healthcare transparency and reforming the public pension system to benefit retirees and taxpayers. Lang currently serves on the legislative subcommittee that oversees Colorado’s state pension fund. He was the Republican candidate for Lieutenant Governor in 2018 and State Treasurer in 2022.

Raised in a small family manufacturing business, Lang feels a gut-level loyalty to small businesses and the families they support. His passion for entrepreneurship continued as an attorney at the Colorado offices of Cooley LLP, a leading national firm, where he worked with leaders of numerous emerging technology companies and investors.

As a Navy FA-18 pilot, Lang is a veteran of numerous overseas deployments, including combat missions in Operation Desert Storm. He also served as an Instructor at the Navy Fighter Weapons School (TOPGUN), where he led the training program and edited the Navy’s premier aviation tactics journal. Transitioning to the Air National Guard, Lang flew F16’s and commanded a unit of ground-based forward air controllers in Kirkuk and Hawija, Iraq during the Second Gulf War. He retired as a lieutenant colonel in the Air National Guard after twenty-seven years of active duty and reserve service.

Lang is a graduate of the University of Michigan Law School, the London School of Economics and Vassar College. He and his wife Rene live in Arvada. They have three children; a daughter, who is a freshman at the Colorado School of Mines, and two sons, who attend JeffCo public schools.

Expert's Work
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Taxes & Fees
Snapshot of Fees in Colorado: 2024 Update

If all Colorado’s fee enterprises, minus higher education, were instead funded by the state income tax, the state income tax would increase to 7.68%.

Taxes & Fees
Reining in Property Taxes: The Voters’ Choice at the 2024 November Ballot

Under Initiative 108 for every $1,000,000 in value, a commercial or agricultural property owner will save $1,754 in property taxes between 2024 and 2026.

August 13, 2024 Chris BrownLang Sias
Taxes & Fees
Monitoring Colorado’s Growing Regulatory Burden

Colorado’s free enterprise economic system is built upon a combination of federal, state and local laws. While federal policy can play a large role across certain industries, state policy plays a critical r

April 11, 2024 Lang Sias
Jobs & Our Economy
Assessing Colorado’s Economic Competitiveness Growth of Legal Expenses: 43 and Counting

Since 2019, the state legislature has passed at least 43 bills that create, expand, and/or modify civil causes of action.

September 11, 2023 Lang Sias
Energy & Our Environment
Opinion: Colorado Democrats have launched an all-out assault on the oil and gas industry this year
Colorado Politics

CSI's laudable effort to track and gauge the rising regulatory burden created by our state’s policymakers continues to yield sobering findings.

April 15, 2024 Lang Sias
Housing & Our Community
A Less Competitive Colorado
The Denver Gazette

Of eight broad policy areas covered, only the state of Colorado’s infrastructure, yielded a positive outlook after CSI crunched the numbers.

December 13, 2023 Lang Sias
Free Enterprise Report
Colorado’s competitive edge slips in key areas, new report says
Colorado Politics

Those warning signs show that Colorado has lost some of its competitive edge to other states, CSI said in its latest "Free Enterprise Report."

December 12, 2023 Lang Sias
Jobs & Our Economy
Undercutting Colorado’s Job Creators
The Gazette

Two recent studies I wrote as a Fellow at Common Sense Institute took a deep dive on the key regulatory issues impacting Colorado’s competitiveness.

September 17, 2023 Lang Sias
Ballot Issues
SPECIAL EPISODE: Eggs & The Economy - September 10, 2024

In this special edition of Common Sense Digest, we feature discussion from one of our recent events.

Free Enterprise Report
The 2024 Free Enterprise Report featuring Lang Sias, Glenn Farley and Dr. Steven Byers

The Free Enterprise Report is a marquis report that provides an objective, non-partisan, fact-based analysis of both the Colorado and Arizona economic landscapes and each state’s most pressing issues.