Colorado lawmakers spent hours Friday afternoon considering a Democrat-led resolution to condemn President Donald Trump’s pardons of Jan. 6 prisoners while the state grapples with an estimated $1.2 billion budget shortfall for the 2025-26 fiscal year.
“With skyrocketing costs, a $1 billion budget deficit, rising crime and an affordability crisis pushing families to the brink, it is appalling that the majority is more focused on passing meaningless, partisan resolutions instead of addressing the real concerns of Coloradans,” Republican minority leader Rep. Rose Pugliese told Fox News Digital in a statement.
Pugliese also called the resolution “political theater” to “divide rather than deliver results for our communities.”
The measure passed by a 41-23 vote in the Democrat-controlled state House of Representatives. Rep. Lisa Feret, a Democrat, voted against the resolution.
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Republicans, who spent time providing public comment against the bill, also turned their chairs around to face away from the assembly speaker during the hearing. Lawmakers tried to introduce several amendments to the resolution to change some of the phrasing used in the bill, but they were rejected.
“To Hell with your concerns about cost of living, crime, and other important issues,” Republican state Rep. Jarvis Caldwell wrote on X. “Democrats are running another January 6th resolution. We turned our chairs in protest, and now we’re having a debate about it.”
State Republican Rep. Ryan Gonzalez also posted on X, saying, “The majority, instead of addressing issues the voters sent us to do—are instead passing messaging resolutions aimed *indirectly* at the sitting President.”
The Colorado House GOP X account posted that “not one life in Colorado will be saved by this resolution.”
Another X post said, “Democrats could be working on real solutions to our 1 BILLION dollar budget deficit. Instead, they are playing political games.”
Rep. Lauren Boebert, a Republican who represents Colorado’s 4th Congressional District in the U.S. House, tweeted, “Will Colorado Dems playing partisan politics lower the cost of eggs?”
The measure, sponsored by state Democratic senators Nick Hinrichsen and Matt Ball, passed along party lines in the state Senate earlier this month in a 21-12 vote. The Democratic lawmakers condemned Trump’s pardons and the mass firings of FBI agents assigned to investigate the Jan. 6 Capitol riots.
Democratic representatives Sean Camacho and Michael Carter were the sponsors of the state House version.
“Colorado House Republicans have now launched a full-throated defense of the January 6th rioters,” state Rep. Steven Woodrow, a Democrat, wrote on Bluesky Social, an X-like social media platform favored by progressives. “They can turn their backs on America—but we see them, and we know the truth.”
Democratic state Rep. Lorena Garcia also wrote on Bluesky Social saying, “While this resolution will pass, today is a wake up call to all Coloradans who believe in freedom, that the republican party is not a party that believes in freedom. It is the party of authoritarianism, it’s the party of fascism.”
All the Jan. 6 defendants — more than 1,500 — were pardoned by Trump as one of his first executive actions in January.
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