At the end of September, incumbent Republican CD-3 Congressman Jeff Hurd started running TV ads smearing Dwayne Romero, his Democratic opponent in the November 3 election. In the ads, Hurd denigrates Romero as an “Aspen liberal” and makes several claims about Romero’s past activities on the Aspen City Council and his stances on taxes.
Those claims are examined here.
Hurd’s first claim against Romero:
For Hurd’s first claim against Romero, he had to reach back 11 years.
Hurd’s first negative claim against Romero says he “helped a big developer override zoning laws” in Aspen in 2015. As his source for this information, Hurd cites an Aspen Public Radio story run 11 years ago on 9/24/2015.
The radio story Hurd cites is 57-seconds long and titled, “Man sues city, council over alleged Base 2 shenanigans.”
The story describes a lawsuit that longtime Aspen resident Timothy Murray filed against Aspen City Council. He filed the suit pro se, or by himself, without an attorney. Murray argued Aspen City Council abused its discretion when it approved a new, 37-room economy hotel project called the “Base 2 Lodge” by a vote of 4 to 1 on June 1, 2015. Romero was one of the four votes approving the project. The project appealed to City Council because the rooms were to be priced lower than at other hotels in town, increasing accessibility to more types of people visiting Aspen.
The vote was taken just days before Romero completed his last term on Council. (Romero served on Aspen City Council for a total of six years, from 2007 to 2011, and again from 2013 to 2015, after he was tapped to fill an empty seat.) After Romero stepped down from Council, Mark Hunt, the Base 2 project developer, asked Romero to work for him as a consultant. Romero agreed and went to work for Hunt after leaving Council.
Timothy Murray had a long history of filing high-profile lawsuits against the City of Aspen and Pitkin County. He had already sued the City of Aspen at least three times by 2015, opposing construction permits, zoning changes and development application approvals. In his Base 2 project lawsuit against the City, Murray argued Romero had violated the state Constitution by voting in favor of the project while serving on the Aspen City Council and right before he left Council and went work for Hunt. Murray claimed that by doing that, Romero violated a state rule that requires a two-year waiting period for certain public officials before they can go to work for private entities after leaving public office. Murray asked a Pitkin County District Court judge to rescind Aspen’s approval of the Base 2 project, claiming Council had betrayed the public trust and had conflicts of interest.
The City of Aspen called Murray’s lawsuit “groundless” and said the ethics policy that restricted immediately going to work in the private sector applied only to city staff and employees, and not to elected council members.
So Romero was one of four votes on the Aspen City Council to approve the controversial project, and he broke no laws by going to work for Hunt.
After the Council voted on the project, the lodge was referred to the ballot for citizen approval, and on November 3, 2015, Aspen voters defeated Question 2A, halting the project.
Hurd’s second charge:”Romero voted to hike energy rates, taxes and fees.”
As his source for this charge Hurd cites “Aspen City Council meeting minutes from 2007 to 2014.” Hurd does not cite any specific Aspen City Council meeting or votes where Romero voted “to hike energy rates, taxes and fees.” Given inflation that occurred between 2007 and 2014, it is plausible that the Aspen City Council could have faced increasing costs for municipal services and may have needed to raise rates accordingly. Hurd was apparently unable to give any specific instance where “Romero voted to hike energy rates, taxes and fees.”
By contrast, Hurd has voted three times to let President Trump’s illegal war on Iran continue without any Congressional oversight. The war has been tied directly to significant energy price increases across the U.S. since it was started on February 28, 2026. The average price of gasoline nationally has gone up by about $1.50 per gallon, and is now about 50% higher than it was in February 2026, at the start of Trump’s war of aggression on Iran. The average price of diesel fuel in the U.S. increased even more — by approximately 70% — to about $6.28 per gallon over that same time period, in turn increasing the prices of everything that gets delivered by truck, including groceries, gas, construction materials, vehicle parts and more.
Household energy price increases across the U.S. have been directly attributed to Trump’s illegal war.
Hurd also voted for Trump’s federal budget reconciliation package (“One Big Beautiful Bill”) that included massive budget cuts that led to higher utility and fuel costs by cutting clean energy tax credits and incentives.
By making this claim against Romero, Hurd seems to be trying to distract from his own actions that have actually contributed to the significant increases in the cost of energy.
Hurd’s third charge: “Romero wants to raise taxes by $4,000.”
The source Hurd cited for this was “KVNF 4/22/26.”)
Instead the truth about Romero appears to be the opposite.