Grand GOP Happenings

May 19 marked the return of Senator Roberts and Representative McCluskie to Grand County to present an update concerning activity during the 2025 Colorado Legislative Session.  This meeting is the second annual such meeting, continued the same theme from last year’s presentation, this theme is that we worked “so hard” and “delivered” such “needed new legislation” on your behalf. Hmm… while we don’t minimize their efforts, it doesn’t seem being  a legislator is any harder than the work every Grand County resident puts forth each day, and we do so for the full year, not just for a 5 month legislative session.

It was reported that 657 new bills were introduced with 487 bills approved and sent to Gov. Polis for his signature.  Fortunately, this number is lower than last year’s record 509 bills passed. Considering that each bill is 8-10 written pages it is hard to imagine that the Legislators had the time and motivation to actually read, evaluate, and discuss the nearly 5,000 pages of text in their 5 month legislative session. 

SB25-003 was touted to improve gun safety by requiring more training prior to purchase, yet there was no mention that it requires significant purchaser costs for additional background checks and obtaining this training AND will have the effect of creating an [unconstitutional] data base of gun owners!  

Since Medicaid benefits account to more than 1/2 of General fund spending, there was much handwringing about the potential reduction in Federal funds while at the same time, decrying “deficit” spending at the Federal level.  As a side note, on this same day Moody’s downgraded the credit rating of the United States, and for the first time in history, reducing the ranking from Aaa to Aa1, citing the cost of financing the enormous amount of Federal debt.

While many of the new bills passed added new expenses to the Colorado budget, thankfully the Taxpayer Bill of Rights mandate a balanced budget, so the legislature had to reduce spending for existing programs. Huh…just like you and I have to live within our means—what a concept!  However, it was made clear that the Democrats will continue efforts to negate TABOR during next year’s legislative session.

Questions from the audience were managed by the submitting of questions on written note cards. Interestingly, a question concerning the budget for highway repair was submitted, but was not addressed during the presentation. This is telling, as spending for roads was not increased from last year.

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