A top Colorado Democrat on Wednesday characterized Colorado as under siege by the Trump administration, as she invoked Winston Churchill and urged colleagues to fight back.

“In this moment, when the White House would hold Colorado hostage, I’m reminded of a Churchill saying: ‘You were given the choice between war and dishonor. You chose dishonor, and you will still have war,’” House Speaker Julie McCluskie said during the opening-day ceremonies of the Colorado General Assembly.

“I fear this administration will target Colorado no matter what we do. So members, let’s do what’s right,” McCluskie said.

The 2026 legislative session is officially underway following much pomp and circumstance at the state Capitol on Wednesday morning.

With a nearly billion-dollar budget deficit and facing federal funding cuts, lawmakers said this session will likely be difficult. Still, they said, they are committed to their top priorities, including affordability, public safety, education, and health care.

The Trump administration and Colorado have sued and counter-sued in the last several months over an array of issues, notably funding withdrawn from states and policy changes advanced by the White House.

There is no love lost between the state and Trump. The president has criticized Colorado’s mail-in voting system, questioned its immigration policies and, more recently, attacked Democrats for refusing to negotiate the release of former Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters from state prison.

Colorado Democrats have not been cooperative since Trump took office. They have routinely criticized the Trump administration through social media, media appearances and town halls, and, at times, called for defiance of presidential orders, such as when U.S. Rep. Jason Crow told military and intelligence personnel to disobey orders that they allege are “unlawful” and “unconstitutional.”   

That’s not to mention the legal attempt to kick him off the presidential ballot, which originated in Colorado and went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. Had that lawsuit succeeded, it would have heralded the end of his campaign to come back to the White House.

In her speech, McCluskie said Colorado needs to “fight” the Trump administration in the areas of funding, public lands and civil rights.

“We won’t shove our immigrant and LGBTQ neighbors back into the shadows. We won’t give up on disability access or voting rights. We are a model for abortion rights in the post-Dobbs reality, and we won’t roll them back,” she said.

“We are a nation founded by immigrants and social outcasts. Diversity does make our state stronger, and it is un-American for the federal government to use masked vigilantes to arrest, detain, and evict people off the street on the basis of their skin color, language, gender, or very identity.”

She also cited the case of Renee Nichole Good, 37, formerly of Colorado Springs, who shot and killed by an ICE officer a few days ago. Footage shows Good’s SUV stopped sideways in the street. Agents approached the vehicle, one of whom attempted to open the driver’s side door. As the SUV moved forward, Ross, standing near the front of the car, fired at least two shots into the vehicle. The SUV then traveled a short distance before crashing into a parked car, where Good was found with a gunshot wound to the head.

McCluskie, a Democrat from Dillon, also noted the killing of former Minnesota Speaker of the House Melissa Hortman and her husband, as well as the assassination of Charlie Kirk, leader of Turning Point USA.

“Their murders crystallized even more powerfully for me that political violence is rising, and it flows downstream from the caustic rhetoric all around us,” the House Democrat said. “No matter how bitterly we might disagree on the important issues, we have to raise the decency in our discourse, together.”

Shifting to other subjects, McCluskie said the state has made strides in education during her time in office, including cutting child poverty by 41% with the Family Affordability Tax Credit and increasing K-12 per-pupil funding by 46% through the new School Finance Act.

However, health care costs are mounting, particularly for Coloradans who rely on Medicaid, she said, adding that the program’s costs are growing at twice the rate of what the state is allowed to spend under the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights, McCluskie said.

“It’s time to modernize our outdated fiscal structure, because our future shouldn’t be bound by a 30-year-old formula that doesn’t account for today’s realities,” she said.