U.S. Rep. Joe Neguse explains why Eagle County is vulnerable to decisions made by Trump administration at Edwards town hall
Zoe Goldstein/Vail Daily
Close to 200 Eagle County residents showcased their bipartisan political engagement at a packed town hall at Colorado Mountain College in Edwards hosted by U.S. Rep. Joe Neguse Wednesday evening.
Neguse has represented Colorado’s 12,000 square mile second district, which includes Eagle County, in the U.S. House of Representatives for six years. On Wednesday, he spoke about reaching across partisan lines to find solutions to the challenges Eagle County residents face, particularly in light of decisions made by the Trump administration since January.
“I believe in the goodness of our country. … And that is drawn from many, many different elements, but one of those core elements is the rule of law,” Neguse said.
“My approach in Congress has been to try to spend every day that I can delivering results for the people that I am privileged to serve irrespective of one’s political affiliation and where the wind may be blowing politically in Washington D.C.,” Neguse said.
During his early years in Congress, “we found ways to deliver for the people of Eagle County on wildfire prevention, on drought preparedness, on common sense issues that impact every person in this community,” Neguse said.
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Neguse’s visit to Eagle County was part of a 14-hour journey he made across the Western Slope Wednesday, holding town halls and meetings in five counties and six cities.
“Every community is different, but I think all are rooted in the same shared values as Coloradans,” Neguse said. “We have a lot more in common than folks might think.”
County Commissioner Jeanne McQueeney reminded Neguse that the crowd consisted of people all across the political spectrum who often worked together in their everyday lives. “Our superpower is our ability to collaborate,” she said.
Eagle County, other rural districts will feel weight of recent federal decisions
Neguse said he anticipates that Eagle County and other rural districts he represents will be more affected than most by recent Trump administration decisions and actions, including the elimination of U.S. Forest Service positions, the dismantling of the U.S. Department of Education and the planned reciprocal tariffs.
“I think Eagle County is going to feel, in a more pronounced way than other counties, to be candid, the impacts from what is happening in Washington, D.C. right now,” Neguse said.
The elimination of Forest Service positions “doesn’t make sense to me,” Neguse said, adding that many of the fired personnel “are doing the very work that the administration purports to want to do.”
Before he left D.C. a week ago, Neguse met with the interim chief of the Forest Service. “I made the case to him directly, in very stark terms, about the real-world impact that we’re going to experience on the White River, on Arapahoe Roosevelt, Routt National Forest and across our state,” he said.
“The reality is, if we have a Cameron Peak Fire, if we have an East Troublesome Fire … the federal government is going to play a key role in responding, and I’d be lying if I told you that I’m not deeply concerned right now, in light of the decisions that were made in the last two months, about our posture when it comes to being able to tackle fires of that magnitude,” Neguse said.
Neguse said he will “keep pushing,” to bring personnel back to the Forest Service.
Neguse called the Trump administration’s planned tariffs “reckless.”
“If the tariff policies continue the way they are, it’s going to decimate the outdoor recreation industry in our state, and we will be experiencing a recession in a matter of months,” he said.
Garrett Alexander, Red Cliff trustee, asked Neguse about how to find federal financial support to support the town’s projects, “so we don’t just blow away in the wind.”
Neguse said his staff would work with the town of Red Cliff in finding federal funding opportunities, as well as signing a letter of support for any future grant applications the town might write.
“Right now, as you know, it is not a particularly rosy, optimistic outlook in terms of federal grants,” Neguse said. “We’re working around the clock with local county officials and city officials just to make sure the funds that are already encumbered, that those aren’t frozen by the Trump administration.”
“Those of you who have (attended prior town halls) know that I’m not a particularly partisan person. I try not to be,” Neguse said. “But I have to tell you, the decisions they’re making — the Trump administration — it’s going to impact rural America the hardest.”
‘Do we want a system in which all of the power is centralized in the executive?’
Neguse said he believes the way the Trump administration has made many decisions has violated the U.S. Constitution.
“I think the entity that should be evaluating decisions like that is the Congress, under Article I of our Constitution, not the president and certainly not via executive order,” he said.
Neguse co-leads a task force of Democrats in the House of Representatives charged with developing legal and legislative strategies to respond to unlawful or unconstitutional executive orders. Over the last one-and-a-half months, the task force has filed six different amicus briefs in support of a variety of lawsuits. “It’s largely an unprecedented step,” Neguse said. “But we believe it’s important that someone in these lawsuits speak for the Article I branch of our government.”
The issue “transcends party lines. It’s not about, even, necessarily, who this particular president is, it is fundamentally: Do we want a system in which all of the power is centralized in the executive?” Neguse said.
Neguse asked the audience for their suggestions, comments, complaints, compliments and ideas. “The best built legislative proposals that we’ve gotten past the finish line in Washington, D.C. have not been my ideas. They have found their beginnings in rooms like this one,” Neguse said.
Neguse on immigration, transgender rights, AmeriCorps, Veterans Affairs
The son of immigrants from Eritrea, Neguse was born in California and raised in Colorado.
“I think we are at our best as a country when we are living up to those core American values that I suspect many Americans here share — being a beacon of hope and of liberty and freedom for the rest of the world,” Neguse said. “I don’t think that the draconian immigration policies that the administration is pursuing right now are consistent with that.”
Neguse named maintaining a secure southern border, making sure criminals are deported and protecting Dreamers and farm workers as “core principles that I think the vast majority of people in this room would agree with.”
“What I have a problem with are policies that would disregard due process,” Neguse said.
Neguse said he supports the Equality Act, proposed federal legislation that would prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation across several sectors, including housing, education and employment.
“I think every person, irrespective of who they love, irrespective of their identity, irrespective of the color of their skin or the zip code they were born in deserves to be treated equally under the law, deserves to have decency and respect as a citizen of our county,” Neguse said.
Responding to a question on how the Democratic Party plans to take action on the issues that impact most people, from rising housing and health insurance costs to public safety, Neguse called the Democratic Party a “big tent party,” made up of people with “very different views about how to solve these problems and these challenges.”
Elyse Howard, director of development for Habitat for Humanity Vail Valley, asked about the future of federal funding for AmeriCorps, which has typically provided two volunteers per year to the organization. The Department of Government Efficiency cut most AmeriCorps funding at the end of last week.
“The tragedy … is that the program has been supported on a bipartisan basis for decades,” Neguse said. Neguse said he was texting with other members of Congress while on the road Wednesday about building a bipartisan coalition “to try to make the case that they (the Trump administration) ought to step back.”
Jonathan Atwood, a disabled veteran and registered nurse, asked what was being done at the federal level to protect current Veterans Affairs benefits as the Trump administration works to eliminate jobs and compensation.
“I’m certainly not going to vote for a budget that touches, in any way, the VA, in terms of any cuts to personnel or the programmatic side of the bill,” Neguse said. “The system was not operating at the level that we would have liked before, but the solution is not to purge the VA of workers, many of whom are veterans.”
Neguse is reaching across the aisle, encourages Eagle County residents to do the same
Neguse said he has conversations with Republican members of Congress “constantly,” making the case to them to partner on several issues.
“I’m not trying to impose my ideological views on them. They have an obligation to vote their conscience and their community, their constituents — but they also have an obligation to vote consistent with the Constitution,” Neguse said.
Neguse asked the town hall audience to keep having conversations with people with “a different worldview.”
“It’s awfully hard, in this environment, awfully hard, but if anybody can do it, I think it’s you all here in Eagle (County), and you certainly have my commitment that I’ll keep trying to do that in Washington,” Neguse said.
