Three of Colorado’s Republican members of Congress asked Colorado Governor Jared Polis, a Democrat, to call a second special session of the Colorado Legislature to address crime in the state.

U.S. Representatives Lauren Boebert of Windsor, Jeff Crank of Colorado Springs and Gabe Evans of Fort Lupton said in a letter to Polis that the Legislature needs to make changes to several crime-related bills that have passed since the governor took office. The bills are related to cash bail, personal recognizance bonds, sentencing, competency to stand trial, and cooperation with federal law enforcement on immigration enforcement.

The letter says surveys and data show that Coloradans don’t feel safe and worry about crime daily, and that the state and Denver by some measures are both ranked as dangerous.

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“Coloradans know the truth — that despite the meager improvements in some crime rates from their record highs in 2022 — they still don’t feel safe in our state,” the letter says.

State data shows that violent crime and property crime in Colorado have both decreased over the last two years. Denver data shows that violent crime and property crime have decreased in the city over the last three years as well.

In a press call on the letter, Evans said the crime issue in Colorado is unique to the state and is tied directly to Democratic policies approved at the state Capitol.

“We can’t work together when the rhetoric coming out of the state Capitol says one thing, and the policies and the bills that get signed into law are 180 degrees the opposite direction,” Evans said.

The Republicans’ letter said Denver was ranked as more dangerous than Washington, D.C., where President Donald Trump has activated National Guard troops to address crime in the city. Trump has deployed military troops to other American cities controlled, like Denver, by Democrats, such as Los Angeles and Memphis. Evans said that action in Washington, D.C., is unique to that city because it is “at all times under federal control,” and federal law is “really clear” that “federal troops can’t engage in policing actions” unless there are specific circumstances and exceptions.

“You have to have state governors involved any time that there’s a National Guard deployment for a policing action, which of course brings us right back to the fact that we have a governor who is unwilling to engage in making communities safe and unwilling to allocate the resources necessary,” Evans said.

Bill passed with bipartisan support

U.S. Representative Diana DeGette, a Denver Democrat, refuted the claim that crime in the city she represents is growing. She said in a statement that “my colleagues from outside of Denver should worry about the crime rates in the cities they represent.”

The letter came in response to a Sept. 8 post on X from the Weld County Sheriff’s Office alerting residents that a person being released from custody presented “a potential danger to the community” after courts deemed him not competent to stand trial. The post attributed the release to House Bill 24-1034, which limits how long a person can remain in custody once deemed incompetent.

That bill passed the Legislature with bipartisan support and passed the Senate unanimously. The Republicans said in their letter that they “could not help but respond with bewilderment” to Polis’ reaction in a post on X calling the Weld County situation “absolutely unacceptable,” even though he signed that bill into law.

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Boebert, Crank and Evans said they would have welcomed Polis naming public safety as a subject of the special session he called in August to address an approximately $750 million gap in the state’s budget that followed the passage of the federal tax cut and spending law, also known as H.R. 1, in July.

In a statement, Polis said he will collaborate with local officials and the federal congressional delegation to improve public safety, even if that means “fixing or eliminating any bills that are hurting public safety.” Evans said addressing public safety needs to be a collaborative effort, too, but added “the state does not want to be part of that team” and that “the rhetoric is all right, the policies are all wrong.”

The Republicans in Congress who wrote to Polis “are attempting to distract Coloradans from issues they own,” Polis said, noting that cuts in H.R. 1 are what led to the recent special session. The Trump administration is withholding public safety funding from Colorado, Polis added, which he said he hopes will draw “the same outrage from these members of Congress.”

“Many of the laws in this letter had bipartisan support at the legislature. I’ll partner with anyone to reduce crime, and we are actively working with District Attorneys, the Colorado Department of Human Services, and legislators on a policy solution related to HB24-1034,” Polis said in a statement. “I would encourage these members to do their part to support Coloradans and help fix the problems within the federal government.”

In a letter responding to Boebert, Crank and Evans, Polis said they should focus on avoiding a government shutdown and advocate the extension of premium tax credits to avoid rising health insurance costs. He mentioned the federal public safety funds being withheld from Colorado and asked them to “get to work and get us our public safety money.”

Crank said in the press call that Polis is “gaslighting and blaming it on someone else” by focusing on federal policies in his response. He said if Polis does not have enough funding to reduce crime, “it’s because he didn’t make it a priority.” Concern about crime is “one of the top issues” Crank said he hears from constituents in his district.