She questions State Law and Representative Government
By Devin Flores
Abortion was the main topic at Pueblo City Council’s biweekly working session Sept. 23, and the session drew an unusually large and disruptive crowd.
Despite attempts to pass an abortion-restricting city ordinance in both 2022 and 2023 ending in failure, Councilmember Regina Maestri (District 1) has brought the matter to City Council once again.
The contentious issue draws a lot of attention, so there is no surprise that the City Council met before a large audience primarily composed of Pro-Choice protesters and activists wearing green bandanas in a show of solidarity. What came as a surprise to many, however, was Maestri’s dismissal of the opinions of experts invited to the chambers by City Council, the council’s willingness to dismiss the authority of state law over the City of Pueblo, and Maestri’s comments towards the end of the session which openly questioned the validity of representative government.
Monday’s working session was, according to Maestri, an “information gathering” opportunity. As part of this, three presenters were invited to speak before City Council.
“We are here to learn about RHEA,” said Councilmember Maestri, referring to the Reproductive Health Equity Act, Colorado’s comprehensive abortion law that guarantees the right to abortion access and reproductive healthcare across the state.
Councilmember Dennis Flores (At Large), however, believes that Monday’s session was a prelude to another proposed ordinance which would restrict abortion access in the city.
“I believe that the work session was established to lay the groundwork for bringing forth some sort of an ordinance,” said Flores, “that will try to either control or ban the single abortion clinic we have here in Pueblo.”
The first presenter was Jack Teter, the regional director of government affairs for Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains. In his role at Planned Parenthood, Teter was one of the authors of RHEA. Teter told the council in no uncertain terms that Pueblo City Council simply does not have the jurisdiction to regulate abortion providers in Pueblo.
“In matters of state-wide concern, like abortion … home rule municipalities are without power to act,” said Teter. “The legislature stated in the Reproductive Health Equity Act that abortion is a state-wide concern, and explicitly did not authorize local governments to intervene here.”
He went on to explain that clinics which offer abortions, such as Planned Parenthood, are categorized as out-patient healthcare clinics. The regulation of these clinics is handled by state-level agencies, and according to state law local governments such as the City of Pueblo cannot exclude clinics in their zoning laws—no matter what services those clinics provide.
“You can’t treat abortion differently,” said Teter to the council. “Medical offices that provide abortions or reproductive healthcare are not separately or differently regulated or licensed by the state.”
After Teter had finished speaking, Maestri dismissed his opinion entirely, based on the fact that he was not a licensed attorney. This elicited sounds of outrage, including booing, from the citizens present to observe the meeting.
“You gave your opinion,” said Maestri. “We only get advice from legal attorneys. I asked you if you are a licensed attorney, and you said no. So, it would be against council’s best interests to start asking you questions about the RHEA act.”
Following this, Flores spoke up.
“There’s been a lot of comments tonight that we don’t have a firm legal opinion,” he said. “But I have a letter here from the Attorney General, who is an attorney.”
He proceeded to read from that letter, which was signed by Phil Weiser, Attorney General of the State of Colorado. It read, in part:
“The prohibitions contained in the Act specifically apply to local laws, ordinances, or any ‘governmental actions.’ Any such local law approved by the City Council that impedes upon the fundamental right guaranteed in (RHEA) would be in violation of Colorado state law.” The letter went on to state, unequivocally, “Should the Pueblo City Council enact a proposed ordinance that violates the Reproductive Health Equity Act, the Attorney General’s Office will defend state laws on this matter, and seek a judicial resolution in court.”
“Which means that we’re going to get sued,” interjected Councilmember Sarah Martinez (District 3). “Again.”
“So we do have a legal opinion, and it came from the highest attorney in the state,” concluded Flores.
Maestri was quick to dismiss this as well, arguing: “He said state laws. He didn’t specify RHEA in that.”
This was met with more jeers from the assembled citizens. Regina Maestri responded by threatening to “eliminate people from the room.”
“It’s really sad that we’re just here to listen,” she said to the crowd. “But you don’t want to listen. You want to continue to mock and call names, and we have women at risk, their health and their safety at risk.”
Throughout the meeting, Maestri repeatedly argued for the right of the City of Pueblo to assert its “home-rule rights” which were, according to her, being undermined by “legislators in Denver.”
“State legislators have imposed laws and put them in place to basically almost dissipate morality in our community,” said Maestri early in the meeting. “Local jurisdiction is losing control with what goes on with their laws. We fight really hard against that here on the council, that we are not stripped of our local control.”
Towards the end of the meeting, Maestri doubled down on this stance by making an open critique of the representative democratic government utilized in the state of Colorado, and across the United States.
“RHEA was brought forth by state legislation, it was not brought forth by a vote of the people,” said Maestri, suggesting that it is her belief Pueblo’s state representatives, all of whom are required by law to be long-time residents of Pueblo, do not represent the voters who elected them. “When RHEA was put in place, it was put in place up at the capitol. The people didn’t vote on it. We get a lot of laws that get voted on that try to take away our home-rule authority.”
Maestri went on to cite the recent attempt to ban needle exchanges in the city, another ordinance she championed. She cited this despite the fact that the City of Pueblo was sued this year over the needle exchange ordinance, and lost that lawsuit.
Deputy City Attorney Gifford was asked by City Council for his legal opinion regarding the possibility of introducing an ordinance which would restrict abortion access in Pueblo.
“I don’t see anything that’s been presented this evening that would make me think that we could pass an ordinance saying that [we could] somehow prohibit abortion based on RHEA, which is very clear,” said Gifford. “It uses just about every synonym there is for the word ‘don’t.’”
“Until we have something that suggests otherwise, I don’t think it would be wise to pass an ordinance,” he concluded.
Despite both her fellow council members and the city’s own attorney raising concerns over the possibility of the city being sued if such an ordinance were to be passed, Maestri appeared unconcerned.
“Municipalities and counties push back on the state all the time across the nation, when they do not like what’s going on in their community,” insisted Maestri. “If that’s what this council decides to do, that’s what they will do.”
When approached for comment, Flores (At Large) gave a very different perspective.
“Just because Pueblo is a home-rule city does not mean that we can do whatever we want to do,” said Flores. “We can’t get involved in trying to compromise laws by overriding the state government.”
Flores went on to state that he fears that an anti-abortion ordinance could land the city in serious legal trouble. “If you reference the letter we got from Phil Wiser, it is obvious that he is prepared to sue this city,” he said. “The top attorney in Colorado will come after this city, and sue the city. All it’s going to do is cost the city money for something we shouldn’t be doing.”
“We’ve been through this once before,” added Flores. “You just have to go back to last year, and reflect on what happened the last time this came forward. We had a very different City Council and it was voted down. All we’re doing now is resurrecting this issue all over again, because we have a much more conservative City Council that thinks that we can pass an ordinance that really contradicts what the law allows in the state of Colorado.”
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Devin Flores is an independent writer from Pueblo, CO. He specializes in local Colorado culture, history, and politics.
