PHOTO: The Colorado Senate meets during a special legislative session on November 20, 2023. (Sara Wilson/Colorado Newsline)
This op-ed by Alexandra Eliot appeared on Colorado Newsline on December 27, 2023.
My tenure as a legislative aide in the Colorado Senate got rolling in the chaotic days and months after the election in 2020. When I told them about my new job, friends, family and acquaintances would frequently ask how I tolerated the division and vitriol. I was proud to respond that while the national political machine was calibrated to endless squabbling and decidedly little action, here at home we were passing bills together that would have a meaningful and more immediate impact on the lives of our friends and neighbors.
That might sound like the naive perspective of an uninitiated newbie, but it was ultimately factual. In 2021 the Legislature passed 508 bills with the vast majority — 94% to be exact — receiving bipartisan support.
While Colorado hasn’t descended into the full blown chaos of the federal government or places like Tennessee, Michigan or Oh
It isn’t hard to conjure examples, transcending party lines, from the last year in Colorado politics, where legislators demonstrated more interest in manufacturing content than passing bills. We’ve seen personal attacks (including some that are racist, sexist, homophobic and transphobic) hurled from the wells on the House and Senate floors. We’ve seen petty and passive aggressive arguments on X turn into all out proxy wars. We’ve seen less work get done, with less collaboration and a lot more drama along the way.
It doesn’t have to be like this.
We can continue down the path we are on, or we can be a reminder to each other and the rest of the country that a different political reality is not far fetched or beyond our reach — it is a choice to be made, starting with the folks at the top. There are too many challenges staring us down, too much suffering to contend with, to be content with elected officials performing their values for an audience of people who agree with them, instead of taking action to make our state a place that more closely aligns with the values we all share.
As the next legislative session looms and the ghosts of this year’s special session linger, we can and should collectively commit to a different way of doing things. What could be achieved if our legislators spent a bit more of their time stakeholding their bills with constituents, ironing out details with bill drafters and actually debating the nuances of policies that will have a direct and more immediate impact on Coloradans’ lives? I want my elected officials to be strong, vocal, and even radical advocates for the things that they believe in. I also want them to conduct themselves as leaders capable of role-modeling that not everyone who disagrees with them is an enemy.
The news of the world is heavy enough, the overwhelming din of hot takes and fever-pitched arguing online is loud enough, without Colorado legislators contributing to it and asking us to join the fray. When they do, the sense that everything is bad, that humanity is doomed and that the challenges we face are insurmountable, creeps closer and closer to home.
The wheels of the system that profits off the cash cow of division are churning at a dizzying rate — each and every one of us, not just our legislators, contributes to that. On a recent episode of the 10% Happier podcast, the Buddhist scholar Oren Jay Shofer said, “If you don’t choose where you are placing your attention, someone else is choosing for you.”
So, Colorado, let’s make a choice. We can head into the new year with a sense of dread, constantly reinforced by The Noise. Or, we can look away from our screens and turn our attention to opportunities for impact and the goodness that does exist in the world.
2024 should be a year of determination for Colorado. We will not end a war or solve the climate crisis, but we can do far better than “taking action” by firing off posts and sounding off in comment sections.
Legislators, please lead the way.