Q&A with Joe Neguse | ‘We’re going to keep showing up’: Colorado Democrat logs year’s 15th town hall

U.S. Rep. Joe Neguse, the assistant House minority leader and a Lafayette Democrat, held his 15th in-person town hall of the year on Aug. 19 in Steamboat Springs, racking up more of the events in eight months than the rest of the state’s House delegation combined.

The joint event with Democratic U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet — it was his 12th in-person town hall of the year, the highest tally of anyone in the Senate — was only the most recent instance of an approach that has won Neguse multiple awards for holding regular unfiltered, face-to-face meetings with constituents, including recognition for the innovative service town halls he’s sponsored for years. In April, Neguse marked the 100th town hall he’s held since taking office in 2019.

The 41-year-old Neguse, a former University of Colorado regent and former director of the Colorado Department of Regulatory Agencies, is serving his fourth term representing the solidly Democratic 2nd Congressional District, which stretches from Boulder and Larimer counties on the Front Range to mountains counties along the I-70 corridor and to the Wyoming border in Northwest Colorado, covering 12 counties.

“It is my belief that the broken state of our politics is undoubtedly connected to the outright refusal of so many elected officials to engage directly with the citizens they serve,” Neguse said earlier this month after holding his 14th town hall of the year in a school gymnasium in La Porte, a small community outside Fort Collins. “That is why I have made it my mission over the last seven months to ensure that I show up in every community — no matter how small — to hear directly from constituents.”

After completing the town hall in Steamboat Springs, Neguse spoke with Colorado Politics about his enthusiasm for town halls and his contention that his fellow lawmakers should “show up” in their communities. Our interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

Colorado Politics: Congressman Neguse, the town hall you just completed in Steamboat Springs was your 15th town hall this year, and with that, you’ve essentially lapped the rest of the state’s entire House delegation, combined. What’s the reason you’ve held so many this year — this year, in particular — and are the town halls working the way they have in your previous six years in office?

Joe Neguse: As you know, I’ve always been deeply committed to being on the ground in the community and responsive to the people that I serve in Northern Colorado and on Colorado’s Western Slope. And my district is incredibly large, right? When you represent a district that is 12 counties, 54 towns and cities — one of the largest congressional districts in the United States, bigger than nine states, third most rural in our state — you learn early on that it matters to be in every community, and that the only way you can serve a community is to show up. And that’s why we continue to do that. It’s why we’ve done 15 town halls in the first eight months of this year across the district, and why we’re going to keep showing up.

And your point about the efficacy of hosting these town halls, particularly at this moment when our politics writ large seems to be broken and, of course, at a very perilous moment for our country in terms of what this administration has been engaged in, in my view, it’s all the more reason why it matters to conduct these town halls in communities large and small. I find that they are incredibly meaningful for me, personally. I learn a lot hosting these town halls, from the questions that I’m able to help answer, and the suggestions, the ideas, the concerns, and the complaints that folks are able to share in a very direct and transparent way.

You know —you’ve covered these town halls — we don’t prescreen questions. We let folks ask whatever happens to be on their mind. And that is incredibly constructive, because it gives me and my staff, my team, the ability to get a real-time sense as to what issues are percolating in the communities that I represent and serve, and the ways in which we may be able to help assist.

So we’re going to keep doing them. And I would encourage every member of Congress in both political parties — everybody should be, in my view, putting a premium on showing up and and hosting these direct conversations with their constituents. And I’m certainly going to keep doing that.

CP: Speaking of what other House members from Colorado have done, you’ve done a telephone town hall this year, too, right? 

Neguse: I believe we’ve done one.

CP: Some of your colleagues, including the two Republicans who represent the larger, more rural districts in Colorado — that would be Reps. Jeff Hurd and Lauren Boebert — say that that’s the only way to really hear from folks all around their district. How is that different from the in-person town halls you’ve held?

Neguse: A couple of things, I would say. First, anyone who suggests that the only or the most effective way to communicate with the citizens they serve is over the telephone is, in my view, not being as transparent as they should be. There’s a very easy and simple way to connect with your constituents. It’s called showing up.

I represent a district that’s the third-largest in Colorado, it’s the third-most rural in Colorado. And we do what I believe everyone should do, which is, I hop in my car and traverse the district and travel to every town, every community — whether it’s a town of 500 people, like Red Feather Lakes, or whether it’s a city of 170,000 people, like the city of Fort Collins — and open the doors to host a town hall with folks who have views across the political spectrum, to be able to hear from me directly and to ask me questions in an unfiltered way.

And that kind of direct interaction with the people that we are so privileged and lucky to serve, I think, the only way you can truly accomplish that are through town halls. And that’s why I do them, and I would encourage everyone else to do the same.

You know, telephone town halls certainly serve a purpose, and we’ve hosted them, as I mentioned, in the past, but they cannot replace at the type of substantive interactions and engagement that you receive from citizens face to face, and that’s why we do our town halls.

CP: Some of the questions that that you and Sen. Bennet got today sound like questions that members of Congress who have been holding town halls all year have been getting: What are the Democrats doing in the face of the Trump administration’s moves? What plan do you have? How bad are things? What have you been hearing, and how has that evolved over the year? What does that tell you about what your constituents are are bringing to these town halls?

Neguse: With respect to the types of questions that we receive at our town halls, I would suggest — and perhaps challenge — my colleagues on the Republican side of the aisle to do what we’ve done. By way of example, we hosted a town hall in Eagle County just a few short months ago, where the first question that was posed was from a Republican, a local Republican Party official. I’ve received a diversity of questions and views at our town halls because we’ve held them in areas where Democrats have been successful electorally, and we’ve also hosted events in areas where Republicans have been successful electorally. I represent multiple counties where Donald Trump won decisively in the presidential election last year.

So, for me, it’s about making sure that everyone has an opportunity to ask their question and make their voices heard. At the town hall today, we heard a lot of questions about what Democrats are doing in Washington to push back against unlawful and unconstitutional actions in the Trump administration.

This is something I certainly hear a lot at the town halls that we’ve held, including the last three town halls that I’ve held in the last two and a half weeks, in Red Feather Lakes, in La Porte and now in Steamboat. And my response is that it’s an all-hands-on-deck moment, that we have to use every tool that’s available to us — procedurally and legislatively and via litigation, as well — to respond to anything unlawful that’s being done by the Trump administration. That’s an important component of my job, and we’ve certainly leaned in on that regard.

Answering questions today, I didn’t get into as granular detail about the (House Democrats’) Litigation Task Force, which is a big component of of the work that I’m doing. But I think people are justifiably very fearful and concerned about what’s happening right now in Washington, which is all the more reason why we ought to be doing more town halls, not less, so that we can help assuage concerns, so we can help articulate what we’re doing to push back, and so that we can solicit ideas and suggestions about ways that we should be responding.

CP: You’ve originated some of the legislation you’ve sponsored at town halls, hearing from folks who suggested you do something, or asked, “Why can’t this be fixed?” Have you been hearing those kind of concerns at town halls this year?

Neguse: One of the reason why I do so many town halls is because I try to leverage the expertise and the energy and the insight of my district. We have what happens to be one of the most engaged group of citizens in the United States, and that’s reflected in our electoral outcomes — my congressional district has some of the highest voting participation rates in the United States.

So, as a result, for me, I put a premium on holding holding town halls, hearing from constituents — their ideas and suggestions. And as you said, a lot of the bills that I’ve introduced — wilderness, public lands protection bills, a variety of other bills, some of which are very non controversial, bipartisan bills (that) have ultimately been suggested and have been the byproduct of conversations at these town halls.

I think this year the tone of those conversations has has changed in light of what’s happening in Washington, DC. We’ve received a lot of really helpful and constructive suggestions about how to, for example, provide greater resources to our constituency in terms of how to access resources in responding to the Trump administration’s actions.

I’ll give you one real, concrete example. At an early town hall that we held in February, we heard from constituents who are very eager for us to share with them resources available to federal workers who had been the subject of these illegal reductions in force and unceremoniously purged in the federal government. And so we created a web page on my website to help federal workers in the Forest Service and BLM and elsewhere, and that was a direct byproduct of the suggestion that came at a town hall.

CP: Would you consider doing a town hall with with a fellow member of Congress who was Republican? Are there any I would? Is that a Yeah,

Neguse: That’s certainly something that I would do. I’ve done joint events with Republican members of Congress in the past, including Rep. (Ken) Buck, who I worked closely with, his district being adjacent to mine. I would certainly welcome that opportunity. But I think folks are waiting for them to do a town hall on their own volition, and in so far as me hosting it with them would help facilitate that. I’d be happy to do that.

CP: Were there any questions that stood out to you at today’s town hall?

Neguse: It’s perhaps one of the most powerful parts of the experience are stories that constituents share, in terms of the real world impacts of the disastrous bills that the Republicans have passed over the last six months. And as I travel the district — a district that includes urban communities, suburban, rural communities — you hear very different sentiments, depending on what part of the district I may be in.

But fundamentally, the universal messages that I’ve heard are the stories that have been shared about the ways in which folks are really going to be impacted in a negative way by the actions of the Trump administration. I take those stories with me back to Washington as we redouble in our efforts to try to push back and achieve a semblance of progress on the part of the people that I’m lucky to serve.

CP: Do you have more town halls on the books?

Neguse: We’ve completed the 15th. and so now my team is hard at work developing plans for numbers 16 and 17. We look forward to getting to every county in our district, and, we’re constantly on the road, so I look forward to hopefully being in the community of your readers sometime soon.