Colorado House Speaker Julie McCluskie and state Sen. Dylan Roberts held a joint town hall on Tuesday, May 13, in Summit County to answer questions from constituents and discuss their achievements in the 2025 legislative session.

About 50 people turned out for the approximately hour-long event at the Community and Senior Center in Frisco, which covered topics from affordability, workforce housing and Interstate 70 safety to water security and the state’s budget shortfall.

McCluskie kicked off the conversation by noting that she heard from about 1,777 constituents within the last year. She said “cost of living and affordability” were among the most common concerns she heard in those conversations.

Roberts agreed, and highlighted bills aimed at making housing more affordable and available, including a Construction Defect Law Reform bill, focused on incentivizing multi-family home construction and condominium developments, which was signed into law. He also pointed to an Affordable Home Ownership Construction Program that he said would lower development costs to help ensure homes are priced for middle-income Coloradans. 

In response to questions about housing, McCluskie noted that another housing bill, aimed at streamlining requirements for modular housing, was also signed into law.

“Unfortunately, housing isn’t built overnight,” Roberts said. “But over the last few years we’ve passed several pieces of legislation that have provided funding, but also made significant policy changes that I think in the next three to five years we’re going to see the affordable housing issue be addressed significantly.”

McCluskie said that in 2023, legislators created the Fair Access to Insurance Requirements Plan, or the FAIR plan, a last resort insurance product for homeowners, that took effect this spring. But she said that this session, another bill aimed at stabilizing the state’s volatile homeowners insurance market, “did not get across the finish line,” though she would try to bring it back next year.

Despite a $1.2 billion budget shortfall at the state level, McCluskie noted that the 2025-26 state budget increased funding for K-12 education in the state, including for rural schools like those in Summit County.

McCluskie described the budget shortfall as “the most significant challenge we faced in the state” during the legislative secession. She said that the Colorado Taxpayer Bill of Rights, or TABOR, limited the legislature’s ability to spend at the same time that the state was hit with an “unanticipated” $600 million increase in Medicaid costs.

Explaining that TABOR, which requires voter approval for tax increases, sets a spending cap for the legislature that is based on population growth and inflation, McCluskie said that formula is becoming outdated in an “older, grayer Colorado,” where Medicaid costs are rising.

McCluskie noted that during the legislative session a resolution was brought forward that would have required the legislature to sue the state to repeal TABOR as unconstitutional. While she noted that resolution didn’t pass, she said it started an important conversation.

“TABOR was passed in 1992. If nothing else, it’s time for us to modernize or think about TABOR maybe in different ways,” McCluskie said, inviting constituents to share their thoughts on TABOR.

Roberts said that this year, the legislature passed a water projects bill with about $65 million in funding for conservation. He said, “Another big priority that I love to work with the Speaker on is water, and protecting our water future, making sure that our communities here on the Western Slope have the water they need for outdoor recreation, for agriculture.”

Calling closures on I-70 due to spun-out trucks and crashes, “incredibly frustrating and kind of unsustainable during some of those big winter storms,” Roberts noted that he worked to pass two bills: one that will allow third-party companies to station themselves on the highway to help truckers put chains on, and one requiring rental car companies to let customers know about the state’s passenger vehicle traction law and whether the vehicle they are renting is compliant.