Fight Like Hell

Raised by a single mother and a grandmother dealing cards in Nevada casinos, Shannon Bird learned early that opportunity rarely arrives without a fight.

In this episode of Blue Dog Radio, Bird's story ranges from a Reno trailer park to the Colorado legislature, reflecting on class, public schools, dissent, housing, democratic faith, and the women who taught her backbone.

This is a conversation about stewardship over performance and why government should still be in the business of watching out for people.

From quiet Sundays in Reno to running for Congress in Colorado’s 8th Congressional District, Bird makes the case that politics is, at its best, a way of watching out for people.

And sometimes, it means fighting like hell.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:02

There is a kind of politics built for cable, television, and the internet. And there is another kind, built on front porches, at school board meetings, coffee shops, in union halls, and somebody knocking on your door asking, what matters to you? This is Blue Dog Radio. Conversations about the people trying to make government work and the country we truly believe is still worth fighting for. This show is about politics, yes, but more than that, it's about people, the stories that shape public servants before they ever hold office, the places they come from, the values they carry, the way policy becomes personal. In this episode, we head to Colorado's 8th Congressional District to talk with State Representative Shannon Bird. Shannon has built a reputation as a pragmatic legislator, a budget writer, a public school champion, and at times an independent voice willing to break with her own party. She's also running for Congress. But what interested me most was not only the legislator, it was the woman raised by a single mother and a grandmother in a Reno trailer park. She's a first-generation college student, a mom whose route into public life began when volunteering in her kids' classrooms. And she's someone asking what government owes ordinary people. This is a conversation about Colorado, family, class, courage, compromise, and what it means to fight for people without losing your humanity. Here's our conversation with Shannon Bird. Shannon, welcome to Blue Dog Radio. For listeners meeting you for the first time, introduce yourself the way you might if someone had never heard your story.

SPEAKER_00 1:47

What I normally do for a very brief introduction is just say who I am and ask the voter immediately what they care about. And that's usually what most voters want to do is tell me what they care about. But if I get a little bit of time with that voter, what I like to share with them is a little bit about who I am so that they know where I'm coming from. And what I say is I'm Shannon Bird, and I want you to know a little bit about me. I was raised by my single mom and my grandma. Um I grew up in Reno, Nevada, raised in a trailer park. It was me and my mom and my little sister with the support of my grandma. Um, that's that's how I grew up. Um my mom was a clerk in an insurance company. My grandma was a dealer in the Nevada casinos. She used her tip money to help us make ends meet. And um I want people to know that because I grew up with the most incredible abundance of love and support with my mom and grandma and little sister. And, you know, when you come up that way, you realize um that to have anything in this world, you have to work twice as hard as anybody else. You don't take a single opportunity for granted. You don't take a single hand up for granted. And those are life lessons that I've kept with me forever. Um, I am the first person in my family to go to college and never thought I would be in public service. I actually thought I was gonna be a career person. That was something being the first person in my family to go to college, it was a really big deal. So my achievement and eventually working to become an attorney wasn't just my achievement. It really was me standing on the shoulders of my mom and my grandma and realizing their dreams to see that somebody in their family could achieve that kind of career success. But um I had the chance when my husband and I had kids to go take some time and volunteer in the kids' classrooms. And, you know, when you're not working 80, 90 hours a week, you have a chance to look around and like I did in that classroom and see, you know, our teachers aren't paid very well here in Colorado. Um, our kids need better learning materials, and our buildings aren't well maintained and something needs to be done. So, long story short, I took the very first opportunity I could to go run for Colorado State Legislature. Um, there I've served for the last seven years. Um, the last three of those years, I served as chair and vice chair of our state's budget committee. And um, one of the pieces of legislation I'm most proud of running all relates back to my days as a classroom volunteer. I was the chair of Colorado's budget committee, wrote the budget, and carried the legislation to fully fund Colorado's public schools for the first time in 15 years. Um, I remain proud of that, but I want my constituents to know that I bring a problem-solving can-do attitude to this. And that's why I want to be their next congresswoman and I want to know what they care about.

SPEAKER_01 4:36

Now you've spoken about growing up in a trailer park with your mother and your grandmother. What's a childhood memory that still lives in you vividly?

SPEAKER_00 4:44

I'll just say I didn't know any different, and I thought it I I loved being there. I felt very safe and very loved. And I haven't thought about this in a long time, but you know, we had um a little dog and um we didn't really have a yard, you know, those you just have a little place where your trailer is. But I remember being out playing with our little dog, and I had just gotten a music box for Christmas and um one where you open it up and the ballerina pops up and turns around. And I remember playing with the dog and deciding that I wanted the dog to have friends, and I saw lots of ants in the backyard and put those ants in my jewelry box to save them to play with the dog later, and didn't realize the ants weren't gonna thrive in the jewelry box, and they didn't. And anyway, but I remember that, and I know that's a silly memory to have, but um, I remember weekends being quiet. Um, Saturdays was always, we called them the fun day. Um, Saturday was the day that you cleaned uh and did all the laundry, got all of that done. I never liked Sundays. I wanted school to happen. Sundays were too quiet and too boring. Everybody seemed to kind of keep to themselves on that day. And I think that might be why I loved school so much because Monday I got to be around my friends, have many more things going on. And um, yeah, I never liked Sundays. Still not really in love with them. It's hard to shake that.

SPEAKER_01 6:10

Your grandmother feels central to your story. What did watching her work so hard teach you about dignity, grit, and the kind of backbone public service requires?

SPEAKER_00 6:20

My grandmother was um, I think, child number six out of seven. Um, she grew up during the Great Depression in Jersey City, New Jersey, and then came to Reno, Nevada um to marry my grandfather and get her her life started. But um, she worked harder than anybody, probably the toughest person I've ever known. Um, don't get in her way. My grandmother had street smarts and probably got in a few street fights as well. But the lessons I learned from her were literally to fight like hell. You earn everything you have, you have a backbone, and you get the business done. And um, you know, I feel like I was raised not only by her and my mom, but by that group of women, her fellow dealers in the casinos. These are women who took charge. They were responsible for their families. My grandmother only had a ninth grade education and was determined to make sure that all of her kids, including her grandkids, would have a future that was better for them. And I never felt that there was anything other than that on her agenda for me and my mom. So she constantly had my back through my entire upbringing. And I learned how to be a better parent. Um, I think about who I am as a parent today and who I am even as a lawmaker, somebody who has courage, a backbone, and who gets the work done. And, you know, I might be a little different. My grandmother uh maybe was a little, maybe had a few pointier edges than I do. But um, at the end of the day, that spine, the backbone and um the fierceness to get things done remain with me. And it's something I will forever admire her for.

SPEAKER_01 7:57

Do you feel that growing up with economic instability shaped the way you think about advocacy and who the government should work for?

SPEAKER_00 8:06

It does. I have a connection to people who are fighting and working hard every day. Um, I know these families. I I lived it. And, you know, I because of strong people who cared about me, who, you know, saw opportunity and possibility for me, potential. That's the same kind of hand up and ladder. I want to make sure that every other kid in my district has. Um, when people like me succeed, we don't forget where we came from. And I know that I don't. I want to make sure that that ladder that I was able to climb exists and maybe is even better than it was for me, for those kids who and families candidly, who are fighting for better opportunity and better, a better future for their kids.

SPEAKER_01 8:49

Okay, so then when did Colorado stop being simply where you lived and start becoming part of who you are?

SPEAKER_00 8:56

Well, I had the benefit of my mom and sister being here when I came to school. So they actually moved out here before I did. And um probably, I would say maybe my second year here, you know, my my mom um bought our first family home when I was a sophomore in college. And maybe it was then when we finally first owned our first family home. Probably then when I was a sophomore. Where I grew up in Reno, we were surrounded by mountains. But what was striking for me the very first time I flew into the state of Colorado and I looked down from the plane as we were landing, is I saw random bodies of water. Um, coming from Nevada, there is no water except for Lake Tahoe. But you come into Colorado and during those days, just seeing random lakes and reservoirs was amazing for me. And then when I got here, it was um just the simple existence of a greenbelt in Reno, Nevada. We didn't have anything called green belts. And um for anybody listening here, if your state doesn't have them, these are just nice walkways that neighborhoods might have for people, um, that you don't have to go to a park to go walk, that there might be nice trails and paths for you to walk. And those are um in abundance in the area where I live. It was incredible to see a state that actually invested to make living conditions nice for people who live here. Where I came from in Reno, um, that state really only invested for tourists. So if you went to the downtown area to go gamble, that's where things were nice. But any place else in the city, you had crumbling infrastructure, honestly. Um, but come to Colorado. This is a state that loves its people and invests to make people's lives better. And that made me fall in love with Colorado nearly immediately because I saw that Colorado was a place that loved its people.

SPEAKER_01 10:45

You meet every kind of person in a district like yours. So tell me about a recent conversation with a constituent that has really stuck with you.

SPEAKER_00 10:53

I want to tell you about a woman as I've been out campaigning. This lady um lived in an apartment complex and she was in a studio apartment, and I knocked on her door and introduced myself. I'm Shannon Bird. I want to represent you. Um, told her briefly about myself, and I said, What do you care about? Tell me about you. What do you hope I'm working on? And she talked about being a widow and living on a fixed income. She had worked her whole life, which immediately made me think about the women in my family literally work their whole lives. And um, she was now in a studio apartment, and I think she had a little dog with her, but she talked about that fixed income and what it meant to her every time one of her bills went up. It meant, say, for example, every time her utility bill would go up, say even by a dollar or two dollars, that meant another copay or something on her grocery list that she wouldn't be able to afford or buy. And it just made me think about how how grounded a person needs to be. If you want to represent somebody authentically or represent your district authentically, you have to have conversations like this so that you know that the votes you take and the decisions you make, they're not just theory. It's it's going to have direct impact on people and their lives. And you have to be aware, not just of big broad policy trade-offs, but what does it mean to people on the ground? What does it mean to this lovely woman who worked her whole life, who doesn't have an opportunity to make any more money than what she's taking in from her, from her social security and just trying to make ends meet? How is somebody like me going to lift her up and make sure she's she's heard and that somebody's fighting for her? So that's a conversation that has continued to stick with me and I won't forget it. You know, I've been in in elected service for 10 years. I started off on my city council, and every every year that I'm on the ballot, I'm out there knocking on people's doors. So for council, I was out knocking on doors. And then every other year, and as a representative, I like to say I get to be on the ballot every other year. And that's the best, honestly, because you're out there talking to voters and finding out what they care about, listening to them, what is it that they want to see? And I know from experience that when you're serving, it's not um, it's very easy if you're not somebody who's grounded with your constituents, that once you get to the Capitol to actually make those decisions, there are a whole host of other people who want to come and tell you that they're speaking for your constituents. And because I've had those conversations and am so close to the people I've represented, I know when people are telling me the truth and I know when they're selling me another story that isn't so good for the people I want to serve. So that's been something that's been very powerful for me and it's grounded me in my service so far. And I expect that it's going to continue to do that when I win my seat in Congress.

SPEAKER_01 13:51

Okay. So your public service story begins in your kids' classrooms. What did you see there that made you think, I can't just observe this, I have to act.

SPEAKER_00 14:03

So uh I was volunteering and uh there's there's a little bit of context here. I I agree to say yes to everything. I'm helping the teacher every way that they need. The first thing I see is that teachers in this school are using their personal money to buy food because a lot of times kids in the classroom come to school and they don't have enough food. They didn't eat breakfast that morning, or maybe they're gonna leave later and they don't have food to go home to in their homes. So that was the first thing. And that that was unconscionable. That was the start. But then as I continued to volunteer, um I got asked by our school district to serve on this blue ribbon panel. Um, the school district needed money to repair broken buildings, um broken HVAC systems. There was one high school that had a broken sewer line that ran underneath the kids' cafeteria. And you can only imagine what that was like. The schools all needed security upgrades. Um, we're in a time where there are a lot of threats to kids' safety in public schools. So there needed to be a lot of changes to make sure kids are safe in schools. Teachers hadn't had a meaningful raise in years in this school district. And being part of this panel, hearing all of the challenges that our district had, uh, made clear that we needed action on a community level. So um the district decided to ask voters for um a tax increase to try to make these investments. And they asked me to be the citizen chair of this campaign. And that is how I got started. I worked my heart out for that campaign. And um, after that campaign was done, that's when people started to recruit me for um my city council seat. But through the course of trying to raise money for our school, um I got involved, found another organization that was doing this more broadly for schools all across the state. And I got involved with them and they started taking me to the Capitol. I was a parent volunteer with my clipboard and my talking points, and I was supposed to go talk to the state legislators about the need for the state to improve its investment in our public schools. And I'll just say I was terrified. I was so afraid to talk to those legislators because in my mind they were so important. And why would they ever have time for somebody like me? But I'm I did get them to talk to me, and it was a great experience. It was scary, but I remember them saying, oh no, our hands are tied. There's nothing that we can do to help you. Um, Colorado just can't do this. It can't be done, it can't be done. And um, I'm proud to say that I'm living proof um with a legislative background to prove this that yes, there was something that could be done. And I'm grateful to say that I was able to do it.

SPEAKER_01 16:44

Okay, so you've developed a reputation for sometimes stepping out of line with your own party. When you cast a difficult no vote, what's happening inside you?

SPEAKER_00 16:55

Well, this, I will just say this got easier after the first time I did it when I realized that the sun was still going to rise, even when I had disagreement and I was still breathing the next day. Crossing the Rubicon was an important thing to do. Um, what's going through my mind is I'll just tell you the process. I always want to work with people who are trying to solve problems. And I know that, you know, the vast majority of people who are in public service are well-intentioned with the bills that they bring forward. And um, to the extent that there's disagreement, I want to work with my colleagues to try to get to yes. And, you know, I want to work with them to amend their bill. This is always my first opportunity. My first try is to try to work and see, you know, I I've read your bill, I see the good that you're trying to achieve, but there are these other things and perhaps these other unintended consequences that I'm concerned about. Can we address it with this amendment? And if that doesn't work, then um I am very upfront and I let them know, hey, I've got big concerns and you want to run your bill. This just doesn't work for the people I represent. I'm gonna have to be a no. And um that that is how that goes. And um, as I say, it was pretty hard the first few times that I did it. I think it's kind of it's counterculture in politics. Usually people are casting votes. They're not many times, people aren't really doing big deep dives into their colleagues' bills, um, particularly if it's a bill brought to you from somebody with the same letter after their name. They're part of the same party. Um, for me, I just know that I have a responsibility when I knock on people's doors, like that woman's door who I knocked on. I've made a commitment to them that I'm gonna be watching out for them. And I feel that. I feel for my constituents the same way. I feel protective of my family. Um, my little sister, when I'm gonna stand up for her, I'm gonna stand up for these constituents as well. So that makes it easier. But um, it it's always remembering who I'm there to serve and who I represent.

SPEAKER_01 18:55

You helped lead major prior authorization reform. What human story made that fight real for you?

SPEAKER_00 19:03

So, for your listeners who aren't familiar with prior authorization, this is a tactic that's used by many insurers to delay people's access to care and to deny it. So if you've ever had your a surgeon or a physician recommend a medication or a surgery, for example, or a therapy, um, many times your insurance company will say, Well, we'll only you have to call us first. And you can't have that until we approve it. And what that means is if you go ahead and just do this without our permission, we might not pay to cover your procedure. So this was a problem that many patient groups, particularly people who have chronic illnesses. So if you think about somebody who has breathing problems and needs to have their oxygen, um, oxygen is a prescription. You have to have that prescribed to you. Um, oxygen or other long-term medications that you're taking to manage conditions, that that's something that gets impacted significantly by prior authorization. It, you know, it's it's also everyday people when you're just trying to get, you know, you've got a torn meniscus in your knee, for example, or you have a blown disc in your back and you've got to get things taken care of. I heard stories from people who were in excruciating pain and being delayed by insurance companies and um spoke with so many people about the runaround. And we learned through my research showed that there were many insurance companies that used this as a tactic that if you just tell people no enough times, eventually they're going to stop asking. They will find some other way that's less expensive to treat the illness that they've got. Um, it was horrible for doctors too. So doctors would prescribe a medication. This is another example. They would say, prescribe a certain heart medication to take care of somebody's blood pressure, for example. The insurance company would just deny willy-nilly the medication and say, oh, that specific medication isn't approved, and never say, Well, what could you prescribe? And so this led to even more administrative runaround and higher costs for patients at the end of the day. So I worked with um patient advocates, um, patients themselves, and the physician community to make sure that we reformed that system here in Colorado so that you cannot, as a patient, be abused that way anymore. Insurance companies have to be more transparent about what their process is. They have to approve your medications. So it was huge. And this is actually an initiative I want to take with me to Congress and do this for patients nationally. Colorado got the benefit of these improvements, and now everybody needs it.

SPEAKER_01 21:40

So in the state assembly house, you've done major work on housing. What did working across party lines on housing teach you about what people actually agree on?

SPEAKER_00 21:51

I learned that you know what, we agree on so much. And this is something I want to leave um your listeners with some hope here. I Did a lot of really good bipartisan work with Republicans in housing finance and um work to support great organizations like Habitat for Humanity, um, where they're doing build-to-own situations for for families. So uh what I learned is that people um are desperate to do well by their kids. Um, I know Colorado isn't unique in this regard, but there are a lot of people who are struggling. They are like my family was at the whim of a landlord and um a lot of bad landlords out there, but then a lot of good landlords too. Um, but then just not enough affordable opportunities for people to actually just have a stable roof over their heads that's high quality, a safe place for their kids to grow up, and something that they can afford. So um I I think that expanding Colorado's ability to invest in construction of more um affordable rental product was crucial and so important. Something though that I I do want to say is there I saw in Colorado that for very, a very long time our state's best response to the affordable housing crisis was to build more affordable, low-income, taxpayer subsidized rentals. And as I mentioned, my family didn't own our first home until I was a sophomore in college. And it was never my family's American dream to be a tenant or to be a renter for the rest of our lives. We wanted an opportunity to take that hard-earned money that we were working so hard for and use that to actually buy something. That's how you build a stable life, financial security, um, a chance for your kids to have stability and grow up in a real community. So, in addition to working on expanding tax credits to build more apartment rentals that are affordable, um, I leaned in on an issue to get our state building more affordable condominiums that don't require a taxpayer subsidy, but are traditionally just more affordable for people who are not wealthy. People are just going to work every day trying to do better for their kids. That bill was the product of literally two years of stakeholder meetings. Leaning in, I think in the last year of stakeholder meetings, I hosted over a hundred meetings between consumer advocates and um people who wanted to build more condominiums and then everybody in between to find out, you know, understand what the problem was, but how do we solve this and get our state in a place where people want to build things that people can afford to buy? We all need a roof over our heads. So expanding all kinds of housing has been really, really important to me.

SPEAKER_01 24:37

You've made a real mark at the state level. So why Congress and why now?

SPEAKER_00 24:44

Because um we have Donald Trump and Gabe Evans every day, making it harder for families like the one I grew up in to have a fair shot at success. We've seen Donald Trump lead in some of the worst ways, and we have a current representative, Gabe Evans, who has been a cheerleader all the way. Gabe Evans cast the deciding vote on at least two occasions to rip healthcare away from tens of thousands of people in this district. One in three people depends upon Medicaid to be able to go to the doctor when they're sick in Colorado's ape. And that one big terrible bill that was passed is going to cost people access to going to the doctor. One in four families in Weld County, which is a sizable chunk of my district, depend upon food assistance to feed their kids. And um, that one big terrible bill also slashed food assistance. Um, it just can't happen. We have people's utility bills going up. We have the cost of gas rising, um, which seems to be on a nearly daily basis. We need a check on this administration and somebody whose first loyalty is to the people in Colorado's eighth and not to a president. And I know that's me. I have that track record and I'm ready to go do that in Congress.

SPEAKER_01 25:57

We're living in a politically anxious time. So what do you think about when you think about your children's future and all the children you've spent your career advocating for?

SPEAKER_00 26:08

What needs to happen is our world needs to heal. This Trump, the Trump administration has been so toxic for all of us. Um, the way that Donald Trump has built his power has been to divide us and to turn people against each other, Republicans and Democrats, people who support Trump versus who don't support Trump. And it has to stop. For this world to be a safe place for not only my kids, but everybody's kids. Our country needs to heal and we need better leaders who um who are done with lazy politics. I think it's lazy politics to demonize the other guy. And if we're not owning our own ability to come forward and deliver real solutions for the people we represent, we shouldn't be in public office. We shouldn't get here by just saying you have to hate this other guy so much, so vote for me. Um, that's never how I've behaved. I believe in being an actual workhorse and delivering solutions and listening to people, meeting people where they're at, solving real problems and rolling up their sleeves, working with anybody who's willing to do that, um, and also communicating very clearly to voters. Um, once I win, I'm not there just to represent the people who voted for me. I'm there to fight for every single person in my district, and I don't care who you voted for for president.

SPEAKER_01 27:26

For people feeling disillusioned right now, what personally still gives you hope?

SPEAKER_00 27:32

We are a country of incredible people who love America and want to see that American dream succeed. And you know what? One of the beautiful things about our country is we have elections literally every year. Every one of them matters, and with every one of those elections, we have a chance to course correct. And what I think um I see happening after we we are done with the Trump administration, I feel like there's going to be a renewed interest in protecting the things that we love about America instead of taking them for granted. If anything that we've seen with the Trump administration is true, is that um maybe we took too many things for granted in our country, too many rights we thought were set in stone and couldn't be taken away from us, too many norms and um good things. We we somehow forgot that all of those things need to be fought for every day and in every election. You can never take what's good about America for granted. We can also take everything right back in the next election, and that's about to happen.

SPEAKER_01 28:37

Shannon Bird, thank you so much for your time. We'll see you next time on Blue Dog Radio.

SPEAKER_00 28:42

Thank you for having me. It has been an honor.

SPEAKER_01 28:45

That was Colorado State Representative Shannon Bird. What stuck with me after our conversation was how often she returned to a sense of responsibility to her neighbors and their well-being. To this idea that politics is not performance, but real, genuine stewardship. If you enjoyed this conversation, subscribe to Blue Dog Radio wherever you listen. Share the episode and follow along for more conversations with people working in the complicated middle of American public life. Until next time, thank you for listening. This is Blue Dog Radio.

SPEAKER_02 29:33

First day in August, last fruit was in May. When the rainbake goes, the case will a bill to be.