Speaker 1: We're going to talk to a guy much like my
Speaker 1: friend Valdemar who is running in the first congressional district,
Speaker 1: who picked up the mantle to run in a district
Speaker 1: that isn't very favorable for Republicans, but Michael Demana did
Speaker 1: it anyway. He's running for the second district House seat.
Speaker 1: And welcome to the show. Michael.
Speaker 2: Good afternoon, Mandy, thank you for having me.
Speaker 1: Well, I'm glad you're here. I'm glad that there are
Speaker 1: Republicans trying to make some gains in these really blue districts.
Speaker 1: So I want to ask you, Michael. I bet a
Speaker 1: lot of my listeners have never heard of you. Tell
Speaker 1: people a little bit about yourself.
Speaker 2: I'd be happy to and I'm also sure that's true.
Speaker 2: They probably haven't heard of my opponent either, because not
Speaker 2: too many people in this district even know who that is.
Speaker 2: But in any event, tell you a little bit about
Speaker 2: me and my background. Little bit. I am a fourth
Speaker 2: generation denveright, so I've lived here in my entire life.
Speaker 2: I was born in Saint Joseph's Hospital, educated in Catholic schools,
Speaker 2: high school, grade school, went to university colleg out of
Speaker 2: a Boulder for my undergraduate work and graduated from the
Speaker 2: University of Denver Law School, where I've been. I have
Speaker 2: practice law in this city for a little over fifty
Speaker 2: two years. My partner and I were the form the
Speaker 2: first minority owned law firm in Denver, so we're very
Speaker 2: proud of that. And we owned a nineteenth century building
Speaker 2: on seventeenth and the High Street where we did our
Speaker 2: practice for over forty years together. So that's a little
Speaker 2: bit about me and a little bit about my background.
Speaker 1: So you're obviously accomplished. Why do you want to put
Speaker 1: your face in the wood chipper of politics? What made
Speaker 1: you jump into the second House district race?
Speaker 2: Well, a couple of things. One, I'm not a politician.
Speaker 2: I'm just like everybody else that lives in the House
Speaker 2: district too, and lives in Denver, And candidly, I just
Speaker 2: got sick and tired of what was happening to my
Speaker 2: beautiful city and my wonderful state. And I just said,
Speaker 2: I've had enough, and a lot of people that I
Speaker 2: know have had enough. What are we going to do
Speaker 2: about it? Well, somebody needs to stand up and say
Speaker 2: something about it. And I decided that that was going
Speaker 2: to be me.
Speaker 1: So let's talk about your vision for the second House district.
Speaker 1: What do you think are the number one concerns and
Speaker 1: how do you want the legislature to address them?
Speaker 2: Well, the number one concern in my view is crime.
Speaker 2: What's happened to our city and our state with regard
Speaker 2: to crime has just been unacceptable anymore. We've given the
Speaker 2: Democrats and liberals their opportunity with you know, no cash bail,
Speaker 2: with lowering penalties on sentinel and doing a whole number
Speaker 2: of other things, including welcoming immigrants into this city and state,
Speaker 2: and we've seen what's happened. In January, our governor said
Speaker 2: that he wanted to make Colorado the tenth safest state
Speaker 2: in the nation, because at this point we are the
Speaker 2: number third most unsafe state in the nation for felony crime.
Speaker 2: So why the governor was going to need five years
Speaker 2: to do it, I guess it's because he's only going
Speaker 2: to be around for four and then we'll deal with
Speaker 2: the rest of it after he leaves. But in any event,
Speaker 2: let me tell you very briefly what the legislature did
Speaker 2: for the first of those five years. Nothing. Yeah, absolutely nothing.
Speaker 1: Well, Michael, I actually I would argue the opposite. I
Speaker 1: think that the legislature did a lot. They decriminalized ventanyl,
Speaker 1: they made car theft a misdemeanor. They did a lot
Speaker 1: to contribute to our current crime situation here in Colorado.
Speaker 1: So I'm not going to let you off that let
Speaker 1: them off that easily. You were being kind. I don't
Speaker 1: have to be kind because I'm not running for anything.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Thank you, Mandy. I meant they did nothing
Speaker 2: for the citizens, right, they did everything for the criminals. Yes,
Speaker 2: I've been in the courtroom over thirty years practicing criminal
Speaker 2: defense law. Every time that I met someone accused of
Speaker 2: a crime, they had two questions. One, that's the fee,
Speaker 2: But number two, how much time am I going to do?
Speaker 2: How I'm going to attack this issue is not let
Speaker 2: the Democrats get continue to get away from lowering penalties.
Speaker 2: In fact, my view is and one of the first
Speaker 2: pills I will offer is that if you are convicted
Speaker 2: of a crime involving a firearm, you will not only
Speaker 2: do the underlying sentence for the crime, You'll do an
Speaker 2: additional five for the firearm. Now that's an additional five years,
Speaker 2: not without without parole, without good time, without earn time,
Speaker 2: without all the other craft that they put onto these
Speaker 2: things to let these guys out earlier. It will be
Speaker 2: five years, and I believe that that will significantly decrease crime. Say,
Speaker 2: the other thing is we've got to start backing our
Speaker 2: police officers. We just simply have to start doing that,
Speaker 2: and we are not doing that, as you can see.
Speaker 2: In fact, in Denver we have something on the ballot
Speaker 2: this year that we're going to allow non citizens to
Speaker 2: become members the Denver Police Department and Fire department. Why
Speaker 2: because we can't get police officers to do it. Why
Speaker 2: can't we get people to want to be police officers
Speaker 2: because we don't back them. We just simply do not
Speaker 2: back them. In fact, they can be personally liable for
Speaker 2: twenty five thousand dollars of damages if they are sued. Now,
Speaker 2: you tell me who wants to do a job like that,
Speaker 2: and what's in our legislator's response. They've left it to
Speaker 2: the people because we have Proposition one twenty eight, which
Speaker 2: I hope people will vote for, which requires violent criminals
Speaker 2: to do wait for it, eighty five percent of their
Speaker 2: sentence and if they're convicted of free violent crimes, they
Speaker 2: have to do one hundred percent of their sentence now
Speaker 2: you mean to tell me that the Colorado legislature cannot
Speaker 2: agree on this kind of an issue and needs to
Speaker 2: send it to the people to make the decision. That's
Speaker 2: what I'm talking about, about favoring criminals and not protecting
Speaker 2: the citizens of this state and the city.
Speaker 1: I agree, hoohearted ly. Let's talk about affordability that those
Speaker 1: two things. I think there's three things happening right now.
Speaker 1: People are concerned about crime because no matter how many
Speaker 1: talking heads on Twitter tell us that crime has dropped dramatically,
Speaker 1: the reality is I was talking to a friend of
Speaker 1: mine and she said, yeah, my son's friends truck was
Speaker 1: stolen from the airport. I said, no, no, no, there's
Speaker 1: they fixed that. You know they've got that. And she
Speaker 1: said no, this was like three weeks ago. So they
Speaker 1: can tell us that crime has fallen off a map,
Speaker 1: but the reality is people are still having their cars stolen.
Speaker 1: We are really really high up in the number of
Speaker 1: sexual assaults that we're reporting. It is not good. How
Speaker 1: do you in the legislature go to address that we
Speaker 1: just talked about. But now let's talk about affordability, which
Speaker 1: is the second issue that people I think are really
Speaker 1: concerned about. In Colorado.
Speaker 2: Well, we have your listeners probably know this. This last
Speaker 2: fiscal year, our budget was forty billion dollars forty billion
Speaker 2: next year, next fiscal year, it's projected to go up
Speaker 2: to forty three billion, Mate, if not higher. We can't
Speaker 2: print money and we can't borrow it, so that money
Speaker 2: has to come from the people of this state, and
Speaker 2: that comes through can't do taxes because they have to
Speaker 2: ask our permission, which is why we have a ballot
Speaker 2: amendment on our ballot this year wanting to increase the
Speaker 2: sales tax on firearms and ammunition. But they do it
Speaker 2: through fees, fees, because our Supreme Court has decided that
Speaker 2: a fee is not a tax. Yeah, well, so, as
Speaker 2: I'm concerned, it comes right out of my pocket, whether
Speaker 2: you call it a fee or a tax, and that
Speaker 2: needs to stop. We need to take a look at
Speaker 2: all of these sees that we impose upon our citizens
Speaker 2: which are not legal because they have not been voted on,
Speaker 2: and we need to start eliminating some of them. How
Speaker 2: about the bag fee? Do they know where that money goes? No, no,
Speaker 2: of course not.
Speaker 1: Do you know what's funny? Do you know what's funny
Speaker 1: about the bag fee? And the entire premise behind getting
Speaker 1: rid of plastic bags in Colorado because you then go
Speaker 1: and the bags end up in a whale swims through
Speaker 1: a bag, and then that all comes from Colorado. That's
Speaker 1: the thinking there. But do you know where you can
Speaker 1: still buy plastic bags? The coastal state of California, where
Speaker 1: they could actually end up in the ocean. You can
Speaker 1: still buy plastic bags there, but not in Colorado. It
Speaker 1: makes zero.
Speaker 2: Sense exactly, And that, of course, is what we're coming.
Speaker 2: We're becoming. We are becoming a California, and I just
Speaker 2: don't want that to happen, and I want to try
Speaker 2: to stop it. And the way to stop it is
Speaker 2: for me to get elected. Because if we keep electing
Speaker 2: the same people expecting that they're going to do something different,
Speaker 2: what we're going to get is the same people and
Speaker 2: exactly the same result.
Speaker 1: Michael Demana is running in House just for two for
Speaker 1: the Colorado State House. Michael, make your pitch. Why should
Speaker 1: people vote for you?
Speaker 2: People should vote for me for one reason and one
Speaker 2: reason only. If you like the way things are right now,
Speaker 2: if you don't have any problem what's happening to your
Speaker 2: city and your state right now? If there's a guy
Speaker 2: in office that you can vote for, but if you
Speaker 2: want something to change, you want somebody to go into
Speaker 2: that legislature and try to change things for your betterment,
Speaker 2: then you go to Demana for HD two dot com.
Speaker 2: You look at my website. Help me with a few
Speaker 2: dollars as you can, and I would really appreciate your prayers.
Speaker 1: Michael, I just got this text message before you go, Mandy.
Speaker 1: I'm a lawyer who had Mike Demanda mediate several cases
Speaker 1: over the years. My experience was he is extremely smart, measured,
Speaker 1: reasonable and rational. Didn't know he was running, so thank
Speaker 1: you for having him on. He's got my vote.
Speaker 2: Bob. That's one, Mike, Yeah, one's that makes my weekend.
Speaker 2: Matthew all right so much