John LaConte/Vail Daily
Colorado Democratic Party Chair Shad Murib, an Eagle County resident, wasn’t mincing words Thursday night in Gypsum at the kickoff of what his party is calling the “Big Bill Fallout Tour.”
Murib and the Democrats who spoke at the town hall at the Gypsum Public Library said Colorado’s budget shortfall was 100% the fault of Republicans in Congress, requiring the legislature to convene in a special session later this month.
Issuing a challenge to Colorado’s Republican Congressional leaders, Murib said he does not expect the GOP to hold an event like the town hall meeting the Democrats hosted on Wednesday to explain why the legislature no longer has a balanced budget in place.
“Jeff Hurd, you betrayed Colorado,” Murib said.
While all four of Colorado’s House Republicans voted in favor of the $4.5 trillion tax breaks and spending cuts package termed the ‘big beautiful bill’ by President Donald Trump, Hurd’s vote was particularly offensive because Hurd “purports to represent rural Colorado,” Murib said.
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“He told everyone, ‘Maybe I’m going to vote against this bill if the evidence is there,’” Murib said. “Apparently, he knew all of this was going to happen and saw that that was a fine bill to vote for in Washington, D.C.”
The megabill’s passage eliminated more than a billion in federal funds headed for Colorado, cuts that will “hit hardest in rural communities,” according to the Colorado Democrats, “threatening local hospitals, infrastructure projects, agricultural programs and support for working families.”
It was a mantra repeated by Democrats throughout the event.
“I’m very concerned about what lies ahead; our governor did the right thing by calling us back to session,” said Colorado Speaker of the House Julie McCluskie, who lives in Dillon.
“We are in this budget situation, and we are going back for a special session, for one reason, and it’s because the big beautiful bill passed in Washington D.C.,” said Sen. Dylan Roberts, a Frisco resident.
“Having to go back to the legislature next week, we are having to look at the entire budget to see where we can make cuts in order to balance our budget, and I can assure you that I am going to work extremely hard to make sure that we don’t make cuts to our education funding,” said Rep. Meghan Lukens of Steamboat Springs.
“Right now we are seeing attacks, and we’re seeing also agencies that are being defunded at the federal level, and infrastructure that we have depended on like OSHA, like NOAA, like FEMA, the Education Department, all of those federal structures are being defunded, being gutted, or going away,” said Rep. Elizabeth Velasco of Glenwood Springs.
The governor shows up
Gov. Jared Polis dropped in at the end of the event, eshewing a public speech and instead talking privately with attendees and members of the media.
“We’re dealing with some of the immediate results of the big bad bill already in this current year, with major cuts that Colorado has to do,” he said. “But a lot of the health care cuts are still ahead of us; they occur in the second year, or the third year.”
The Big Bill Fallout Tour heads next to Durango, the second of 12 total stops planned, Murib said. Murib said he was proud to host the tour’s kickoff in Eagle County. He said he believes that he’s the first Colorado Democratic Party Chair to call Eagle County home. Murib is married to Kerry Donovan, who represented Eagle County in the state legislature from 2015 to 2023.
After the event, Murib said the Democrats plan to continue calling out Hurd at each stop of the Big Bill Fallout Tour, and he hopes Hurd shows up to defend himself.
“We’d love it if he came,” Murib said.
Targeting Republican-controlled districts
Murib said the tour has picked stops in Republican-controlled districts specifically for that reason.
“We are here having this town hall in Gypsum because your Republican members of Congress refuse to — they do not do public town halls, they do not have private town halls, they only do highly choreographed scripted meetings with donors,” Murib said. “And that’s because this bill was designed to give the wealthiest among us the biggest tax cuts they’ve received and make them permanent, while the rest of us pay for it.”
There was at least one Republican at Wednesday’s event, as Tony Martinez, the chair of the Eagle County Republican Party, attempted to pass out literature before Murib’s introduction and nearly came to blows with local activist Tim “Chicken Man” McMahon in doing so.
The Gypsum Police Department intervened and was able to de-escalate the situation without the use of force, but visitors entering the Gypsum library at the time encountered a police vehicle parked at the entrance with its emergency lights running.
With such a greeting in place, few were surprised to hear Murib state his party’s protocol for dealing with disruptors before the event began.
“We are so glad you’re here if you don’t agree with us,” Murib said. “If you do disrupt the event, we’re just going to pause the event.”
Members of the Eagle County Sheriff’s Office would then “come and help escort you out of the room, hear you out, and then if you’d like to return and continue to enjoy the event, you’re of course welcome to come,” Murib added.
But no such disruptions occurred, and after the event, Murib said he was glad that the audience was not all Democrats.
“The Republican Party was here and livestreamed it,” he said. “I hope their voters got to hear our truth about what Donald Trump and these Republican members of Congress are doing to us.”
