Appearing on CNN on Saturday, a Democratic state representative from Colorado explained the vaccine bill he is shepherding through the legislature — and the resulting blowback he received from anti-vaxx activists which including death threats against himself and his children.

Speaking with host Martin Savidge, State Rep. Kyle Mullica said making sure that everyone is vaccinated shouldn’t be a partisan issue, and that he was surprised at the vitriol he received for pushing for a different procedure for parents wanting an exemption.

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“Here in Colorado we looked at that solution and we decided to go a route where we formalized a process how you got that exemption,” he explained. “Instead of turning paperwork into a school, we wanted people to turn that paperwork into their local health departments.”

“I’m an emergency room nurse and I ran for office because I think being a nurse is a perspective to have being a legislator. To see how partisan this issue became to me when I walked into it … I never would have thought it was a partisan issue,” he recalled. “It’s about protecting our community, and that was probably the most surprising thing.”

Asked about the death threats by the CNN host, Mullica expressed dismay.

“I don’t think there’s probably anything that we were doing that warranted that or really does warrant that,” he remarked. “A lot of the concerns we heard were around the safety of vaccines, around the state having the information. But again, you know, vaccines have been around for a long time, and they’ve done really great things for our community and saved millions of lives.”

“And to threaten to burn down my house with my children inside of it because I want to make sure our communities are safe, I haven’t been able to wrap my head around it and I just think it’s completely unacceptable,” he added.

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