As lawmakers convene to choose new leadership in the wake of the 2008 election, we plan to profile many of the new Democratic Speakers and Majority Leaders.

Before last week, this country had never seen a legislature where the presiding officers of both chambers were African Americans.

That changed when Democrats in the Colorado General Assembly elected State Representative Terrance Carroll to serve as Speaker of the House alongside reelected Senate President Peter Groff.

Carroll is a four-term state representative, as well as an attorney and an ordained minister.

He grew up in Washington DC and graduated with a bachelor of arts from Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia. He then moved to Colorado and earned both a law degree from University of Denver and Masters of Divinity from the Iliff School of Theology in Denver.

Carroll is also a graduate of the Summer of Leadership Institute at Harvard University Divinity School's Center for the Study of Values and Public Life and John F. Kennedy School of Government.

In the legislature, Carroll has served as the chair of the House Judiciary Committee and assistant majority leader. He is a leading advocate for education reform in the state.

The future speaker has already begun to lay out an agenda for the next legislative session that includes balancing the state budget, revitalizing the states transportation network, and reforming the school financing system.