2025 in Review: Hickenlooper Defends Colorado Against Trump Chaos

WASHINGTON –
It’s been a hell of a year, Colorado. Here are just a few of the ways Senator Hickenlooper fought this administration’s chaos and stood up for Coloradans in 2025.
DEFENDING SCIENCE
Last week, Senator Hickenlooper
blocked a federal appropriations package
in the Senate after President Trump announced his plan to dismantle the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder and cancel millions in
transportation
grants designated for Colorado. Hickenlooper demanded Republicans add an amendment to the package guaranteeing that all funding for NCAR be fully spent.
After blocking the bill on the Senate floor, Hickenlooper joined
protesters outside of NCAR
in Boulder on Saturday to raise public pressure against cuts to critical environmental research.
PROTECTING PUBLIC LANDS
Hickenlooper also
led the fight
against
Senator Mike Lee’s proposal
to force the BLM to sell up to 1.2 million acres of public lands in Colorado and 10 other Western states. Hickenlooper first sounded the alarm in April, when he voted against the
Republican budget resolution
and introduced an
amendment
to protect public lands from being sold to pay for Republicans’ tax cuts for the ultra-wealthy.
In May, Hickenlooper held a
press conference
in Estes Park with Congressman Neguse, public lands advocates, and local elected officials to call out the Trump administration’s threats to Colorado’s national parks and public lands, including Rocky Mountain National Park.
The public pressure campaign worked. Following mounting opposition from Western senators and their constituents, Senator Lee stripped the public lands sale provision from the bill in June.
PROTECTING HEALTH CARE
Since the beginning of the year, Hickenlooper has
railed against
Republicans’ manufactured health care crisis and worked closely with state leaders to protect Coloradans’ care.
In July, congressional Republicans passed the
One Big Beautiful Bill Act
, cutting more than $1 trillion from Medicaid and the
Affordable Care Act
to pay for huge tax cuts for the richest Americans and largest corporations. 15 million Americans – including
241,000 Coloradans
– are expected to lose their health care because of Republicans’ cuts.
Hickenlooper helped mount a political pressure campaign to fight for Americans’ health care. He was one of the
first senators to announce
he’d oppose the Republican government funding bill unless Republicans worked with Democrats to lower health care costs. Hickenlooper voted against Republicans’ funding bill
every time
it came to the Senate floor.
During the 43-day government shutdown, Hickenlooper
organized a press conference with
Coloradans facing steep premium increases and cuts to their Medicaid in 2026 to pressure Colorado Republicans and the administration to fix skyrocketing health care costs.
Recently, in a last-ditch effort to save Americans’ health care, Hickenlooper and Senate Democrats
proposed a simple extension
of the
Affordable Care Act’s
enhanced premium tax credits for three years, without any changes, to save more than 24 million Americans from paying double for their health costs or losing their insurance entirely. Republicans rejected the proposal.
FIGHTING ICE OBSTRUCTION
Throughout the year, Senator Hickenlooper and his office have worked to help families desperately searching for loved ones arrested by ICE, and to advocate for those in detention.
In August,
Hickenlooper visited
the ICE detention center in Aurora after ICE repeatedly stonewalled his office’s calls and emails. During the visit, he raised concerns with ICE officials regarding delayed communication with congressional offices, irregular process changes, reports of ICE pressuring detainees to voluntarily depart instead of proceeding through a judicial process, and facility conditions. ICE failed to give satisfactory answers.
In August, Senator Hickenlooper’s office led the effort to get a mother and her 7-year-old son from Chaffee County released from the family detention center in Dilley, Texas. The mother had no criminal record and an active asylum claim – she and her son were held for two months before their release.
In November, Hickenlooper
called for
the immediate release of a Durango father and his two young children after ICE arrested them while they were on their way to school. Following ICE’s failure to release the family, Senator Hickenlooper spoke directly with DHS Secretary Noem, demanding ICE
release them
from custody after they reported being
physically abused while in ICE detention
. Despite having active asylum claims and no criminal record, DHS refused.
In response, Hickenlooper and Senator Jon Ossoff
opened an inquiry
into ICE’s unlawful obstruction of congressional oversight. Just last week, a
federal judge
blocked a Trump administration policy requiring members of Congress to give prior notice before visiting ICE facilities. On Saturday, Hickenlooper performed a c
ongressional oversight visit
to ensure ICE was following the law and to push for two young detainees to be released.
###