Speaker 1: Now we're going to go straight to the phones. She's
Speaker 1: calling from the belly of the beast, where what thresh
Speaker 1: hell is being cooked up for? Colorado Senator State Senator
Speaker 1: Barb Kirkmeyer. How are things going up there? It's been
Speaker 1: a few days now, what's already been ruined? I mean,
Speaker 1: that's just the way I'm looking at it.
Speaker 2: I'm just kidding.
Speaker 3: No, Actually, you shouldn't be looking at you should be
Speaker 3: looking at it that way.
Speaker 1: So what are some of the things I understand that
Speaker 1: the Democrats are unveiling. They're housing affordability plan today, And
Speaker 1: anytime Democrats talk about affordability, I grab my wallet. Okay,
Speaker 1: because they've done nothing but make things more expensive here.
Speaker 1: Would you know the details of this housing affordability plan?
Speaker 2: Yet?
Speaker 3: Nope, they don't tell us until they unveil it. They're
Speaker 3: not really good at stakeholdering. They're not really good at
Speaker 3: telling us, you know, the minority party, what's going on.
Speaker 3: So we'll hear about it more, you know, this afternoon.
Speaker 3: I guess that's good point.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about Republican you know, priorities in this legislative session.
Speaker 1: I hate to say it, not that they matter that
Speaker 1: much because you guys put bill after bill after bill,
Speaker 1: and they get killed in committee after committee after committee.
Speaker 1: Let's start with any area where there may be bipartisan cooperation.
Speaker 1: Do we have anything that we can look at now
Speaker 1: and say, yes, we're going to work together and make
Speaker 1: that happen.
Speaker 3: Not that I see, I mean, I just have the
Speaker 3: list of bills. So here's what happens. You know, in
Speaker 3: the first few days, the first couple of weeks or so, here,
Speaker 3: we'll be introducing up to three hundred bills. The legislators
Speaker 3: get to carry five bills. Your first three are due,
Speaker 3: you know, by the before session even starts. You've got
Speaker 3: to get them in and then we start reading them
Speaker 3: across the desk and they start getting scheduled for hearing.
Speaker 3: So within the first couple of weeks, we have three
Speaker 3: hundred bills that are introduced. I don't know that they
Speaker 3: all get they all won't get heard right away, but
Speaker 3: you know that's what we're doing. So we're in here
Speaker 3: looking at the bills that are introduced. And you know,
Speaker 3: even though there's all these huge calls for by partisanship,
Speaker 3: you know, on first day and everybody's supposed to go
Speaker 3: wrong and be buddies with everybody. Most of the bills
Speaker 3: that get introduced first are pretty much all partisan bills,
Speaker 3: all Democrat bills. And it's not so much what new
Speaker 3: fresh things are going to do to us this year,
Speaker 3: it's what old things are they bringing them back and
Speaker 3: making worse.
Speaker 1: Tell me about some of those, because I think I
Speaker 1: know some of them already. I know that they're trying
Speaker 1: to up end the Labor Peace Act as a giveaway
Speaker 1: to the unions.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, that one's coming back, and it just again rewrites
Speaker 3: the Colorado Labor's Peace Act. And you know, here's the thing,
Speaker 3: it's the Peace Act and it's been working for like
Speaker 3: sixty years. I don't know why they have to mess
Speaker 3: with it other than they want to make their unions happy.
Speaker 3: But you know, they're just trying to strengthen union leverage.
Speaker 3: So that one is coming back. It doesn't look like
Speaker 3: they made much changes from last year. I think to me,
Speaker 3: one of the concerns that's coming back, it's Senate Bill
Speaker 3: twenty six eighteen, which they labeled it Minor Identity and
Speaker 3: Parenting Decisions.
Speaker 2: What is that? That's as horrible?
Speaker 3: I call it the War on Parents two point zero.
Speaker 3: If you remember last year we had House Build twenty
Speaker 3: five thirteen twelve, which was about misgendering and dead naming.
Speaker 3: This one kind of picked up on that, and basically
Speaker 3: it says that your parenting time and your decision making authority,
Speaker 3: you know, like let's say you're in a custody case
Speaker 3: type thing and your child, who maybe other parents has
Speaker 3: taken care of, has changed their identity, they become a
Speaker 3: protected class, and if you don't agree to it, then
Speaker 3: your custody decisions, your parenting time, you could be penalized.
Speaker 3: You know, I kind of don't.
Speaker 1: We're seeing the numbers when it comes to trans identification
Speaker 1: dropping like a rock among younger generations. So the trans
Speaker 1: you know, craze or whatever you want to call it,
Speaker 1: the trans situation we've been going through seems to be
Speaker 1: sort of you know, ebbing at this point in time.
Speaker 1: And what I find remarkable is that they're not even
Speaker 1: trying to hide it, barb. I mean, they're literally saying,
Speaker 1: if you don't agree with what we say about your kid,
Speaker 1: then we're going to curtail your parenting time. And I've
Speaker 1: seen so many of these custody stories where you have
Speaker 1: a lunatic mom who decided the kid was trans when
Speaker 1: they were eighteen months old, and you have a dad
Speaker 1: going no, no, no, and the dad loses custody. I mean,
Speaker 1: this is just it's so egregious, and yet they honestly
Speaker 1: don't see anything wrong with these positions because they just
Speaker 1: blatantly just here we go, We're just gonna we're gonna
Speaker 1: take away your parental rights if you disagree with the
Speaker 1: states take on what your kid needs.
Speaker 3: That's exactly right. I mean this one, it's it's a mandate.
Speaker 3: It requires courts that when they're determining parent in time
Speaker 3: that they have to consider whether a parent affirms the
Speaker 3: child's identity.
Speaker 2: How is that not a violation of free speech?
Speaker 1: I mean, I if I'm a parent that finds myself
Speaker 1: in this situation, I'm suing because they're forced me to
Speaker 1: engage in state in state for speech. If I don't
Speaker 1: believe that my kid is trans, and the state says
Speaker 1: the only way you can have parenting time is if
Speaker 1: you say that you believe that your kids are trands.
Speaker 1: That's compelled speech. That's pretty clearly a violation of the
Speaker 1: First Amendment.
Speaker 2: In my view, it.
Speaker 3: Appears to me. But you know, the thing is parenting
Speaker 3: time should really be decided by safety and stability, not
Speaker 3: you know, whether parents comply with government approved belief And
Speaker 3: that's what's going on here. So this will be a
Speaker 3: fight on House floor, it'll be a fight on the
Speaker 3: Senate floor. We'll see what the governor is going to
Speaker 3: do this year, because last year he threatened vetoed, but
Speaker 3: then they sort of kind of amended the bill and
Speaker 3: he went ahead and finned it. So that's how I
Speaker 3: call it the war on parents two point zero. They're
Speaker 3: just going to keep up with saying that government's going
Speaker 3: to decide how your children are raised and they'll decide
Speaker 3: how much time you get to spend with them.
Speaker 1: So let me ask about something you and I have
Speaker 1: spoken about before. We talked about it before the special session.
Speaker 1: You wanted the governor to address it in the special session,
Speaker 1: and it has to do with the competency rules. We've
Speaker 1: seen multiple high profile cases where people were arrested for
Speaker 1: in some cases a violent act and then they were
Speaker 1: immediately released when they were.
Speaker 2: Found to be not competent.
Speaker 1: First of all, I want to go back because you
Speaker 1: voted for this, and I want to allow you to
Speaker 1: explain how the change was made, and then tell me
Speaker 1: what has been proposed, and please tell me something has
Speaker 1: been proposed already to fix this problem.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so the constitution is pretty clear. When someone is
Speaker 3: deemed unrestorable and incompetent, they can't just language in a
Speaker 3: correctional facility. The bill that was passed, the intent was
Speaker 3: is that they would either be committed to a criminal
Speaker 3: institution or a civil institution. What happened was the burden
Speaker 3: of proof changed and the burden of proof was placed
Speaker 3: on the District Attorney's office, the prosecutors instead of the
Speaker 3: public defender. And hence we're into a situation where individuals
Speaker 3: are being released because they may have Alzheimer's. They may
Speaker 3: have they may be intellectually disabled. So in other words,
Speaker 3: the IQ maybe like forty or thirty five or something,
Speaker 3: and you're not going to restore that, and they're incompetent.
Speaker 3: They should have had a civil commitment. We don't have
Speaker 3: the beds for that. So a bill is coming back
Speaker 3: to fix that. I have not seen that bill yet,
Speaker 3: it hasn't been introduced. I know that Minority Leader Simpson
Speaker 3: and Minority Leader Caldwell are on that bill with Senator
Speaker 3: Mobley from Boulder. I'm not sure who the other Democrat
Speaker 3: is on that bill, but I do know I got
Speaker 3: an update on it because we talk about it at
Speaker 3: the Joint Budget Committee to ensure that we're looking at
Speaker 3: the amount of funding that is necessary to ensure that
Speaker 3: we have the beds for the civil commitments so that
Speaker 3: we can get these people into facilities and get them
Speaker 3: the care that they need. We're not going to be
Speaker 3: able to restore them. They're always going to be incompetent,
Speaker 3: but you know, they're still in a situation where we're
Speaker 3: keeping the neighborhoods safe and actually keeping them safe from
Speaker 3: doing harm to themselves as well and putting them into
Speaker 3: a civil institution. So that bill is working this way through.
Speaker 3: I heard it's going to be like two hundred pages
Speaker 3: or something that measure. I think the district attorneys I've
Speaker 3: been talking with them there they are going to, as
Speaker 3: far as I know, support it, but none of us
Speaker 3: have seen the bill, so I can't say they're going
Speaker 3: to do that until we see the bill and they've
Speaker 3: had the opportunity to make sure they're changes that are
Speaker 3: in there, and there isn't something else that is going
Speaker 3: to come back and smack us in the face. So
Speaker 3: they're still working them through. We haven't got it done,
Speaker 3: but we're all prepared to, Like when I talk to
Speaker 3: Senator Simpson, we're prepared to support the bill. I'm prepared
Speaker 3: as a Joint Budget Committee to support the funding for it.
Speaker 3: So that's where we're out on that.
Speaker 1: So let me ask, because you're on the Joint Budget
Speaker 1: Committee and you know the budget it's going to be
Speaker 1: tied again this year. You said at the end of
Speaker 1: the special session, we balanced nothing because they just drew
Speaker 1: down the reserves. Right, that's how they balance the budget.
Speaker 1: They took a lot of one time money and they
Speaker 1: quote fixed the budget in the special session. So now,
Speaker 1: what kind of shortfall is Colorado facing at this moment?
Speaker 3: So sure, in the current fiscal year, we have a
Speaker 3: three hundred and seventy million dollars shortfall that will have
Speaker 3: to balance. And the way they want to balance that
Speaker 3: in this current fiscal year is by lowering the amounts
Speaker 3: for our reserve. So instead of a fifteen percent reserve,
Speaker 3: we'll end up with a thirteen percent reserve. Again, they
Speaker 3: wouldn't cut spending, They're going to cut our savings account.
Speaker 3: That's essentially what that adds up to, you know, we're
Speaker 3: not in a recession. This problem that we're in, the
Speaker 3: structural deficit that we're in, is a price is a
Speaker 3: crisis of priorities for my colleagues across the aisle, and
Speaker 3: they want to fund things that are not you know,
Speaker 3: what I call core government services and are things that
Speaker 3: we you know, we absolutely have to fund, and not
Speaker 3: fund the things that we do absolutely need to be funding.
Speaker 3: So that's where we're at in this current fiscal year.
Speaker 3: We'll be starting off the next budget year as we're
Speaker 3: looking at writing the budget about eight hundred and forty
Speaker 3: million in the red. And that's going to grow because
Speaker 3: we haven't even got all the numbers from the Department
Speaker 3: of health Care Policy and Finance, which does Medicaid, so big,
Speaker 3: huge problem. And here's the other thing. Just today, this
Speaker 3: is how silly this is. Just today, we had a
Speaker 3: supplemental request for in this current fiscal year about fifteen
Speaker 3: million dollars for the Department of Corrections because they need
Speaker 3: additional bed capacity, like nine hundred beds something in that range.
Speaker 3: Nine hundred additional beds because of the inmate population is increasing.
Speaker 3: Instead of agreeing to fund the additional beds. The Democrats
Speaker 3: on the Joint Budget Committee or taking the governor to task,
Speaker 3: they think they should be letting they think the governor
Speaker 3: should be letting these people out of prison. And in fact,
Speaker 3: I heard several times that we need to let people
Speaker 3: out aren't dangerous, And I'm like, well, who is that?
Speaker 3: Because they're in jail, they're in a correctional facility, maybe
Speaker 3: they're dangerous.
Speaker 1: Are you telling me that the Democrats are advocating for
Speaker 1: the release of Tina Peters.
Speaker 2: I mean, she's not a violent criminal.
Speaker 1: I'm just saying so it sounds to me like they're
Speaker 1: saying we need to release Tina Peters, doesn't it.
Speaker 2: I mean, I'm just gonna go there.
Speaker 3: You know, I may have to ask that question and
Speaker 3: bring that up point because I'm sure this is coming
Speaker 3: back in front of us on Monday. But I'm just
Speaker 3: looking at them, going, you know, eventually, we have to
Speaker 3: pay for this one way or another, Like you can't
Speaker 3: just go let people out of jail. There's you know,
Speaker 3: a system that we have. There's things called parole and
Speaker 3: community corrections and different things. They all have to get funded.
Speaker 3: But in the meantime they're like, well they can just
Speaker 3: languish in the county jails and you know, can be
Speaker 3: the county jail problem. You know, the shriff and the
Speaker 3: county commissioners, they could be their problem. But I just
Speaker 3: think it. I mean, that just tells you their mindset.
Speaker 3: We need to be letting people out because they're not dangerous.
Speaker 3: And I'm like, they're in jail they committed a crime. Right.
Speaker 1: It's funny because the governor, just the governor was just
Speaker 1: out touting our massive reductions in crime, right, And I
Speaker 1: found the most interesting part about the crime reduction, and
Speaker 1: we did. We had a great year of crime reduction
Speaker 1: across the state. Do you know where they had the
Speaker 1: biggest crime reduction in terms of our major cities Aurora
Speaker 1: Aurora where the conservative city council strengthened the penalties for
Speaker 1: crimes and amazingly crime went down. It's almost like they
Speaker 1: can't see the cause and effect of their policies.
Speaker 3: Well, and we just kind of vote by the people
Speaker 3: that talk about truth incentive. So you know, how about
Speaker 3: we follow the will of the voters. These people need
Speaker 3: to say in jail, if you know, they committed a crime,
Speaker 3: they need to do the time kind of thing. And
Speaker 3: we need to ensure. How many times have we heard
Speaker 3: about how we're going to improve safety in the state.
Speaker 3: I mean, Governor Polis said in one of the State
Speaker 3: of the States, was that three or four years ago,
Speaker 3: you wanted to be in the top ten of the
Speaker 3: most safest state. Information. Well, we got in the top ten.
Speaker 3: It's the top ten of the most dangerous states in
Speaker 3: the nation. So and that's because of their policies that
Speaker 3: they've been doing. I mean, let's be clear, it's one
Speaker 3: party control. They're in control of the House, the Senate,
Speaker 3: and the governor's office, and they keep making these poor decisions.
Speaker 3: And every time you're right, every time they say they're
Speaker 3: going to do something for us, you might as well
Speaker 3: hold onto your pocketbook. You might as well understand that
Speaker 3: things are just going to get worse, because that's what's
Speaker 3: happened over the course the last seven years.
Speaker 2: That is sad but true.
Speaker 1: Let me ask you, a Texter said, is there anything
Speaker 1: on the horizon about gun bills? I mean, obviously they've
Speaker 1: made buying a weapon in Colorado fifty fresh layers of hell,
Speaker 1: and it is as misery here.
Speaker 2: So they what do they cook it out for us
Speaker 2: gun owners?
Speaker 3: Well, you remember the red Flag law, the Extreme Risk
Speaker 3: Protection Order. Yeah, they're bringing it back and expanding it,
Speaker 3: and it dramatically. This build dramatically expands who can petition
Speaker 3: a court to seize someone's firearms. This is an extremely
Speaker 3: unconstitutional law that we have in place. I know this
Speaker 3: is you know, when I was a county commissioner, this
Speaker 3: is why we created a second Amendment Sanctuary County, because
Speaker 3: they're like, look, we aren't going to enforce law that
Speaker 3: basically tells us to violate our oath, which is to
Speaker 3: uphold the Constitution. But this one says essentially that anybody
Speaker 3: who this is who can petition a court to seize
Speaker 3: the firearms. Institutions like schools, hospitals, behavior health facilities, and
Speaker 3: corresponding programs, they can all file petitions, including against miners.
Speaker 3: And they also authorize broad disclosure of private medical and
Speaker 3: mental health records. Screw dude, Wait a.
Speaker 1: Minute, I just I just I just choked on my question.
Speaker 1: You just said they can be filed against miners. Miners
Speaker 1: cannot legally own a firearm. So are they going to
Speaker 1: come in and try to take the weapons that are
Speaker 1: in someone's house.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they're already trying to do that. That's what the
Speaker 3: red flagli was about in the first place.
Speaker 1: But if it's if they're if they're filing it against
Speaker 1: a minor, and a miner doesn't own the firearms, so
Speaker 1: they're trying to come in and say, Look like if
Speaker 1: they try to file it against my kid, they would
Speaker 1: come in and say, oh, Mandy and Chuck, we're gonna
Speaker 1: have to take your guns.
Speaker 3: Yeah, oh gosh. And here here's the other thing, authorizing
Speaker 3: broad disclosure of private medical and mental health records. Who's
Speaker 3: gonna go Who's going to take your kid in for
Speaker 3: mental health? Now? Nobody? Well, I mean, you're just mean
Speaker 3: interest saying it. It'll be a chilin effect on treatment
Speaker 3: if we can do process, I mean essentially. I mean
Speaker 3: they're just I know, I said we can say that.
Speaker 3: They're just saying script, you don't have any more due process.
Speaker 3: We're gonna come seezure guns. That's the whole purpose here.
Speaker 3: So I think it's an issue again. So that's what
Speaker 3: they're doing there. There's another bill that I know you're
Speaker 3: gonna love. It's Senate Bill twenty six zero zero five
Speaker 3: Simple Liability for Immigration Enforcement. Shut up better enough? That
Speaker 3: word what it's not mat words that you're thanks for
Speaker 3: a state, but this bill creates a new state level
Speaker 3: cause of action allows individuals to suit anyone involved in
Speaker 3: simple immigration enforcements and private individuals.
Speaker 2: How in the world.
Speaker 1: Does federal supremacy not just immediately shut that down? I mean,
Speaker 1: how in the world do they think they have authority
Speaker 1: over a federal agency?
Speaker 3: Because I'm telling you my colleagues across the aisle down here,
Speaker 3: I think they can rewrite the Constitution on the Senate floor,
Speaker 3: on the Senate House floors. I they don't have any Are.
Speaker 2: They familiar with the document at all? Because it doesn't
Speaker 2: sound like they are at all.
Speaker 3: Yeah. So, yeah, the individuals who's carrying this is Senator Gonzalez,
Speaker 3: who's running against US Senator John Hey, come o her. Okay,
Speaker 3: then one last question for you. Oh yeah, because.
Speaker 2: We're almost out of time and I want to get
Speaker 2: this in.
Speaker 1: I said this earlier on the show. I don't have
Speaker 1: any I don't think there's any evidence out there. We
Speaker 1: don't have undercover investigators busting massive amounts of fraud in
Speaker 1: our medicaid system. But Barb, I want someone in government
Speaker 1: to say, you know what, we don't know if we
Speaker 1: have a problem, we'd like to make sure that our
Speaker 1: dollars are being spent on the people who need them
Speaker 1: the most. Can we please set up some kind of
Speaker 1: like colleifraudo website where people can you know, upload tips
Speaker 1: about fraud just and then maybe look at doing a
Speaker 1: Medicaid audit, just to make sure that and not on
Speaker 1: the people that are getting medicaid. Right, I'm talking about
Speaker 1: the organizations that we've seen in other states that have
Speaker 1: been set up to defraud Medicaid and other organizations. I
Speaker 1: would love to see someone put that forward and say, look,
Speaker 1: if you know a fraud, let us know. We'll investigate
Speaker 1: it to make sure that the taxpayer dollars are going
Speaker 1: to the people who deserve them and not a single
Speaker 1: other person.
Speaker 3: Well, and the reality is we do audits, we do
Speaker 3: look through things like that. You're right, I mean, there
Speaker 3: is so there's so much in state government, and you're right,
Speaker 3: that would be a great idea. I don't think the
Speaker 3: Democrats would ever agree to that, just so you know,
Speaker 3: but it doesn't mean we can't try. But I just
Speaker 3: don't think they would ever agreed to that. That would
Speaker 3: have a fiscal note on it. They'd kill it right there,
Speaker 3: you know, they would weagonize the fiscal note against this
Speaker 3: on the bill. But here's the thing. If you were
Speaker 3: just reading even some of the recent articles in the paper,
Speaker 3: you'll know that we did have some massive fraud in
Speaker 3: the Department of health Care Policy and Finance in the
Speaker 3: Medicaid in the emergency medical transports. And we learned about
Speaker 3: it in twenty three when I was on the Joint
Speaker 3: Budget Committee. We were shutting down the program. But from
Speaker 3: the article that I today, there's like millions and millions
Speaker 3: of dollars that still went out the door even after
Speaker 3: we were supposedly shut down the program, hired a new
Speaker 3: contractor and tried to deal with it in a different
Speaker 3: way and get it under control. It's been over. I'm
Speaker 3: assuming it's been over at the Attorney General's office, because
Speaker 3: he's the one who should be going after this loss.
Speaker 1: Well, I was going to ask, where's the attorney government.
Speaker 1: He's too busy suing Trump. He doesn't have time to
Speaker 1: pursue criminal charges against that.
Speaker 2: Senator Barb Kirkmeyer.
Speaker 1: I look forward to these visits throughout the legislative session.
Speaker 1: I'm calling them, what fresh hell is this with Barb Kirkmeyer.
Speaker 2: So there you go.
Speaker 1: We'll talk to Barb throughout the session as it continues
Speaker 1: down its path, so make notes of the worst of
Speaker 1: the worst so you can share.
Speaker 2: Them with me on the show.
Speaker 3: That's right, Thank you, Mandy.
Speaker 2: All right, thanks Barb. We'll talk again.
Speaker 3: Zoon.
Speaker 2: That's State Senator Barb Kirkmeyer.