The federal government shutdown has moved into a second week with no end in sight.
Instead of talking to one another to find a solution, Democrats and Republicans, including in Colorado’s delegation, have been waging a messaging war.
Republican Rep. Gabe Evans called out Democratic Senators Michael Bennet and John Hickenlooper two times so far on social media for voting against the House’s stopgap funding measure, “denying paychecks and critical services to thousands of Coloradans.”
“They’ve once again proven they’ll put political stunts over the American people. This is unacceptable,” wrote Evans.
Hickenlooper, who’s not known for engaging in public fights, clapped back.
“We’re fighting to keep health care premiums for Coloradans from DOUBLING after YOU voted to kick your own constituents off their insurance. Also, you have my number. That’s a much better way to reach me!” Hickenlooper posted.
The fight isn’t just on social media. Both sides are using traditional media, too, to throw blame for the shutdown and its harms on the other party.
During a Republican House leadership presser on Wednesday, House Speaker Mike Johnson read news headlines describing the shutdown’s impacts across the country. The one he chose for Colorado described a food bank worried about increasing demand now that the government has shut down.
“Two Democrat senators from Colorado – Michael Bennet and John Hickenlooper. They keep voting over and over to keep the government closed,” said Johnson, whose chamber was last in session on September 19. Johnson said he won’t bring the chamber back until the Senate passes the House CR and reopens government.
After the Senate failed to pass the House bill for a sixth time — and also voted for again time to reject a Democratic counter proposal — Bennet defended his position, saying he will continue to vote against the “Republicans’ partisan budget bill… until they agree to negotiate with Democrats and prevent health care premiums from skyrocketing for working families.”
During the Democratic House leadership presser on Wednesday, speakers focused on rising health insurance premium costs. Rep. Pete Aguilar, chair of the House Democratic Caucus, used Evans and his 8th District as an example of what it would mean to allow the subsidies, started during the pandemic and extended as part of the Inflation Reduction Act, to expire.
“A family of four earning just $64,000 a year will see their premiums increase 195 percent, or $2,500 a year,” Aguilar said. “Americans are already struggling with the affordability crisis, and they are being jammed with this health care crisis.”
Evans represents the only swing seat in the state and won by less than one percentage point.
In a rare move, nearly all of Colorado’s congressional Democrats joined together for a virtual press conference Wednesday about the shutdown.
“Republicans control the White House. They control the House. They control the Senate,” said Democratic Rep. Diana DeGette. “Because of the Republican and Trump shutdown, we're already seeing problems across the country. At Denver International Airport, our existing TSA staffing shortages have become even worse and they're about to be in a crisis mode there and all around the country.”
She and other Colorado Democrats stressed the need for bipartisan negotiations to reopen the government.
“Our request is very simple,” said Democratic Rep. Joe Neguse. “It is to ask Republicans and the Trump administration to get serious, to stop playing political games, to work with us in good faith and negotiate an agreement that ultimately reopens the government and addresses the healthcare crisis that they have created.”
In general, their talking points echoed the arguments Democratic leaders are making at the U.S. Capitol.
Democratic Rep. Brittany Pettersen returned to the theme of the health care system. She pointed out that people losing health insurance will have to seek more care at emergency rooms, and struggle to pay for treatments and that will impact everyone’s care in the state. “This is going to begin the looming tsunami that is coming around the healthcare crisis that the Republicans have created.”
Meanwhile, GOP Rep. Lauren Boebert also brought up health care on social media, writing, “Your government is STILL shut down with no sign of reopening because Democrats want illegal aliens to have free healthcare. Just thought I’d remind you!”
This has been a misleading talking point used by Republicans regarding one of the Democrat’s key demands: rolling back the health care section of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which Republicans are now calling the Working Families Tax Cut Act. Undocumented immigrants are not able to access federal Medicaid — something that has always been the case — but the bill revoked the ability of some qualified lawfully present immigrants to enroll in Medicaid. Hospitals, meanwhile, do get reimbursed when undocumented immigrants are treated at emergency rooms through what’s known as emergency Medicaid, and that amount got reduced in the OBBB.
“Our troops are 8 days away from missing a paycheck,” said Evans, again blaming Senate Democrats for not supporting the CR. “For a week straight, they have chosen their politics and partisanship over the American people.”
Republicans have insisted that negotiations can happen after Democrats sign on to their bill to re-open the government.
“We can talk about enhanced health tax credits. We can talk about all those things, but not with the threat of this government shutdown,” said Colorado Springs Rep. Jeff Crank on KVOR. “Open the government and let us have those discussions.”
Crank defended the decision to keep the House on recess, saying Republicans there did their job and passed a short-term funding bill.
Again, it’s a point that echoes his party’s leaders at the U.S. Capitol.
And to hammer home the point that shutdowns are bad, there is a TV in front of Johnson’s office that is playing on loop videos of Democrats, from years past, speaking about the harm shutdowns can cause.
Recent polls show both sides’ arguments have support – a majority of Americans don’t think Democrats should have shut down the government, but more people blame Republicans for the shutdown than they do Democrats.
Wednesday evening, Evans reposted an article, first shared by White House spokesperson Karline Leavitt, about who is winning the “public relations war.” noting that 49 percent of voters believe the statement that Democrats shut down the government for “illegal aliens.”
Evans wrote, “Enough said.”
For those in Colorado who don’t care who is to blame, but just want the government to reopen, Democratic Rep. Jason Crow had a message.
“We want to make sure that the government is delivering for people and doing so efficiently,” he said. “That is what we are fighting for. I am not going to do something that's going to further the corruption of this presidency, that's going to undermine national security, that's going to cut people's healthcare or double their premiums. That is not what we've been sent to do.”
But with both sides deeply dug in, it may take their voters starting to feel real pain for the shutdown to end.
Editor's note: A previous version of this story misidentified its author.
