Colorado-based Keystone Policy Center and U.S. Rep. Joe Neguse, a Lafayette Democrat and the House assistant minority leader, could have been made for each other.

Founded 50 years ago in its namesake mountain resort in Summit County, the independent nonprofit exists to foster productive dialogue around some of the thorniest issues of the day, from building sustainable energy systems to leveraging educational institutions to encourage economic mobility.

Neguse, who represents Keystone’s home base — the center has grown over the decades, adding outposts in Denver and Washington, D.C. — describes his approach to legislating in similar terms, citing as an example having recently surpassed his 100th town hall since taking office in 2019.

This week, Keystone bestowed its 2025 Leadership Award on Neguse, citing his commitment to constructive policy-making and success shaping bipartisan solutions to challenges facing the Rocky Mountain West, from land and water conservation to grappling with increasingly destructive wildfires.

Other recipients of the award were journalist and media executive Shelby Coffey III, a Keystone board member and a former editor of the Los Angeles Times and executive vice president of ABC News, and PepsiCo North America CEO Steven Williams. Past recipients include Republican senators John McCain and Lisa Murkowski, Democratic senators Michael Bennet and Debbie Stabenow, and media luminaries Judy Woodruff, Chris Wallace, Andrea Mitchell and Bob Woodward.

Keystone President and CEO Christine Scanlan, a former Colorado state lawmaker, said that the award — established in 1994 — recognizes individuals and organizations who overcome barriers to find common ground.

“For five decades, Keystone Policy Center has brought people together to find collaborative, actionable solutions to the toughest public policy challenges,” Scanlon said in a statement. “Each recipient of the Keystone Leadership Award embodies that mission and demonstrates that meaningful progress is possible when others say it can’t be done.”

Introducing Neguse at the center’s annual award dinner on June 4 at Union Station in Washington, Keystone Co-Chair Paula Gold-Williams called the congressman “a champion of the environment, wildfire resilience and public lands.”

“And while he has been a passionate advocate of the communities he serves, he is always willing to have the conversations,” she said. “He also brings something rare and powerful to the national conversation — a deep commitment to bipartisan and principled collaboration.”

Neguse told Colorado Politics that representing the sprawling 2nd Congressional District — covering 12 counties and nearly 12,000 miles across Northwestern Colorado, the district is larger than eight states, Neguse is fond of pointing out — demands the kind of conversations across political and geographic divides that Keystone promotes.

“It’s incumbent, in my view, for our office to work really hard at ensuring that everyone has an opportunity to be listened to and heard,” Neguse said in an interview, noting that his district spans rural, suburban and urban areas, stretching from Fort Collins and Boulder on the Front Range to ski destinations Breckenridge, Vail and Steamboat Springs, and small towns like Walden and Oak Creek.

“And a big part of bridging the divide is listening. That’s been my experience, that you you really can’t serve the community unless you show up in the community, show up in every community,” Neguse said. “And that’s what we’ve endeavored to do, so to be recognized by the Keystone Policy Center for some of those efforts — the service town halls that we’ve done have been an example of a way to bridge the divide between folks who might have a different world view or different political views, just as one example.”

Neguse said the bipartisan congressional caucuses he chairs and helped create — one concerned with wildfires and another devoted to the Colorado River basin — are more example of what he called “the spirit, that commitment to trying to bridge the divide.”

After accepting the award, Neguse joined Carrie Besnette Hauser, president and CEO of the Trust for Public Land, for a conversation on stage about his career and the values he shares with Keystone.

“I think the work that Keystone Policy Center does is so vital in terms of restoring some of the structures within civic society that I think are broken right now,” Neguse said before outlining how he cultivated his approach.

The son of Eritrean refugees, Neguse served one term on the University of Colorado Board of Regents and made an unsuccessful run for secretary of state before joining then-Gov. John Hickenlooper’s cabinet as director of the Department of Regulatory Agencies. He won the election in 2018 to the congressional seat previously held by Jared Polis, who succeeded Hickenlooper as governor.

“I think there’s a premium on trying to find common ground that is very unique to Colorado, and kind of the ethos that we practice in our state,” Neguse said. He recalled that Hickenlooper — who has since been elected to the U.S. Senate — began every cabinet meeting by reminding his top appointees that “there’s no margin in making enemies.”

That was Hickenlooper’s mantra, Neguse added, and a reminder that as public servants, they were there to serve everyone.

“And I will say it’s tougher, I think, today in this national political climate we find ourselves in, that’s sort of simultaneously bursting with empty noise while at the same time, vitriolic debate has engulfed the country,” Neguse said. “It’s very difficult in that kind of ecosystem to find common ground, but we do our best to chart a path forward, and that’s, I think, what we’re called to do. And, obviously, Keystone Policy Center plays a vital role, I think, in doing the same.”

Neguse agreed with Hauser, a former president of Colorado Mountain College and Colorado Parks and Wildlife commissioner, who suggested that, as divided as the country may be, Americans find common ground on public lands.

“All the empirical data demonstrates very clearly that Americans writ large support public lands preservation — whether you are a Republican or a Democrat or unaffiliated, you’re a hunter or a rancher, you’re an angler, you’re a conservationist — you care about protecting public lands and about your way of life,” Neguse said. “The way we’ve approached it is not all that dissimilar from the work that Keystone does, starting with simple conversations with colleagues who have a very different world view about a lot of other issues, but nonetheless may be willing to find common ground with me on this particular issue.”

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