Members of Congress don\u2019t usually make resolutions in public. If we did, many would sound predictable: get on more cable news, win more arguments online, never miss a chance to be outraged.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m going in a different direction.<\/p>\n
As I start a new year representing Colorado\u2019s 3rd Congressional District, my resolution is simple: resist Washington\u2019s obsession with volume and stay focused on usefulness.<\/p>\n
That may not sound ambitious by Washington standards. But for a district like ours \u2013 large, rural, independent and practical \u2013 it turns out to be a pretty good governing strategy.<\/p>\n
Over the past year, I\u2019ve spent a lot of time across Western and Southern Colorado. When I meet with farmers, ranchers, health care providers, tribal leaders, sheriffs, small-business owners and parents, no one asks how many viral clips I\u2019ve generated. They ask whether water will be there next year. Whether health care premiums will spike again. Whether federal agencies understand how their rules actually land on the ground.<\/p>\n
Those conversations have shaped how I\u2019ve tried to do this job.<\/p>\n
My first bill signed into law \u2013 the Wetlands Conservation and Access Improvement Act \u2013 is a good example. It doesn\u2019t create a new program or expand federal authority. It addresses a technical issue so more conservation dollars that already exist actually reach wetlands and habitat over time. It\u2019s targeted. It\u2019s bipartisan. It works. In Washington, that kind of bill is easy to overlook. In rural Colorado, it matters.<\/p>\n
Health care has been another focus. Premiums are high, options are limited and uncertainty hits rural families hardest. That\u2019s why I helped introduce the HOPE Act, which temporarily prevents sharp premium increases while Congress works through longer-term reforms. It\u2019s not a permanent fix \u2013 and it shouldn\u2019t be \u2013 but it\u2019s a responsible guardrail while we address deeper cost drivers.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve also worked with colleagues from both parties on legislation to support rural hospitals, improve wildfire mitigation, give livestock haulers common sense flexibility, reduce unnecessary red tape for farmers and ranchers, and strengthen workforce opportunities. None of this makes for dramatic floor speeches. All of it affects daily life here.<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s something I\u2019ve learned after a year in Washington: Congress has a bad habit of confusing noise with progress. The louder the argument, the easier it is to miss whether anything is actually getting fixed.<\/p>\n
My resolution for the year ahead is to resist that temptation.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s plenty left to do. Water security remains an existential issue. Rural health care is fragile. Transportation corridors need real investment. Federal agencies still too often make decisions as if rural communities are an afterthought.<\/p>\n
But I\u2019m convinced the right approach for Colorado\u2019s 3rd District isn\u2019t constant outrage. It\u2019s steady attention. Asking basic questions. Fixing broken processes. And remembering that the goal isn\u2019t to win the day\u2019s argument; it\u2019s to make things work a little better than they did before.<\/p>\n
If that sounds boring by Washington standards, I\u2019m OK with that.<\/p>\n
For Western and Southern Colorado, steady progress beats loud politics every time.<\/p>\n
Congressman Jeff Hurd represents Colorado\u2019s 3rd Congressional District. He serves on the House Committee on Natural Resources and the House Transportation & Infrastructure Committee.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" January, people make resolutions they half-expect to break. Exercise more. Eat better. Spend less time staring at their phones. Rep. Jeff Hurdcca Members of Congress don\u2019t usually make resolutions in public. If we did, many would sound predictable: get on more cable news, win more arguments online, never miss a chance to be outraged. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13539,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[125],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-14123","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-newsletter-opinion"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14123","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14123"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14123\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19340,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14123\/revisions\/19340"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13539"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14123"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14123"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14123"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=14123"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}