Tina Mueh

Life’s an adventure, so I decided to take on a new role with great enthusiasm. I’m working as the campaign manager for Tina Mueh, who’s running for the Colorado House of Representatives in House District 10. Anyone who’s ever worked on a campaign knows they’re really hard work, so I simply wouldn’t be doing this if I didn’t think she was an awesome candidate.

I’ll cut to the chase. I’ve been covering or working in politics for the past 20 years, including working through about 15 full state legislative sessions. I don’t always say I know what I’m talking about – but I do with state legislators and state politics. I will say without reservation that Tina’s sheer qualifications for this job are outstanding, as are her personal attributes. Here’s the short version, but check out her website friendsoftinamueh.org to get the rest of the story.

Education, Part 1: Tina’s given the community about 30 years in the classroom as a Boulder Valley science educator, and education is undoubtedly a core function of government. The broad category of “education” accounts for more than 40% of the state’s General Fund budget, between preschool-K-12 and higher education. The legislature normally runs double-digit numbers of bills every session pertaining to education, including the annual School Finance Act to determine the K-12 funding structure for districts and areas with diverse populations and needs. Education bills might also deal with issues including school safety, curriculum, after school activities, testing and evaluation, or quality of facilities. Any decision Tina makes on education bills and budgets will be borne of deep experience.

Education, Part 2: I’ll maintain that public education is one of the most progressive things we do in modern society. Any family living in Colorado can get a free K-12 education for their children, regardless of financial means or even immigration status, plus there are free and reduced-price meals available for students from lower-income families. It’s even moderately progressively funded since most funding is via property taxes, while wealthier Colorado districts subsidize poorer districts to some extent through general tax revenue. And I don’t want to bury the main point – K-12 public schools are where the vast majority of students gain the skills and knowledge to be able to navigate their next steps in life. Tina’s been a part of this personal growth and life environment for thousands of local students.

Science: Tina’s got a PhD! Scientific knowledge is typically in relatively short supply among legislators, a group that’s sort of overpopulated with opinionated policy jockeys and activists (and don’t get mad, since I’m describing myself to some extent). Policy does not necessarily have to be scientific, and there are certainly societal values at play that might transcend science. But to me, the scientific approach means a decision-maker should fully consider detail, pros and cons, possible consequences, monitoring, and when to change course if something’s not working. I really want that dimension in our state government!

Reproductive Rights: As a former Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains Board member, she understands the modern attacks on reproductive rights and the detailed issues at stake. Her service also proved that she’ll take action to protect not just rights, but also the essential health care services Planned Parenthood provides for lower-income women and families. She chaired PPRM’s political arm to help elect pro-choice legislators, and to this day works to support PPRM with its annual Boulder breakfast. She’s supported reproductive rights and health care not just with words, but with deeds.

Labor: If you care about labor issues, here’s your chance to elect a former union president! Tina was both President and Vice President of the Boulder Valley Education Association, serving in leadership for about nine years. She understands first-hand how unions in general can play a positive role in worker pay, benefits, and working conditions – because she’s actually done the work and took part in the negotiations. Once again, I want to look at deeds and not just words.

Retirement Funds: Tina was a trustee for Colorado’s Public Employees Retirement Association (PERA) Board. This might not matter directly for some people, but to me it shows that she’s worked effectively within a gigantic entity that manages $60 billion in assets for more than a half-million PERA retirees. Her PERA service also led to an appointment from Senate President Steve Fenberg to the state’s Pension Review Subcommittee where she serves alongside current and former state legislators to help ensure smart policy and an adequate balance sheet for public retirees. This is perhaps not a fascinating issue, but it’s really important – both at the statehouse and within our communities.

I love Boulder, but it’s only part of the red area on this map. State legislators deal with the entire State of Colorado.

Local Life: This part is not resume-based, but Tina has lived in Colorado for most of her life and in Boulder since her undergrad days. I personally care about how long she’s lived in Colorado because the state legislature debates bills that impact the entire state – Eastern Plains, Front Range, Western Slope, and all the smaller sub-regions that have unique characteristics. She earned her bachelor’s and her PhD from CU-Boulder. She’s been involved in countless statewide and local political campaigns in her free time, including support for ballot measures and candidates. Tina has raised her family here, which means she’s got reasons to care about future conditions in Boulder and Colorado.

Yes, I’m biased, but I think the above points show she’s ready to play a major role at the Capitol right off the bat. But before this happens, we’ve got to win a primary election on June 25. Also, the political process leading up to this point deserves a recap.

Tina’s opponent Junie Joseph basically won the HD10 seat by securing a grand total of 34 votes in an August 2022 vacancy committee election, a contest open only to Democrats from HD10 who were delegates to the Boulder County Assembly in 2022. Meanwhile, there are more than 50,000 registered Democratic and Unaffiliated voters who could take part in a primary election (though I’d be surprised if much more than 15-20,000 actually vote). It’s super-obvious that the 34 votes were not a representative sample of the district, and that’s why I think it’s important to put district representation up to a vote of at least tens of thousands of voters.

Vacancy committees have become controversial in Colorado, partially because 28 of the 100 state legislators came to office their first time via low-turnout vacancy committees. Rep. Julia Marvin, the most recent vacancy committee winner, took office for two years on a 9-7 vote! People who follow politics are noticing that this situation is not exactly ideal, so legislators have recently drafted bills and citizens have drafted initiatives that would minimize or eliminate the use of vacancy committees. I’m actually not saying vacancy committees are illegitimate or need to be eliminated, but in 2024, Tina’s giving the full range of HD10 voters a chance to weigh in by running this primary.

After she won the vacancy committee, I was personally quite disappointed in Rep. Joseph’s decision to stay on Boulder City Council and serve as the HD10 representative simultaneously. She did not make it clear during the vacancy committee that she might do this (I was a member of the vacancy committee), and it was even reported in the local press that Council was getting ready to move on without her for a year. I know from very deep experience the demands of both jobs, and that’s why two other semi-local representatives emerging from recent vacancy committees (Kyle Brown of Louisville and William Lindstedt of Broomfield) both stepped down from their Councils to give their time and attention to their new roles at the statehouse.

As a caring constituent of both HD10 and the City of Boulder, I want Representatives and Council members who are voting on issues that can affect my life to spend the time it takes to make great voting decisions or amend legislation, based on the fullest amount of information possible. I don’t feel like I got the type of representation I’m accustomed to from her in 2023 – she didn’t even participate in town hall meetings during the 2023 legislative session – and she held dual office from January through November, nearly half of her two-year House term.

After the 2023 session, she sent out a glossy mailer giving herself credit for “passing” 19 bills, and that probably looked incredible to people who don’t understand what actually happens in the legislature. But I do understand, and what she’s claiming is misleading.

Rep. Joseph took credit for “passing” HB23-1086, but wasn’t a sponsor on the introduced 34-page bill as of January 19.

Let’s do the math. All bills can have up to four prime sponsors, so first of all taking credit for “passing” a bill when there might be three other sponsors can be a distortion of reality. All legislators get only five bill requests per session (with exceptions), and when legislators say they sponsored many more than five it’s often because they signed on to bills for which other legislators were the driving force. That’s to a large extent what Rep. Joseph did, sometimes signing on weeks or months after the bills were introduced (see the two images at right for illustration).

Most Democratic House members “passed” significant numbers of bills in 2023 and 2024, partially because they signed on to other legislators’ bills. Plus, it wasn’t a tremendous challenge to pass Democratic bills given the 46-19 House majority, the 23-12 Senate majority, with a Democratic Governor signing the bills.

Rep. Joseph also was not listed as a sponsor for HB23-1086’s first real committee hearing, March 7, where an amendment to turn the 34-page bill into about one operational paragraph was approved.

This is not to say that Rep. Joseph hasn’t done some good things, but it is to say that Tina would have sponsored or co-sponsored some comparable number of bills. The legislature considered more than 700 bills in 2024, and every bill needs sponsors in both the House and Senate to have a chance of passing. There were opportunities galore for most Democratic legislators to rack up big sponsorship numbers, and many of them did just that.

Still, I want to end with a few words about Tina. I met her for the first time nearly 20 years ago, by sheer coincidence since she was my garden neighbor in our local community garden. In hindsight, I wish I would’ve known she was a plant physiologist! But I really got to know her in 2011, when we worked side by side on Colorado’s Proposition 103, a statewide ballot measure that would have seriously increased funding for public K-12 and higher education. She struck me at the time as extremely thoughtful and willing to devote herself to important causes, and that’s still how I feel today.

This is not meant to be “all about me,” but I’d like to re-emphasize that I covered some state issues as a journalist, plus worked 15 full state legislative sessions in a variety of staff or aide roles. I’ve seen what the legislature actually does, in painstaking detail, and I’m extremely comfortable saying Tina’s life experience will make her a valuable legislator right off the bat. Plus, as a well-trained educator and scientist, she’ll know how to study up when new topics and new challenges inevitably present themselves.

We have a great opportunity to send Tina’s expertise, leadership, and devotion to the statehouse, and I think both HD10 and Colorado would benefit.