“I’m just a Valley kid,” Matthew Martinez says about his new role as Democratic co-whip for Colorado’s House of Representatives.
Martinez just wrapped up his second General Assembly session as representative for Colorado House District 62. As the session started, Martinez was elected as the co-whip of the party. The co-whip position brings a lot of sway, but it takes a lot of communication and a lot of patience.
“But being able to have that kind of impact in being able to say, ‘Hey, what if we tried this approach, or what if we do this a little bit differently and helping manage even our own caucus on some of these more contentious issues,’ I think was really good that they had the trust and confidence in me to being able to do that.”
State Sen. Cleave Simpson, another Valley kid, was elected as the Republican minority leader.
Martinez serves as co-whip alongside Rep. Elizabeth Velasco from House District 57, which is also a predominantly rural area.
During his first and second campaigns for HD62, Martinez ran on blurring the dividing line between rural and metro Colorado. Now in his second session, he said he’s found navigating lobbyists, conversations, and the Capital Building to be much easier.
“I think from my first year, I was trying to get everybody to be kind of happy with what the bill does and being able to really make the people feel comfortable. And what I’ve realized is sometimes that’s just not possible. Sometimes you’re just on opposite ends of the spectrum.”
Despite a harshly divided federal government, the state house seems to be just as bipartisan as it ever has been – at least to Martinez.
“In my personal experience, I think it’s still gone pretty well…. And I think that, again, it’s just one of those approaches that I’ve said we’re going to disagree on some things, but can we focus on the things that we can agree on and focus on our area and being able to promote that and do better for them?…. How do we kind of put the daggers aside and being able to work together to make good policy?”
LATINO CAUCUS
Martinez also serves on the Colorado Democratic Latino Caucus. Its mission is “to improve the effectiveness of Latino legislators to positively impact public policy and the quality of life for all segments of the Latino community; to inform and educate legislators, other government officials and the public on topics and issues in all areas not limited to education, criminal justice, immigration, healthcare, housing, economic development, social justice, public safety, and voting rights; and, to advocate for the appointment of Latinos at all levels and branches of government.”
Since Immigration and Customs Enforcement under the Trump Administration has begun its raids – which in some instances has been called a constitutional crisis – Colorado’s Latino Caucus has been loud and vocal about protecting rights and informing the public of these operations.
“Yeah, it has been very challenging,” he said. The caucus had a retreat before the legislative sessions began and during a meeting at that time the caucus “knew what was gonna happen and we knew the burden that was gonna be on us and really the challenge that was ahead.”
At first members struggled to figure out how to address the issue “and really how we can do right by our people.”
The Latino caucus led an immigration bill that was passed into law, which Martinez said was a priority. “This is something that needs to happen. We need to show our people that we’re fighting for them, we care about them, and we want to protect them within the boundaries that we can.”
What makes it difficult is that ICE and Customs and Border Patrol are federal agencies. At the end of the day, there may be very little a state caucus can do. “We’re bound by the things that we can do.”
He said they are seeing what “we had anticipated happening, where you’ve seen multiple cases of permanent residents, legal, they went through the system properly, they have documentation properly and have been detained and or deported right here in Colorado. And that is not acceptable. That’s not fair. That’s not right.”
Martinez said he pushes back on some of his colleagues across the aisle. “‘How would you feel if one of your family members that had all the documentation, had everything that they needed and wanted there and then they were deported suddenly and they don’t come home for dinner and you don’t see them? You can’t contact them? That’s not something that we should be a part of and that’s something that we need to fight.”
He noted that a lot of what he hears is that people are “genuinely freaked out by this” and asking the question and figuring out what to do are difficult questions to answer.
A protest at the Colorado Capital in March had people on edge. Despite thousands marching through Denver, “a lot of the people there were really freaked out because they said, are they going to come here at their protest? What can we do if they do come?”
Similarly, in Alamosa in April, an event was held at Ortega Middle School, where more than 600 primarily Spanish-speaking households attended, but the underlying feeling was that they were walking into a trap. Those fears were not realized, but Martinez said the fears are warranted.
Jeanette Vizguerra was taken into ICE custody on March 17, immediately following the protest at the state capital. Vizguerra remains in detention and continues to fight against her arrest, which her lawyers argue is a violation of her First Amendment rights.
Ironically, Vizguerra is the recipient of the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award this year. However, she won’t be able to attend the ceremony in Washington D.C. due to her detainment.
“I mean, that’s the reality of where we’re at,” Martinez said. “We need to show our people here in Colorado that we do care about this, and this is a serious issue.”
He said he hasn’t heard of any indication yet of ICE raids occurring in the San Luis Valley. “But what I would say is I think that that fear is warranted. You know, we haven’t started harvest season.”
Back in January, he said, when the Latino caucus was thinking about crafting the immigration bill, “we really need to have some added protections for our farm workers…. Because you’re not thinking about it now, but it’s gonna happen.”
He’s hoping that the immigration bill that was passed adds to protecting migrants and people here legally. He foresees federal pushback, but still thinks it was the right thing to do.
“These are people at the end of the day…. And when you lose sight of that, that’s a scary thing. And I want to refocus that attention back on this. I mean, these are mothers, these are fathers, these are workers, these are your neighbors, that are here in this community, that are scared. And how do we make sure that they feel comfortable and make sure that they feel welcome when they’re here?”
SB71
Martinez fought an uphill battle this session regarding a bill that addresses $750 million at risk for medicaid reimbursements under the 340B medications pricing program. With a gap in federal legislation, “it’s really left on the states.”
So two bills were introduced: Senate Bill 71 and Senate Bill 124. Martinez was co-sponsor of SB71. Both bills were bipartisan.
There was overlap in the bills regarding how hospitals have to report the savings from 340B medication reimbursements. The key difference is SB71 would have not limited the number of pharmacies a hospital could contract with; SB124 would have limited hospitals to contracting with one pharmacy.
“In a city, it may make sense to be able to do that,” said Martinez. But he saw a red flag when he looked at “Jack’s Market Pharmacy in Monte Vista, La Jara, and those are really, really small pharmacies, and I was really really inclined to believe that Big Pharma was going to start saying, ‘Well, you no longer meet the qualifications to carry the certain drug. And so we’re just not going to give it to you.’”
He added, “De facto, pharmacies are going to close, and you’re going to force everybody to come into the bigger, more ‘qualified’ pharmacies with Walmart, Walgreens, here in Alamosa, and for a whole six-county region, and that’s not fair and equitable.”
And so both of those bills ran, ultimately leaving the Senate as competing bills.
It took over a month of negotiations, he said, between hospitals, pharmacy lobbyists, union lobbyists – “You name it.”
Martinez said, “This is probably one of the tougher pieces of legislation that I’ve carried myself throughout my time in the legislature because both sides were saying the same thing. They were saying, ‘Well, your bill is terrible, the other bill has to pass as-is.’”
With the passing of SB 71, the $750 million was secured for hospitals.
Martinez wants more transparency in how hospitals report their spending. For now, he’s going to let “the dust settle a little bit on this and kind of let everybody go through the after action on that just because, like I said, so many people were involved in either supporting or fighting this bill.”
Once that dust settles, he said, he hopes that more conversations can happen to better increase accountability for hospitals and find room for more productive conversations among representatives and senators.
