Gov. John Hickenlooper took his pitch to rework the state’s hospital provider fee to members of the real estate industry on Tuesday, the day before the 2016 legislative opened and just two days before he made the same pitch to lawmakers by placing the issue at the heart of his State of the State address.

“I learned, and I think I have always known, that people buy their homes from people they trust and they build relationships,” he told attendees at the Colorado Mortgage and Real Estate Sales Summit in Denver.

“Most of the good realtors I know, they have relationships that go back 10, 20, 30 years. And mortgage brokers, same thing. … I urge each of you to, don’t just take my word for it, to look up the hospital provider fee and look up this funding issue the state is faced with. Because great states and great communities and great cities are the ones that are able to mobilize and invest in their future,” he said.

The hospital fee proposal, spearheaded by Hickenlooper with the support of Democratic lawmakers, would keep the fees from counting against the spending cap imposed by the state’s Taxpayer Bill of Rights and raise the threshold at which taxpayers would receive refunds. The money, hundreds of millions of dollars, would be used to bolster public infrastructure and education.

Hickenlooper has been building his case for the proposal for months, attempting to stoke support for it among groups that might influence the reluctant Republican caucus at the Capitol.

“You guys have to be the conduit by which this information gets back to the Legislature and to the voters,” he told the real estate crowd. “Bring it up when you’re talking with people, make sure people get the real facts and try and encourage that investment in our future.”

Hickenlooper told the summit attendees that, although the state economy has recovered from the recession, many Coloradans are still struggling because technology has displaced workers. He said Coloradans struggling to find work or feeling job insecurity are more likely to vote against a tax increase.

But, he said, Colorado is generally thriving and drawing more and more residents who are driving more and more.

“Especially in transportation, we’re beginning to be strangled by our own success. We’ve had such success that now we need to make sure we’re investing in the infrastructure so that we don’t end up with constant traffic jams and congestion as you see often in other successful cities,” he said.