“Welcome to the 73rd General Assembly, the 146th year that we have come together to do the work of governing the State of Colorado.

It’s a big thing, taking the oath of office, swearing to uphold the constitution of the United States and Colorado. You represent approximately eighty thousand Colorado citizens and all their hopes and dreams.

You sit at the same desks as the legislators in 1901, the chandelier casts the same light over our work and we look out onto the Front Range of Colorado, seemingly unchanged from over a hundred years ago.

But much HAS changed. The desks have a few cracks and the spittoons have been replaced by filing cabinets which are increasingly replaced by iPads. The chandelier is no longer a gas light but now shines with electrons harvested from the wind and the sun and sometimes coal. The Front Range is still there but isn’t always as clearly visible as before as the numbers of people who populate the Front Range of Colorado grows and grows.

And WE have changed. This is the most diverse legislative body in Colorado history. A remarkable collection of people from all walks of life, some born here, some transplanted, some from the ever more urban parts of Denver and many from the far corners of our state. We have teachers and lawyers and game wardens and veterans and community activists and we have moms and dads and husbands and wives, traditional titles but ever more less traditional roles.

A hundred years ago there were few women in the seats at these desks. Although the first African-American representative, John Gunnell, was elected in 1881, the first African-American woman, Arie Taylor wasn’t seated until 1972, nearly a hundred years later. So it has taken a long time to have the kind of diversity that we see in this room today. And we should be proud of where we are.

Diversity is truly something to champion, it is the broadening of our perspective and our work, and it’s something that we should celebrate and embrace as an opportunity to learn more. Just as we encourage more input on our work in this building, providing new opportunities for public testimony, we should always lean into the need for perspective.

Perspective, as a goal, means that ALL of our voices are important. All of us have been chosen by our constituents to be THEIR voice in this chamber and it really does take ALL of our voices to have what we do here matter.

It is the diversity of thought that keeps coming back to mind. No matter the color of our skin, the ethnic norms we bring into the building, the near and far corners of the world from which we come, the experiences we all have had have formed us and formed the way we consider the future of our state. And that is where the minority, the Republicans in this chamber come in.

We represent some of the most remarkable people and places in this state. From Representative Holtorf out in Akron, Colorado and his Buffalo Springs Ranch to Representative Will and his years as a game warden, hunting and traveling the narrow canyons of western Colorado, we are the voices for a great swath of our state that lies outside the population center along the Front Range. I like to think that that’s the reason for our windows with a view of the mountains, a reminder that there is a great deal of perspective just over the ridge.

The diversity I mention is a big part of the reason for the five hours of debate on Rule 44 back in January. Take a moment to consider that none of the members of the majority in this chamber have ever served in the minority. The learned experience of fighting for constituents from the position of the minority is unique and difficult to understand and it tempers the way we fight for the constancy of this institution. The places we come from colors the way we look at things and the importance of things like rules, perspectives you might miss unless what is being considered has been desperately important to you!

Shared experience begets humility, makes all of us better representatives and gives us a wealth of understanding. It creates a shared foundation of experience that serves the institution of the legislature well. It gives us a basis for conversations of why there is a great deal of sameness about us and how we approach what the people of Colorado need.

What becomes important, especially since we lack many of those shared struggles, is the absolute need to have that other voice in the room. Any place where we see a lack of a loyal opposition is where we see a dearth of perspective, a lack of the tough questions that hone our solutions. As a body we consider ideas that would improve the lives of Coloradans but as caucuses we have far different ideas on how to enact those solutions and far different lenses through which we view the relationship between the government and the people. That tension is what we need more of, not less, and it’s the reason we show up to work day after day.

Coming to work each day in the role of the minority means that the majority of our time we play defense. Defense against attacks on our freedoms, defense against more and more pressure brought to bear on our families and their paychecks. Defense against the laundry list of things government can do but often without the debate about what it should do.

There is one thing, however, that we don’t dispute. There is never a debate on freedom. Freedom to live our lives, to observe a faith, to raise our kids as we see fit and to pursue our dreams. The Declaration of Independence makes it the most prominent ideal that we are united in believing, that there are truths that are self-evident, that we each have unalienable rights, endowed by our Creator, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness, the very idea of which I grew up with and what makes me a staunch Republican.

I am proud to be a Republican and incredibly proud to lead this caucus because we have a message, more than ever before, in how we recover from this last year. We stand in favor of things that have stood the test of time, things that are foundational in how government should be accountable to the people and how we can all achieve our dreams by equalizing opportunity, not by equalizing outcomes.

We believe that government is instituted to protect the rights of the individual, unique to this American experiment. It is the role of government not to demand more from it’s citizens but rather to protect their ability to succeed and live without the tyranny of an unassailable ruling class.

We believe that government is best when it is as small as possible and that it’s best work is done when it does the things we cannot do individually. My good friend Steve Johnson, who once sat at a desk in this room, says that government should never do what you can find in the Yellow Pages. (If you can even find a Yellow Pages these days)

We believe that, because government must survive on the success of others, through taxation, it should be as transparent and accountable as possible.

We believe that government should respect the framework that makes most of the things we see and hear and touch and taste possible. The engine that drives our world? Free Enterprise.

This past year has been a tremendous test of those principles and we have seen both success and failure. Let’s talk about some of those successes.

The Five Star program was something the good people of Grand Junction developed in the face of government restrictions and, in the waning days of 2020 we saw implemented statewide, enabling businesses and employees to survive while adopting tougher health standards. It is a unique example of how we can trust our citizens to do their best and protect their own interests, a creative way to enable a high level of protection for customers and employees and make it possible for families to put food on the table.

As the COVID vaccine arrived and was distributed there were inevitable problems, issues with supplying the demand across the state. Local health departments reached out and we worked with the Governor to get the vaccines that were ordered where they needed to go, keeping the solution close to the source of the issue and working together for the good of our state.

The very existence of the COVID-19 vaccine is a shining example of the value of Free Enterprise and the symbiotic response of those in government and private companies that could develop and distribute a world-saving vaccine through Operation Warp Speed.

We hope to put COVID in our rear view mirror soon and, in so doing, we are focused on the road ahead for our state.

Concrete and asphalt is a big part of that conversation. The lane miles and capacity that this state needs are a vital part of how we grow out of the COVID downturn. As many of us could testify, the weeks of March and April quarantine last year reminded us of how we want to be able to travel around our cities and across our state. The years of congestion and dangerous road conditions have brought us all to the table and there is an energy in the room to get something done.

We stand for a solution to this problem. We stand for the tremendous importance we place on the safety of our Colorado motorists and their ability to get to work and to play without putting their lives at risk. We stand for the expansion of commerce that more road capacity will create. And we stand for our voters. We must undertake the solution to our concrete and asphalt problems with the voters in mind, voters who only 105 days ago told us they want a voice on fees imposed on them.

The conversation in the last election was the latest in a series of questions that give us insight into the minds of the Colorado voters, voters who sent each of us here today. We have seen for the past several years that voters want to have a say in taxes and fees, less of a burden from income tax and we have seen that they have had a good understanding of the complex relationship between Gallagher and TABOR. We trust our voters and we have an absolute necessity to have our voters trust us.

If we play tricks with the gas tax and a “gas fee” we might be able to solve the transportation issues in a way not accomplished in the last couple of decades but we might fail in the most important job we all have, to live up to the trust voters have placed in us. It’s the devil in the details that gives us pause and it’s the reality of what we need that makes our voices rise with caution. Trust the voters of Colorado. Take this issue to them and be prepared to make the best case for why we need to solve our transportation problems today and what it will cost. Draw out for them the 10 year plan and show them along the way how we are doing what we said we were going to do. It is the only way to rebuild the trust with the people who have been so failed by a congested and dangerous transportation system.

Trust is the most important commodity that we have, trust that we make decisions in this building that are good for ALL of Colorado. The past few years have seen an enormous amount of change for this state and many of those changes are far different for the urban centers along the Front Range than for the rural parts of Colorado. We have seen changes in our regulation of one of our largest industries, affecting Weld County and Garfield County especially. The type of changes in oil and gas permitting and regulation are driving a thirty billion dollar industry out of our state and creating brand new issues, not seen before in an energy rich Colorado.

Just two nights ago many of us in northern Colorado received a disturbing message. It was a request to curtail energy usage between the hours of four and ten PM because the extreme cold was pitting a high demand for electricity against low production after several days when the sun wasn’t able to break through the clouds and there was little wind. This caused a shortage of natural gas, used to produce power when renewable sources can not meet demand.

All of the lofty goals of having 100% renewable energy were not sufficient to both provide the electricity we all demand as well as the heat for our homes. We should never have to make those choices, especially on the coldest day in recent history. The 21st Century should not hallmark a return to the candles and wood stoves of the 19th. We deserve better and must work for an energy future that includes an “all of the above” approach, including nuclear and fossil fuels and pumped hydro.

One of the less obvious lessons of this past year has been not only that the virus affects our communities differently, both the higher incidence in minority communities in our metro area as well as the negligible number of cases in rural Colorado, but that the needs of those communities is far different as well. What works in Five Points is not necessarily what works in Wiggins, what folks in Boulder are ready and willing to do isn’t always the same as what is practical in Montrose. Treating the state with a set of solutions that work for Front Range Colorado is increasingly seen as a war on our rural areas.

We must do better and listen and engage with communities that are not like our own and incorporate their ideas into the solutions we prescribe. From mask mandates to animal rights to availability of fuel for agriculture we have to listen to what folks say and be willing to modify what we do in order to accommodate the needs of each community. It takes work and consistent effort and is not an easy or comfortable task but it starts with listening and trying to understand. We stand for Rural Colorado and we will put the years of social distancing from farmers in the Arkansas Valley up against anyone in Fort Collins.

We all are frequently asked what we are going to do, what bills we are going to propose, what initiatives we will support and I think we have pretty standard answers. We are going to do what we think is best for our state. Colorado deserves the very best ideas, the very best practices and the ethic of doing what it takes for everyone to succeed. We come from different regions, different communities, different backgrounds but we have so much in common that we can, together, overcome all the differences in the world. We simply need to listen and seek to understand before we act, to walk as much of a mile in another person’s shoes as we can and be reminded that the connection we all share is that we are all just people. We wake up every morning, some of us put on pants before our first Zooms, and we set out to serve the people of our state.

We are all here for a reason, with perspectives that help guide our steps, and our state would be so much poorer if we weren’t here, or if our words fell on empty chairs. We stand ready to tackle the big problems of our state, to partner with all of you in service to the people of Colorado. We might not always agree, in fact I can guarantee that we won’t, but I can also guarantee that we will put our best ideas on the table.

We have a lot of things in common, things that give us the ability to disagree and argue and debate respectfully. In fact I am willing to bet that most of us started this morning at our kitchen table, hurrying to have a cup of coffee before heading down here to get started again. That’s what the people of our state, even our country, are longing for. The touchstone of our normal lives that means we are not always railing at each other from the most extreme positions, that we are able to champion the things that we share and that we need and are able to chart a course that takes into account the swath of our state and country that have lost faith in their government.

That’s the danger, that the prolonged arguments are never resolved in ways that benefit the families of Fruita or Craig or Walden or Buena Vista. The danger is that people lose hope and just retreat to their corners and the loudest voices in the room win out. Make no mistake, I am here to present the case for why it matters that there are Republicans in this room, much as the Majority Leader would propose why it’s so important for there to be Democrats. But in the end the letters by our names are less important than the ideas we have. The people of Colorado just want to know that we care about them, that their voices are heard and that we are trying our best to make their lives better and give them opportunities to thrive.

We are here. Right across the aisle. We are the voices for millions of Coloradans and we stand ready to begin the long path of recovery from the most wretched year ever. Join us.”