This weekend marks 30 years since I first stepped foo in Colorado for a job interview.

I didn't know a single person here, but the people I met were engaging.

As a journalist, I was super impressed by the news coverage here.

Stories about education, debat of the state capital, profiles of businesses and communities, and forward thinking leaders.

Not just crime or what's going wrong.

It was the people and the conversations that hooked me.

And here I stand at the end of February 2026, still pinching myself that I chose Colorado as my home in 1996.

I'm still drawn to the fantastic people of this state and the conversations we get to have.

So let's get started wit this week's Colorado Inside Out.

Hi everyone, I'm Kyle Dyer.

Let me get right to introducing you to this week's insider panel.

We start with Patty Calhoun founder and editor of westward.

Alton Dillard consultant with The Diller Group and Rockford Gray and political analyst at Denver seven and former election spokesperson for the City and County of Denver.

Adam Berg, senior policy advisor with foster, Graha Milstein and culture law firm.

And Christy Burton Brown, executive vice president at Advanced Colorado and former chair of the Colorado Republican Party.

This week, Denver's mayor, surrounded by city council members and law enforcement leaders, laid out a plan to protect residents from any potential federal immigration enforcement, promising to everyone in the city that they would intervene and investigate situation where federal force is used and the city will not allow Ice agents onto state to city property for purposes of immigration enforcement.

There are many other provisions and protections written out in this new executive order.

And Patty, the mayor say all of this is not to provoke.

It's meant to prevent and protect.

There's nothing surprising really, in this executive order, which he just issue a little after noon on Thursday.

Maybe the only thing that's really surprising is why it didn't come any sooner.

Just because people have had so many questions not just locally, but federally, clearly, where they're stil spanking us as a sanctuary city.

I mean, we clearly he did lay out that if there are legitimate law enforcement purposes, if Ice agents have legitimate warrants they are able to execute them.

But he did lay out where and when Ice and othe federal agents can be involved.

And you're right, not on public property.

He also was very clear on something Police Chief Thomas has said which is if we see our citizens being abused by federal agents, it is our job to protect our citizens, to protect Coloradans.

And so all of this, I think, really will help us if and when ice parachutes in.

And there's no indication that ice is going to ramp things up in Colorado.

That wasn't why this was released, according to the mayor's office, but it lays things out far more clearly for everyone than has been laid out before.

Yeah.

And I agree with Patty because it's a refinement of an earlier message.

Because you remember when Denver first got that target on its back, the message was let's meet a the city limits and throw hands.

And so this sort of helps formalize that a little bit.

But it does beg a question.

Does it put a target on Denver because as you were saying, you know because there hasn't been a big ramp up yet.

Could this potentially cause one or the other?

Question is, will it be ignored by the feds lik the can't wear mask ordinance?

So that's going to be something that's really going to be worth watching.

The staging language is interesting too because I've seen in, you know, some of the surrounding areas you do see staging.

You know, so it's like, well, this is a presidential visit.

Why are there 20 Suburbans parked in this parking lot?

So it's something tha for citizens to keep an eye on.

But what really jumped out at me was the racial profiling language.

For that to actually be codified in that form, in that executive order.

I think it's going to be an interesting precedent.

Adam, I mean, if you're not looking across the country, particularly Minnesota, and seeing what's happening is and your jurisdiction is not responding, I think you're missing the opportunity to be responsive to community.

And here in Denver they've clearly been asking for something from council from the mayor.

You know you're navigating the complexity of federal immigration enforcement with the reality of what can happen on the ground during operations.

Right?

Which is people show up in mass.

It can be chaotic.

You can have people who are, you know, attempting to cause disruption or create an issue.

And people want to know where there is safety, you know, are there local law enforcement agencies going to protect them, going to protect civil liberties, going to work on behalf of the people of Colorado and the people of Denver?

Or are they going to coordinate with federal agents, in terms of coming down on this and all underplays the larger constitutional and practical tension of immigration enforcement in this country, which is the feds oversee the broader policy.

But the implications of those policies whether failures or successes, are played out in real tim in our communities like Denver.

All right.

And Chris, your thoughts on all this?

Sure.

Well, so they sa legislators run messaging bills.

I think this is a messagin executive order from the mayor.

There really isn't anything in here that the state or the city didn't already have the ability to do.

There's probably some tension between what they're saying.

They're going to sto federal agents from doing that.

I'm not convinced they actually have the power to do, a federal agency is certainly going to push back on that and do what they think they have the right to do.

I think the only disappointing piece in there, most of it just unsurprising, like Patty and everyone else has said, the only disappointing piece i that they're not also promising to keep the protests themselves civil.

I think it's good to protect the rights of peopl in Denver, people in Colorado, but we also have have continually seen, some protesters themselves be violent.

And it's the lack of cooperation between local law enforcement and Ice in those scenarios that I think would have prevented some protests from getting really out of hand and people, getting killed.

So I wish that in Colorado we could do that.

But honestly, state laws don't allow it.

Colorado lawmakers are also monitoring developments at the federal level with.

While Colorado wasn't mentioned by name in the state of the Union address, the president did take aim at the wa Colorado and many other states conduct elections calling for no more mail in voting.

Now, there is currently a bill at the state legislature which calls for modifying Colorado's current election system including, among other things, sending ballots to registered voters earlier than what were used to to ensure that everyone has them in in hand and ready to fill them out and return them, on time.

People sometimes forget that, Trump use mail ballot.

So that's one of those cases o works for me, but not for thee.

So I find the hypocrisy there to be interesting.

And again, I always have to push back on this rampant voter fraud narrative because it does not exist at that level.

And when it does pop up, it gets ferreted out and prosecuted.

One thing that's going on nationally, though, the Democrats are startin to lose control of the narrative when it comes to the voter ID issue.

And I think the problem with that is that they need to come up with something better than just saying voter ID is racist.

As far as the state bill goes, I looked at two parts that were particularly interesting.

They want to drop the age to be a student election judge down to 15, which I'm all for.

But the one that sort of bother me a bit is the old tradition.

There's they have language in there to strike the verbal opening and closing of polls, and that town crier kind of thing is one of the things that really made Election Day so interesting.

The polls are open and those are the language to strike that as prior to state law right now.

So we'll see.

Okay.

All right.

Adam, I want to tal about the speech more broadly.

So this was his sixth speech in front of a joint session of Congress you know, in his his two terms, I think the setting was familiar.

The message was largely familiar in a lot of ways.

What was not particularly routine was actually the length of this speech.

So most people don't realize this.

This was the longest, stat of the Union in modern history.

It was an hour and 48 minutes.

He actually broke his own record, which was the January 2025 speech, which was an hour and 40 minutes.

So just a little bit longer.

So he had a lot to cover.

It's no surprise it's not accidental that the speech was so long.

This is an election year.

He is giving a message about his administration and what he has done.

And if nothing else, the president understands presentation.

And there was an old saying, right, that if if someone is telling you something and you don't know what th product is, it's probably you.

And I think what this pitch was, was he was selling the narrative, right.

He is selling the version of America, that he wants voters to come in to the November election with.

So, there was a lot in the speech, you know, and, and I think we have a lot to take away going forward.

I'll go back a little bit to the voting issues and mail in ballots, but specifically voter ID, I think the Save America Act which he was saying, you know, Congress should pass.

He wanted to get through.

I think the House has passed it, but not the Senate at this point.

I think it's really important.

I understand how popular voter ID is around the nation.

If you look at a recent Gallu poll, 84% of Americans support voter ID, 83% said you should show citizen documents, proof of citizenship before registering to vote for the first time.

If you even look in like subgroups of people, even Hispanic voters, 71% of them think you should have voter ID, 76% of black voters think it.

So the point being, across the board, I think some of the objections you hear and when Alton said maybe the Dems should change their narrative on it a little bit, I really think they're going to have to if they want to oppose it.

I think it's pretty hard to oppose when you have 84% of Americans already, wanting it.

But when it is white liberals in cities who basically are the one saying, oh, this discriminates against minorities and against rural people.

I grew up in rural Colorado.

Rural Americans want voter ID.

It's not too har for us to drive to a post office or to go into town and show or I.D.

like it's it's kind of patronizing and demeanin to say that people don't have ID and can't use it.

And so I think that narrative is very it's just a losing narrative, and most people support it.

So I think that's why President Trump is talking about this on a big stage, because he knows how popular really is.

I spent a lot of my life listening to that speech almost two hours on Tuesday night, and I was waiting for Tina Peters, who of course didn't come.

But the specter of Tina Peters was there when we talk about voting, because obviously almost everything he's talking about is going to affect Colorado, but certainly any changes in voting.

And whereas I thin people want to be sure that yes, when you register to vote you are really, truly eligible.

We don't want to see Mail-In voting affected.

So once you'r a legitimate registered voter, to be able to vote by mail in this country has been such a boon and certainly such a boon in this state.

And when you hear threat that maybe we won't be getting those ballots by the post office it's really worrisome on that.

So about the speech I was interested that he called Democrats crazy a lot just because they weren't standing up.

He had every possible cameo playing to the crowd.

You know, you had parents of murdered children, you had military people.

It was an interesting group that he kept bringing up kin of a cross-section of America, which I found interesting.

But the rest of the speech wa like, we're winners or losers.

But it was kind of hard to tel when we were winners or losers, Okay.

All right.

Well, thank you for that roundtable there.

Let's now talk about data centers because they are back at the focus of debate at the state Capitol.

Supporters say they can really boost Colorado's economy and support the growing digital infrastructure that so many businesses rely on.

But then the critics warn these facilities just eat up water and energy resources and really ask whether our state should be offering tax incentives to attract them.

You know, in Denver, there's now a temporary pause on building new data centers.

Adam, this is reall a national conversation as well.

But when you think about how dry it is, especially this winter and how much water these facilities use, we really have to get this right.

Yeah.

And there is a real giv and take in this conversation.

Right.

I think the primary place to start for a lot of people is whether data centers, what are we talking about?

How big are they?

What do they look like?

What kind of wate use and energy use do they have?

And I think lawmakers are also playing catch up a little bit on those conversations.

So we really have two bills at play right now.

Senate Bill 26 102.

This is more of an environmental focused bill.

It has direct ties to climate and consumer protection and sort of forcing these data centers to pay for their own energy with renewable resources.

You have a second bill.

That's House Bill 26 1030 totally different path, right?

We're going to offer tax credits.

We're going to offer sales and use tax exemptions.

And we are going to give long term benefits to data center development in Colorad to drive that development here.

We obviously know we we need data.

I mean, we're all on our phones all the time.

We're using ChatGPT and it's you know, creating goofy images.

And it's driving up the cost of data t the tune of millions of dollars.

But there's a fine balance between economic development versus regulatory, you know, oversight.

And is we as a state are lookin at a massive shortage in water.

We've all it's wort 65 degrees every day this week.

This is a real factors.

Lawmakers are going have to have to debate about how we approach this.

I'll talk about the tax incentive piece of it.

I think it's really interesting that the legislature here in Colorado, a number of Democrats are proposing bills to give data centers tax incentives, while during the special session last year, they tried to increase taxes on businesses.

And typically they don't support, big corporations or big technology companies getting benefits and incentives from the government.

So I find it very interesting.

Now, of course, you can see economic impacts in Colorado.

They probably want to welcome data centers here for the economic boon they think it would be to the state.

And then they're also in a budget crisis.

So that also makes it interesting that they want to give tax incentives during a budget crisis.

But say tha they need to find ways to cut.

So I think the messaging coming out of the legislature isn't very consistent.

It's kind of hypocritical.

From, from again, liberal who tend to prefer to shut down big corporations instead of welcoming them and giving them tax incentives.

So I tend to think you shouldn' single out specific industries and give only them particular tax incentives.

And because you're going to have to increase taxes on someone else when you do that.

And so I tend to think have a fair playing field, let everyone pay their fair share of taxes and cut taxes across the board.

If you're going to do that, rather than singling out industries.

Part of your take when you do have the Economic Development Commission of the state, that's always looking at different proposals.

So do these data centers need a special exemption?

And I think it's it is not a good move for the legislature right now, especially if you saw what happened Tuesday nigh when there was the discussion, kind of a town hall on core site, which is in the Globeville area, already grandfathered in.

So not affected by Mike Johnston' moratorium that he's proposing.

There are it's in a already, standing structure, adding two more.

And what I was hearing was the second one will take all the resources that it would take to power and cool Boulder.

So that is the kind of use you're looking at in a neighborhood that already feels put upon.

It's been labeled the most contaminated zip code in the country.

You don't need to keep encouraging and actually pay for that kind of abuse.

So I think the city Johnsto was smart, but a moratorium on he should have started talking about it a lot earlier to cool dow what's going on in Globeville.

But I just don't see this passing the legislature.

Pat, do you make a really good point?

Because guess Globeville, Elyria, Swansea is feeling put upon and rightly so.

And so the thing that really concern me as a communications professional is how coarse I kind of chickened out and did not go to that community meeting.

I mean, there comes a time where you just have to stand ten toes in and say, this is what we believe.

These are the benefits, and you have to stand there and take the heat.

So that was very concerning to me.

And now there's also a reaso that people really need to tune in to the narrativ because like you mentioned, the like the water usage and the water consumption.

And I literally saw someon on TV a few days ago saying that all they would consume are the water fountains in the toilets and the restrooms because they say, well Colorado is the perfect climate.

You can just throw the windows open at night and keep your equipment cool.

And I'm like, yeah, I think that's a bit of a stretch.

But the urban, rural part of it's interesting too, because think o some of the parts of the state where, say, the prison industrial comple has been shut down a little bit.

Who's to say?

They may not say, well we need something, we need jobs, we need construction jobs, we need something.

So who's to say they may not put more of those in in the rural areas?

So keep out.

Stay tuned on that one.

Okay.

More than 500,000 signatures from Coloradans are being verified right now.

And if approved, three measure would go before Colorado voters this November.

Organizers say tha these all aimed to protect kids, but critics argue that two of them would be discriminative towards certain children.

The proposals would bar boys from girls sports and locker rooms, ban surgeries on minor who change their biological sex and impose mandatory life sentences for child sex traffickers.

These issues have been discussed before in the state legislature, and some of them have also been litigated in courts.

And Christie, the push is on now for all of us to have a say.

Sure.

And I think giving voters a say on issues like this is a good thing.

It's good to hav the conversation in the public.

And this is another thing that like a voter ID, I think some legislators would be surprised to see how popular these issues are, at least nationwide.

I'm not aware of Colorado specific polling.

But as a constitutional attorney myself, I've actually been involved in some of the cases specifically with minors who've been had transgender surgeries, pushed on them, and then they became what's called detransition ers later on.

And when they were about 18, 19 years old, regretted everything that the medical industry had pushed on them.

I think when you look at banning boys from competing in, in girls sports, that's also something tha most parents who have a daughter don't want boys and me who are biologically different from them, stronger bone structure, stronger hearts, all these things that lead to differences in sports competing against their daughters.

I don't think anyone's going to dispute human traffickers going to jail for life when they traffic children.

That one's really easy.

I think the question is, wil these actually make the ballot?

The the signature count is, i well above the required number.

But they did use volunteers very impressively to collect these across the state.

Way back when I did personhood amendments, we did a all volunteer effort, and we had 80% validity.

If they have that high validity.

And often volunteers get a higher percentage, they only get 72 to 75%.

They'll be on the ballot.

We had better hope.

We are still using mail in ballots come November, because can you imagine how long it is going to tak to really go through the number of ballot measures?

It looks like we're getting statewide.

The transgender issu is so tricky because you think, you know there's a reason we have minors and we have adults, and maybe the you can level, you can say no surgery on minors.

Maybe maybe that would pass.

I think it might be popular even in progressive, independent Colorado, because we already are saying children are different than adults for crimes and for other issues.

So I think that one might g I think the sports issue might go because as we sa in the election of Trump sports as a trans, the transgender issue in sports is huge and made a really, really big difference in that election.

Well, you know, anytime you start discussing gender you can be getting a one way ticket on the Get Canceled express.

So I'm going to speak more from the perspective of a coach as oppose as I'm not a biological parent.

One of the things that I've paid attention to is the evolution of high school sports over the years.

Now you can letter in E sports.

So that may be an opportunity.

You know, you can have, coed, sports when it comes to the unified sports.

And when I was in school and I'm a DPS grad, there was not boys volleyball there was not girls wrestling, and there certainly weren't E sports.

We're still on, you know, the ol like Nintendo systems back then.

But just think about one of the things that I see.

It's not a conflict per se, but think of the how people like, Katie and Ida were celebrated because she was a woman playing football.

She ended up kicking it two Division one schools.

And then when I was the pre sports reporter at Aurora eight, Aurora central had a young lady who played linebacker on the tackle football team.

And it's like oh, wow, isn't that really cool?

I forgot about Katie and Ida That was a big deal back then.

You're right.

You're very right, madam.

I think we need to think about the three proposals almost differentl because they are very different.

Right.

You have one, two and eight.

This is the the human trafficking of minors, not overly contentious.

I think you're good.

People are going to be like yes, this makes a lot of sense.

109 which is the, athlete, you know, biological sex, a little more divisive.

But I think people there's ways you could get people there.

It's sort of gotten more broad attention.

110 which is the, the alte biological sex characteristics.

That's where it gets really divisive, right?

It becomes almost this culture war of the people who are deeply rooted on both sides about what they think is the right thing.

And I think looking at at the midterms, it' about turning out your people.

It's not about convincing other people.

It's going to be a matter o who shows up at the ballot box.

And and that's what elections come down to.

Right is who votes and who doesn't vote.

Okay.

All right.

Now let's go around the tabl and talk about some of the highs in the low point that we've witnessed this week.

We'll start in a low point so we can end on a good note.

And we're going to start with Patty.

There have been so many lows this week.

But I'm going to go with the overarching low which is Mother Nature, to be sexist.

What the hell is going on in Colorado and to so many parts of the country?

When we look at the fires and what people went through in Thornton and in Frank tow and in Lyman, and the high winds and the loss of power, I mean, Excel can do better about communication, bu we are in an extraordinary time.

So Mother Nature needs to give us a break.

And Milo, crazy sports parents.

Now that my season has wrapped up I've been in the stands as a spectator.

And because when you're coaching you tune out what's going on around you.

But when you're sitting up there amongst people in the stands and it's like you get to the point where you can do better, step up and volunteer, you know, come join us on the bench if you know so much about offenses and defenses, but don't, you know yell at us from across the way.

So that's my low crazy sport parents.

And it's not just i high school.

Even younger too.

Even younger.

Yes.

Adam, Milo is just the General Assembly.

Broadly speaking.

You know, I love what I do, but we are, as of, you know, this Friday, 75 days remaining in session, 472 items already introduced.

We're not even halfway, and the breadth and scale of the issues they're taking on, there's n rhyme or reason to some of it.

With the large Democratic majorities, they can kind of introduce whatever they want and or debate it.

And, it leaves, I think, people frazzled.

It's hard to manage at all.

And I would be hard pressed to find anyone who says, well, we nee 500 new laws every single year.

Yeah All right.

Christine.

Very true.

I'd pick someone specific from the General Assembly, Senator Nick Henriksen, who?

I'm very happ he's not running for reelection, but he is the sponsor of a bill to make prostitution legal in Colorado.

But pair that with his vote in committee against a bill that would have increased penalties on people who buy children from human traffickers.

I think I got a question.

Your foundation, if you're doing those two things at the same time.

Okay.

All right.

Something good.

Now, please, Patty, start ultimates talking about crazy sports parents.

We have the crazy sports president and the behavior with the men's hockey team.

So I want to give a shout out to Brock Nelson, who said, I am coming back to Colorado.

I am not going to be paraded around right now and came home okay.

And mine is the comedian Quinn Dale.

A lot of people don't care for his humor, but I finally got to see him in person.

His humor reminds me a lot of how we discuss things around the table.

You tackle some pretty thorny subjects, but we need a laugh occasionally with everything that's going on.

So thank goodness for stand up comedy.

Absolutely.

Denver Summit FC released thei inaugural Evergreen Home Cats.

Great looking kid, by the way.

They will kick off their first home match on March 28th and Empower Field at Mile High.

And I think a lot of us are just excited to welcome a new franchise to Denver.

Yes, absolutely.

I also I loved last Sunday a big hockey day.

Of course, the men winning the gold medal for the first time in 46 years, miracles and my favorite movies.

But my son, who plays hockey, won his championship on the same day, also by one goal.

So just a good history making day and it was really fun.

Okay, and you know what?

My.

Hi again, team USA.

I really miss watching the Olympics.

Don't you guys?

This year, team USA had its best ever Winter games.

12 golds, 33 medals.

Nine of those golds came from Colorado athletes as over a quarter of the total.

And Patty it is awesome because gold medal hockey champ Broc Nelson of our Colorado Avalanche is now the new Welcome to Denver Voice on the day train.

Didn't hear that.

Yes, absolutely.

But I have to give a special, special shout out to all the women of team USA who out earned the me in both gold and total medals.

It's a trend that we've been seeing for several games now.

And speaking of progress, remember that old Virginia Slims ad slogan?

Some of you at this table don't.

Which was you've come a long way, baby.

Well, America's wome athletes are showing the world exactly what that means and then some.

So yes.

All right.

Thank you.

Insiders.

Appreciat all of your insight this week.

Thank you for watching.

Along or listening to our podcast.

I'm Kyle Dyer I will see you next week here on PBS 12.

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