this week.

It's been a hot one.

Not just the early summer swelter, but with less than two weeks left in the primary campaign season, the heat is on to finish strong.

It's certainly gotten interesting, miss debates, campaign finance violations and candidate statements that are, well, interesting.

We're getting some national attention and that is not the good kind.

On the bright side, the state's largest school district has banned student cell phone use.

This could be a game changer for learning.

And we've got some good news and some bad regarding the health of humans and of our state's ecology.

The team is ready to discuss.

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

Hi, everyone.

I'm Krista Kafer, guest host, filling in for Kyle Dyer.

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

I've got Patty Calhoun, founder and editor of westward, Ian Thomas Tafoya, community leader, Luigi Del Puerto, editor of Colorado Politics and the Denver Gazette.

And Kristi Burton Brown, executive vice president of Advanced Colorado.

Ballots are due in less than two weeks.

There.

I said it's gotten weird.

Well, weirder than usual.

This might be the first Colorado election to find its way onto The John Oliver Show on HBO.

And that's not a compliment.

Meanwhile, is the new strategy simply not to show up?

Hickenlooper, Griswold, wiser, bird, and Marx have all declined.

Some, though not all, invitations to debate their opponents.

Well, absence makes the heart grow fonder.

Or will it be to their disadvantage?

Also, new campaign finance irregularities have come to light.

The Colorado Republican Caucus.

I mean, caucus is not the only party facing dilemmas this primary.

Democrats and independents have interesting choices as well.

What do you think they'll do?

Patti, let's start with you.

Remember when we were all so interested in getting money out of politics?

Look at the amount of money that has gone into this race that continues to go into not just one race, all the races.

And the money is also causing a lot of the problems we're seeing.

For example, we just had Bennett loan $1 million to his campaign and he's getting blamed for taking money from Bloomberg.

But meanwhile, wiser is getting in trouble for taking money from lawyers who have cases in front of the AG's office.

We've got Marx having having to return funding and spending way too much on his clothes.

Wouldn't I don't know where they are spending this money because they don't seem to be using it to dissuade voters from going for their candidates.

You don't really hear any good arguments about what they're for.

You just hear about some flub that the other candidate has made.

But I can't remember a race where we hear less about positions.

Interesting.

And what do you think?

Well, I think that people have been dodging debates for a very long time.

And Hickenlooper did this in his first election that he ran.

I think you're going to continue to see this from people who think they're in a frontrunner position.

Being afraid to go in front of Kyle Clark, which I think a lot of people have been.

Personally, I've survived that.

And it is it can be challenging, you know, because he's going to hold you to account for the work that you're doing.

And so I hope that people, you know, tune in to where they can on YouTube.

I came back from my family vacation and we caught up on several of the debates.

I was really actually surprised in that you brought up Shannon Bird, but the see that many rude now has flipped on so many of his key issues.

I would agree with you about let's get money out of these, campaigns.

This dark money is absolutely wild.

The the complaints about Bennet, about a video on whether his Senate campaign was paying for it.

I find it interesting because that video has three people who are under 50 who perhaps may be our next senator, but it's going to win.

So, seeing the goose and Crow and Pederson all in one video made me think that.

And I guess I'll just close by saying, you know, this cap and trade policy of Bennet is just not one I support.

I think that it's shown to not be successful in reducing emissions in the most impacted communities from pollution, and often that money is rated to general fund instead of going to where it's supposed to go in California, Washington and New York.

Thank you.

Luigi.

What do you think?

The world has fundamentally changed.

You know, decades ago, the only platforms available for candidates to connect to voters are traditional platforms through your TV or newspapers.

That's not the world we live in anymore.

Candidates can directly connect with voters via all kinds of platforms nowadays tick tock, Instagram, direct messaging and so on and so forth.

I do think those candidates should show up to traditional media debates, because it would be great to hear from them what their vision is for the state.

I think it's also incumbent on hosts and moderators to ask them substantive questions when they show up and not focus on sort of the, conspiracy theories they talk about.

If there weren't conspiracy theories.

Christy.

Well, I think one thing that's happened to politics is many candidates just get way to larger than life and not genuine anymore.

I think that's one of my bigger problems with with politics, as much as I love it.

One of those people.

But instead of talking about the policies, the principles, we're often talking about the people constantly, whether it is conspiracy theories about someone, can we believe what they actually said?

Can we believe their story?

Who are they really?

And then everyone tries to outdo each other.

Who can have the, you know, the next best endorsement?

If it's not Ruth Bader Ginsburg, it's the Pope.

Like, it's, you know, and it just becomes not real anymore.

And I think at a time when we want more engagement rather than less in politics, and we want young people, the next generation to get involved and vote and see a reason to do it.

That's why we need to really center, I think, on genuine candidates, not necessarily the most exciting candidates.

Not sure that we're quite there yet, but that's where I hope our politics eventually gets.

We'll see what happens in the primary very shortly.

I definitely would love to see an issue focused campaign sometime in my life would be like, well, it's not this year, that's for sure.

Amen.

School is out, but education is in the news.

Starting next year, Denver Public school students will not be able to use their cell phones during the school day.

The Denver Public School Board passed a bill to Bell cell phone ban.

Studies have shown that cell phones pernicious effects on student achievement and mental health.

But how tough will it be to enforce?

Meanwhile, Colorado Public school system has continued to add administrative positions even as statewide student enrollment has declined, according to a new study.

And will Jeff Coe's response to the feds be enough?

Ian.

Well, I was a former educator myself, spent many years in the classroom.

I can tell you this is so exciting to get cell phones out of rooms.

I think it is challenging, even in a work context, to get a cell phone out of your employees hands in the middle of a meeting.

And so I think that that's going to be really good.

There'll be hiccups.

I'm sure, along the way, but they're not the first district that's ever gone to get the bags and have the turn ins and switch outs.

You know, a question maybe like, are they going to be moving to their watches or are we going to see Tamagotchis come back?

So people can play with something in their class?

The other part that you brought up about administrative positions, like I can definitely say there are way too many administrative positions and I think that we need to be spending more money into the classrooms.

And we're having a shifting debate about the size of classrooms.

Which ones are closing?

Charter schools are also, I think, at the heart of some of this, where you have a school open closes within four years.

The community is left wondering where they're going to go.

And so it doesn't allow for resources to be spent efficiently if we're constantly opening and closing schools.

Thank you.

Luigi.

Yeah, I think it's a great move for Denver Public Schools to actually ban cell phones.

I have a 15 year old kid at their school.

They have a cell phone ban.

They put it in a pocket.

That's what they call it.

They put it in a pocket.

They go into the classroom.

They can't access it while in the classroom.

But what Denver Public Schools is doing differently is it's called a bell to bell ban.

It can't access your cell phone at any time of the day.

Like everything else in life, it all boils down to enforcement.

I, I think the end is right.

There's going to be some hiccups at the very beginning, but kids are very malleable.

They will adapt.

And Reggie's Jesuit, school has implemented a cell phone ban.

They don't confiscate cell phones.

They just don't allow their use while on school grounds.

And what the school master there immediately saw was the students started talking to each other and playing games.

Hey, look at that.

Isn't that great?

I love it when my college students try to, like, do it under the table like I was born yesterday.

Christi, you've got kids.

How do you feel about this cell phone ban?

Well, sure.

And actually be on the state Board of Education, too.

It's actually a top issue we've talked about in our last two meetings.

And I think to Luigi's point, we actually heard from three districts who talked about how they had implemented this ban and what it had done for their high school students in particular.

And it's the hardest to enforce among high school students.

They get, you know, you got to watch for their headphones, the Bluetooth headphones and all those kind of things.

But once you figure out how to enforce it, it's exactly what Luigi said.

You see relationships getting built.

And I think when Colorado remains one of the top states with mental health issues, this is one way to help our youth overcome those issues is build back the community and the relationships that we're missing.

Have to deal with people face to face.

Learn to work through those issues.

That's something that's very healthy for our kids.

So if we could move from solving that to to then move to solve the admin issues in Colorado, our student count dropped by 2% from 21 to 25, and yet admin grew by 13% in that same period of time.

So we need more reading tutors.

We need more teachers in the classroom.

We need to pay our teachers more.

Our dollars, instead of being focused on administrative spend, should go into the classroom for students and higher teacher pay.

Thank you.

Patty.

Well, we talked about the horrors that in Cherry Creek last week with schools DPS with the top heavy.

The administrative issues are going to be big.

The phone thing is great, and I think kids will adapt much quicker than their parents, who will not be able to get their little sweethearts on the phone or tell them to go do certain things.

So it's going to be retraining for parents.

The really interesting district right now, I think, is the Jefferson County district.

With the feds still threatening funding, and it turns out we still don't quite know what the numbers, but there were not 61 boys transitioning to girls who wanted to play sports.

Many of the people on the list, and the majority of the people on that list that the feds said were boys applying, trying to play as grant girls teams were managers and mascots.

And that's outrageous that the Jeffco is looking at such a funding cut over.

Basically what was bad bookkeeping by the feds.

We'll stay on top of that issue.

Thank you.

After a failed attempt at getting two of his three candidates appointed to the Colorado Parks and Wildlife Commission, Governor Jared Polis is trying again.

His new picks have solid resumes.

But do advocates have reason to howl about potential agendas?

Also, Colorado Parks and Wildlife were forced to kill a wolf linked to deaths of 22 sheep.

A sad outcome for prey and predator.

But what does this mean for the ongoing wolf reintroduction efforts?

Luigi, what do you think?

Well, as far as we can tell, we're not importing any more wolves because the federal government has said you can't go to certain places.

And the places that the feds say, hey, you can get wolves from.

Those states have all told us no.

And, the mortality rate of the wolves that we have right now is pretty high under our own state plan.

We're supposed to do some sort of a moratorium, which is kind of, you know, none issue at this point that we can't get any more wolves to begin with.

The governor is always going to have a problem with his appointees to, CPW.

And the reason for that is that, Wolf, introduction plan from, you know, all the reporting that we've done has been bungled from the get go, and the state really has not recovered from that.

There's a lot of trust building that needs to happen.

And, you know, you have a university professor, a rancher, a veterinary neurologist, that who's been appointed to the board, if there are going to be problems, those problems are going to show up.

And, you know, based on, what we've seen so far, the Senate, committee that, approves these nominations is not has not been shy turning people down.

So the commission is supposed to be balanced in its oversight of this agency.

Do you think that the new commissioners will be able to do that?

Yeah.

We'll see.

I think I think Governor Polis has had a lot of trouble with his appointees, specifically in relation to anything to do with animals.

He tends to appoint animal rights activists in and and who criticize, like, cattle ranchers and basically the way of life that people have lived in Colorado for a long time, and it just doesn't work.

Colorado is a very outdoor focused state.

We do love our animals, but we also love our ranchers and we love our people.

And so I think that's just the balance the governor has missed on the board.

We'll see if he's getting it right this time around.

But the fact that he just has to keep coming back to the drawing board, I think just shows he's coming at it from the wrong perspective.

It doesn't represent the people of Colorado, especially rural Colorado.

Where I where I grew up and I think with a wolf reintroduction program, it's really been a failure from the beginning.

You know, it looked bright and rosy at the very start.

Bring in all these wolves, and then they keep getting killed.

So whether you are an animal rights activist, you're not going to like it because the wolves that you liked are dying and getting killed.

Or if you're a cattle rancher or a coloradan, and they're killing your cows and your livelihood, it's not working for anyone.

And not to mention how much more dollars it's cost and what voters were promised a few hundred thousand.

It's amounted to 2 to 3 million per year.

It's completely unworkable.

Do you think a new proposal will be put before voters, in the next couple of years?

I had to guess.

I'd say the program is just going to die away because it isn't working.

Patty, what are you hearing?

Well, I would agree that the program will probably just die away.

It's not just the animals.

We have a problem with the rural urban divide and the rural communities that feel they're not being listened to.

We have not many judges appointed to the high courts in this state from rural areas.

They're from the urban areas.

So we need better representation.

We need to understand the differences between the areas better next time a citizen initiative comes up.

I know you hate them, I love them, but we all needed to know a lot more about all of us before we voted for this.

I think CPW has a chance to show itself in a much better light, because it's summer now.

People are going out and about.

They are understanding.

It is not just about wolves, it's about parks.

It's about being able to go out and enjoy the really great outdoors and all the hard work.

Keep does.

So this is a chance to really see can they hold up all the things they're supposed to do?

Well, said Ian, well, I'd like to shout out just in general, they bring more people to public meetings than almost any government agency, whether it's the state or federal meeting or a local meeting.

I mean, you literally can go to any Parks and Wildlife meeting, and there are people who are like locked in like 500 of them for like three days and without snacks, there's nobody there hugging snacks for them.

And I actually thought that would be a good business.

But you know, it's hard to get a point in Thomas any of these because the laws are written in this way, that you have to be such a narrow person to fit into a you're this type of industry or you're this one of these people.

In fact, was in the hunter and angler seat.

He was a hunter who had held all these ins and fought for, looking for a small game.

But he had never hunted big game.

And so he was unqualified because he'd been one kind of hunter, but another a kind of hunter.

And I think those kind of litmus tests make it really hard.

And I've been appointed to some of these commissions by Governor Polis over the years, and it just makes it challenging.

I will say that the fortunate part, it's unfortunate that these wolves are dying.

Of course, nobody wants to see that.

But fortunate part is that they've had their own offspring.

So we perhaps this will balance out on its on its own.

And the important part I want people to remember and this is for hunters who are hunting for food.

We have a huge problem of chronic wasting disease that is devastating populations, and it's because we're missing a keystone species.

So this is going to have more challenges.

It's going to continue to be here on Colorado inside out, I think, for many years to come.

But at the end of the day, we need to find some balance in these populations, because if you can't eat the food you're hunting because it has chronic wasting disease, that's not good either.

And here's some news that could make everyone sick.

Coloradans will lose another health insurance option on its health insurance exchange beginning next year with the departure of Cigna.

Over 40,000 Coloradans, including me, will lose their health insurance.

Meanwhile, Colorado just won federal approval to import low cost prescription drugs from Canada.

The Geo Group is suing Colorado to stop health and safety inspections of immigrant detention facilities.

And the state faces another lawsuit.

The plaintiffs argue that a state law banning female genital mutilation violates a 1972 Equal Rights Amendment because it doesn't cover male circumcision.

Maybe this law should be snipped.

Christie.

I'll take the prescription drugs part in Canada.

I think that's actually really exciting news for Colorado, where the second state after Florida, to be approved to buy these basic prescription drugs is a list of 20 of them from Canada.

The report says that prescription drugs would basically the cost would be reduced by 20 to 70% depending on the drug.

Could save Coloradans, I believe 5046 million over the next three years.

So here's the point, though.

That's permission to do it.

What Colorado just got from the FDA.

But we we have to go implement it.

This is what the governor is talking about.

He's trying to see if he has enough time in his last year in office to go make the right deals and agreements with Canada to get the drugs brought here.

I know part of the agreement is that Colorado will have to inspect the the drugs whenever they get here.

I think that's obviously a good safety measure.

It's one of the reasons the FDA agreed to it with Florida, which got approval before Colorado hasn't actually implemented it yet.

So I think that's sort of the sticking point is like, great, we have permission, but we're the two pioneering states to go figure out, how do you do this?

I think if we can figure it out, then we can go get probably deals with other countries too and just lower the cost of prescription drugs for Coloradans.

Super key has to get done.

I'm no fan of Big pharma.

Big Pharma at all.

I think they really do charge Americans who need prescription drugs way too much money.

So this is really good, but it's going to take some time.

But do you think that Canada's taxpayers who will be subsidizing it, do you think there's a little push back there?

I guess that remains to be seen.

I tend to think more about American taxpayers and Canadian ones.

I guess they can figure out their their deal.

Who's going to speak up for Canada?

Patty I'm not.

I'm going to leave Canada out of this.

I'm going direct to start mutilation.

You know, this guy did file suit on Monday.

They've been talking about that.

It's not fair for baby.

Baby boys could be circumcised.

That's legal.

But baby girls or grown women can't have genital mutilation.

The operations are not the same.

So if you want to have to get parental permit or some other kind of permission for circumcision, bring up another bill, bring up another law.

I mean, what is happening to whipped girls?

Not just mostly abroad, but it does sometimes happen in this country.

That operation is not comparable to circumcision.

Circumcision.

People have objections to it, and I understand if they want to.

But they can bring up another law.

Let's not throw out this other one.

Let's go back to Geo another.

You've got quite a group of things in here.

We only have one Joe facility dealing with immigrants right now, which is in Aurora.

There have been horrible health problems there.

We understand why the legislature wanted to be able to inspect and keep an eye on it.

So Geo should absolutely lose that suit.

And they should allow people in to look at what's going on.

Thank you.

Patty.

Ian couldn't agree more.

And I don't think the Geo is alone.

I think we have our own state prisons and federal prisons that are horrific for people who don't have access to water.

They eat food that's microwaved in plastic.

It's like, how do we expect people to get better and come back into society when we literally feed them corporate slop?

It's terrible and people don't have access to outside time enough.

Hvac, I mean, the heat problems in some of these prisons, especially with climate change, is such a big deal.

I'm disappointed to hear about how many people are going to lose access on the exchange.

I mean, my entire life, I feel like we're continuing to pay more for less, and that's what this pharmaceutical system has been for all of us.

You know, my my wife and I were just in Mexico City where we paid like, 3 USD for what?

An inhaler would be $300 here.

And that is absolutely absurd.

People need and have the right to breathe.

Well, I'll say is, with the elections, here and their ballots, don't leave them sitting there.

They're next to your toaster that both there.

There are people who are running for federal spots who are campaigning for Medicare for all.

There are governor candidates who are campaigning for single payer options at the state level.

At the end of the day, the health of people is incredibly important, but the more we take on, that's more of the budget.

And we're headed into problems with H.R.

one.

So how are we going to pay for it?

I think continues to be the issue.

And I guess what?

That's the real lived experience for everybody who opens up their bill and says, can I buy an inhaler this month or not?

Thank you.

Ian.

Luigi.

Yeah, I'm really worried about the 40,000 residents who are losing signal.

You're one of them.

You know how intensive and time consuming that process is jumping from one, you know, insurer to the next.

And you kind of have to know what you're getting into.

And if you don't know what you're getting into, then you might find yourself holding the bag.

So it's it's it's a bit tragic.

Not a bit tragic.

It's tragic that we have the faces this Cigna is pulling out of several markets.

And in fact, it's not the only one we've, staccato of insurers pulling out of the individual market.

And that's a real problem.

I kind of go back to you know, the start of the Affordable Care Act and the health health care exchanges and the promises made, you know by everybody that this is going to be better, it's going to produce better results, it's going to be cheaper.

And if you look at where we are right now, I don't think those promises have been kept.

So there are some fundamental questions we need to be asking.

Over our insurance markets.

the issue, I think, with the lawsuit that you had noted, Patty, is that, you know, circumcision, the main difference really is that circumcision, of course, is a tradition that's been around for thousands and thousands of years.

And so you're holding up something that's accepted by human beings for thousands of years.

That's been the case.

Everybody, really, for all intents and purposes, nobody questions that.

You can do circumcision and equating it, of course, with, you know, other forms of genital mutilation I don't think is an apples to apples comparison.

That said, it's a very unique approach to, you know, the Equal Rights Amendment.

Because it does raise a fundamental issue.

And I think the courts are going to have like a, you know, probably a bit of a fun time dealing with this.

Thank you, everyone, for your thoughtful responses.

Let's now go around the table and talk a little bit about some of the highs and lows we've seen this week.

We'll start with a little note from Patty.

Well, Phil Washington is leaving Denver International Airport I think has done a much better job than most people thought he would when he came in.

He fixed some other problems at the terminal.

But let's have his replacement work on the temporary signage.

It is a nightmare if you're.

I had two hours before a flight last Friday.

Just finding where your different airline has moved, waiting half an hour for a bus and then for comment once there are some issues that really still need to be worked out at Dia and get rid of that stupid blue horse.

I love the blue horse.

I have no problem with the blue horse.

Thank you Ian, my little this week has to do with the Denver Post building in the city and County of Denver that we bought high, and now we're stuck with a lemon.

It really feels like.

And when we found out that the Denver Post wasn't going to pay, it wasn't paying their rent.

I think we were all shocked by that.

And then the city said, we're going to exact every single cent that's owed to us.

And yet they reached a settlement that is nowhere near getting every single cent back.

And so if you're making promises on a bad deal, hold up to them.

Otherwise it's just a bad deal for all of us.

As as taxpayers can't ditch the post, though, it is.

This is not the Denver Post.

It's the state's best paper, is it not, Luigi?

We'll keep the editorials, the columns.

I'm Chris, I'm going to be your low the week.

Luigi.

What with with you.

I'm just disappointed we don't have a World Cup game in Denver.

I mean, come on, you know, it's, I'm just heartbroken.

I don't even know how to express it.

Wouldn't it be great?

On top of the breaking attendance record for the women's team when they, When our women's team are professional team played here the first time.

Wouldn't be great.

On top of Messi coming to Denver a couple months ago and and drawing that much of a crowd to have a World Cup game here in Denver.

Well, said Christy, I think, the Iran deal for me is a low.

I don't I don't think that's the right answer.

I think you could see it on Marco Rubio's face standing behind the president.

Yes.

To stand with the president.

But if I had to guess, I'd say that's not how he would have ended this.

And I think it is not the right answer for all the freedom fighters in Iran who are trying to change their government.

And now we've left them behind, but we've opened an open straight, let's say something nice now, but what kind of awesome thing did you see this week, Patty?

Well, right outside this studio, Juneteenth is starting.

It is bigger and better than ever, which is great.

Last year, it looked like it might die.

This year it's three days ticketed Friday night, but Saturday and Sunday.

Free live music.

Get down to Welton Street.

Awesome.

In my head this week because it's my first anniversary with my wife.

And so I just want to say tequila mucho me amore.

Very excited to celebrate this weekend with elder.

Congratulations.

Super cool.

Luigi, have you seen all the videos of all these, great men and women from the United Kingdom figuring and discovering for the first time what America actually is?

You know, they're hearing one thing from the media, and they're coming here, and then suddenly they're in Texas and Bucky's, they're going to Bucky's, and their minds are they just can't believe what they're what they're seeing.

So I would encourage everybody, just if you want to have like, you know, five minutes of scrolling time, just feel good about this country.

Go and find those Brits and what they have to say about the United States.

That's awesome.

Thank you.

Christi, I'm Father's Day is Sunday, so I'd say dads are my high of the week.

I had the world's most amazing dad and my husband is a great dad to our two older kids and our baby is four months old.

So love dads!

Thank you for what you do.

Wonderful!

My high of the week is the SPCA is positive recovery program.

One of the challenges that people face when getting help for substance abuse or fleeing domestic violence is that, you know, what are they going to do with their pets?

And that's where positive recovery comes in.

Get it positive?

The SPCA has vetted foster volunteers to care for pets while owners are away in treatment or recovering from abuse, whether they're dogs or cats, guinea pigs or pythons, pets will be cared for well until their owner is home again.

Check out the SPCA international website for volunteer opportunities, or if you need temporary foster care for your little buddies while you get some help.

Thanks to all of our insiders and thank you again all everyone for watching us and listening to our podcasts on Spotify and Apple.

Kyle will be back next week.

Have a great night!

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