This week we saw our Democratic and Republican candidates for governor on a stage together for the first time, and probably the last, talking about what they want to do if their elected policy was discussed.

But a lot of questions still remain.

And Election Day is a little more than three weeks away.

This has become the most unusual political season, with candidates declining the opportunity to debate our voters, learning all they need to know about the candidates and the issues.

Or are they just relying on social media and campaign ads?

You better not be too much in the dark because ballots have arrived.

And if you're in one of four Front Range counties, there's something on your ballot you need to know about.

We've got a lot to discuss, including another new voice here at the table this week.

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

Hi, everyone, I'm Kyle Dyer.

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

We start with Ed C lever, vice president of strategic initiatives at the Colorado Chamber of Commerce and editor of the Sum and Substance.

Elena Alvarez, reporter with Axios Denver Chris Walk, consultants is work media and contributor at iHeart Denver.

And Kyle Clark, anchor at Nine News in Denver.

Following Colorado politics closely on next with Kyle Clark.

The candidates running for governor from the two major parties, Democrat Phil Wiser and Republican Victor Marx, finally sat down together to answer questions about policies and their plans for Colorado if they're elected.

And you moderated the Color Chamber of Commerce forum, the chamber shared the questions with the with the two ahead of time.

That is not usually the norm for these kinds of things.

Why did you all do that?

We figured that voters were going to have one shot to hear from them face to face, and try to differentiate between their positions.

We want him to go through ten different substantial policies in 40 minutes.

And we thought rather than having a ramble through it, let's tell him what we're going to ask him and let them come with cogent answers so we could tell the differences.

And did they?

Yes.

We thought I thought it went pretty well in that way.

You saw some real policy differences on areas like the Labor Peace Act, for example.

This is the, the rule that, determines Colorado unionization.

You had one candidate say, yes, I'm going to to sign a bill to get rid of the second election in this or to get rid of changes in there.

And the other Victor, Mark, saying, no, I will not do that.

And you had substantial differences, I thought on environmental regulations, the wiser coming in and saying, look, I'm going to lead with how to protect the environment and then make sure it's not over burdensome.

And Victor Marks coming in saying, no, I'm going to lead with what's affordable, and then we're going to figure out how to go from there.

Even on affordable housing, a really big issue.

You saw them kind of take the same approach, like, I'm going to work with local governments, but but different ways to do it feel wiser saying, look, I'm really going to push for modular housing to take a foot across the state.

And Victor Mark saying, I'm actually going to give infrastructure money to local governments.

Who who do faster permitting.

I'm not sure where that money's coming from, but it was an interesting idea I had not heard before.

So yeah, I think if you listen to this, when you really got the idea these were two candidates coming from different places, and that's what we were seeking to pull out of them.

Okay.

I, I mean, when it comes to news, the debates, I think the certainly didn't really hit that bar.

The two candidates were largely pretty friendly with each other.

They stuck to the script.

I think a lot of eyes were on Victor Marx.

What was he going to say?

He's, you know, said many oddball things that have gone viral for a number of different reasons.

And, his eyes remained very, focused on his notes in front of him in some cases, many cases reading verbatim word by word, with his notes.

And that was something that, above all, was really a big takeaway for most people watching this debate.

There was a flash point toward the end of the debate between, Wiser and Marx, where, they were referring to domestic violence remarks that Marx had made back in like 2021, I believe, a few years ago.

And Marx was essentially asking for wiser to, apologize But above even that flashpoint moment, the big takeaway remained Marx reading verbatim from his notes.

People thought it was inorganic.

They questioned, you know, his intelligence.

And so that's that's the big conversation that's floating around right now after this.

And he was prepared with his notes.

But, Ed, you want it to be policy.

And he was prepared to derail the conversation and talk about that.

And he even had these QR codes, pieces of paper on everyone's table to go to his website.

He planned that.

Yeah.

We were not expecting that.

We planned for several curveballs.

That was not one of them.

So we tried very hard to get back to policy when that happens.

Okay.

Chris, what were your thoughts in the day?

Where do you think Republicans were, what they needed to hear from Victor Marx?

I would say so.

I mean, it's very clear that Phil Weiser is a Democrat and Victor Marx is at least, saying all the right Republican things.

I don't think I learned anything more about these candidates than I already knew from wiser.

I was looking to see how he will be fundamentally different from Jared Polis.

We heard phrases, endearing phrases like, we're going to be better together, or we're, I'm going to listen and learn.

I'm going to look for, you know, your pain points.

Pain points was used three times in the first answer that he gave.

It's one of my pet peeves.

Pain points.

We need to do better.

So acknowledging that that people are not really happy with how the last eight years have gone, we need to do better.

We heard things like that.

From Victor Marx.

We heard the stories and the jokes and the cajoling and the folksy kind of endearing things he tries to do.

We saw him read talking points from his binder.

You know, that's that's who he's trying to represent.

So that's what that's what he's going to come up with.

But at the end of the day, I don't I don't think we really saw anything new or different.

And we did see what these candidates represent.

So, so, Kyle, you've interview both these men as well and moderated the primaries earlier this year with the both men.

But this was the first time the two were together answering questions together.

Yeah.

I think it was an example of just how poorly served Colorado voters have been by this campaign for governor.

In particular, Mr.

Marks's refusal to engage Coloradans are awash in information about what Phil Weiser believes, in part because he is almost excessively accessible.

You turn on a camera light and he will appear as if conjured, and we'll talk until your questions are exhausted.

We know lots about what he believes.

We didn't learn anything new about what he believes yesterday.

I think Coloradans are rightly hungry to find out what Victor Marks knows and believes.

And the only thing that we learned yesterday is that he knows how to read Pre-scripted answers to pre-approved questions.

And honestly, a lot of it sounded like I. So voters hungry to know what the man believes and what he knows only learned that he can read off a sheet of paper.

I would full disclosure, I was announced as the moderator of that event.

The chamber removed me in order to secure Mr.

Marks's participation.

Because we have reported critically on a number of issues, including his campaign finances.

So I would just say, I think any time that a media organization or a civic group or even an interest group like the chamber removes a journalist to bend the knee to a politician, I think that voters are poorly served by that approach.

And I think that one thing that I've experienced in my 19 years at Nine News is that when organizations stand up to pressure from politicians, they back down and voters are well served.

We've seen people clear up to the president of the United States who thought that they could pick who ask them questions, and when they knew, said, no, you can't pick even the president of the United States back down.

I will add, I've been involved in debates for a long time in this.

My organization we're talking about here.

It is not uncommon to get the candidates to agree on a moderator.

I've had to go through that same vetting with other organizations other than my own to go through it.

That's what we did.

We had to ask them, who can we agree on here?

And so we found someone they could agree on.

It's kind of awkward to say that because it's me, but, but that is how we came to that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It was interesting how you're saying people want to know more about Victor Marx, because the candidates were told I and I were both in the audience yesterday, that the candidates will come to speak afterwards and feel wiser, came over right away and we didn't see Victor Marx.

He left.

I saw a social media post that said he went to go do a podcast.

Oh, I don't know if that's true or not.

Yeah, he appeared yesterday with Joe Altman.

He's the MAGA podcaster from Douglas County who's best known for calling for the execution by hanging, Phil Wiser and Jared Polis and other Colorado Democrats.

Marx appeared with him yesterday.

Okay.

All right.

I should mention that you can still catch the forum from the Chamber of Commerce on your YouTube page, so.

Yeah.

So check it out.

Okay.

It is important for voters to see candidates in the same room answering the same questions, and for you all to hear firsthand and in real time how they respond and respond to each other.

But debates and forums have become the exception rather than the norm.

We need to hear more from our candidates than what we are seeing in campaign ads, and we need to hear them respond to what their opponents are saying about them.

We need this discussion, Elena.

Let's talk about this thing.

Yeah.

Being debate shy, as one of my colleagues recently reported, is is a thing that's happening in Colorado.

It's a trend that's happening nationwide.

And I think it's really emblematic of our changing media and campaign landscapes.

So when we talk about media, you know, we're we're living in an era where social media clips go viral, you know, within within minutes.

Kyle Clark knows this better than any of us.

You know, some of his interviews with folks have blown up on, you know, from the likes of Jimmy Kimmel to John Oliver.

Very quick segments.

And so I think a lot of, candidates are wary of going on a debate stage because, I mean, it's it's equally risky and rewarding if you have a big gaffe like that can go viral within seconds.

But if you're on fire, in a good way, that can too.

So it's, you know, equally risky and, rewarding.

And I think they tend to steer clear of the risky part because it's just, it's, you know, when when their candidacy is on the line, it's it's too risky.

On the same, you know, token, a lot of people are not watching TV in the way that they used to.

So the media landscape is changing that way.

A lot of people's attention spans are shorter, arguably.

And so watching an hour long debate is not something that people want to do.

They want to get their news really quick and quick.

Little sound bites on their social media feeds.

When we talk about how campaigns have changed, and this is something that we've talked about a ton at this table, is there's so much more money in campaigns, meaning that you can get your message out in a ton of different ways.

And so I think candidates are increasingly, leaning on that.

But like I said, this is, you know, this is a big picture issue that's happening and, races across the country.

It is a disservice to democracy.

You know, there's no doubt about that.

And I think it's a disservice to voters who want to see the, their potential leaders, act how they act under pressure, you know, live.

And so they don't get to see that either.

You say some people don't like watching debates anymore.

You do?

Yeah.

I do love watching debates.

I love them in person.

Yeah.

In fact, I went to both nine news ones, you know, during the primary, because there's nothing like being in the room because you can catch something a camera angle might not catch, like a sigh or a shrug or something like that.

You can watch what goes on beforehand.

Who gathers with who, and who stays in the back room.

So I think a lot of information can be gained from going in person.

But to your point on technology, definitely technology.

The media landscape has changed how we look at debates, and I question whether or not people take them seriously anymore because we're no longer looking at policy like it was great.

You got you stuck on policy.

We're looking for that.

You know, that cagey little piece where, you know, like Victor Marx bringing up his marriage and domestic violence and taking a shot at Phil Wiser?

I watched a 1960 debate on C-Span, one night.

It was Kennedy and Nixon, and I was amazed because both men presented their vision for the country, albeit different.

They had a vision for the country, and they had policies to get there.

And, they didn't really take shots at each other.

One one candidate would present something and the other would challenge them.

But it wasn't like this kind of personalized looking for a soundbite type of situation.

And I think we learned more.

Each had a vision for the country that was very different.

But today we're looking for those, those barbs or those catches or the, the provoking question that maybe a moderator will ask.

And, and I think, yeah, candidates are becoming shy.

Do I really want to do that?

Are people really paying attention?

I wonder if they're getting tired of the rhetoric, too.

And the sound bites and people are speaking in sound bites.

I noticed in the nine news debate, we were talking about how I thought Phil Wiser was very scripted at some points, whereas Victor Marks, you know, diverts and does the questions and and Kyle, my dog's going to bite you.

So from an entertainment value, I think people pay attention.

You're right, Elena, they go for those little sound bites that are going to be on social media.

And I sort of bemoan the fact we don't talk about policy and vision for the country, the state, the local municipality anymore.

Kyle, you've hosted this season forums where there's one candidate or there's no candidate.

What is that like?

It's suboptimal for for voters and for democracy, I will say.

I think that there is, Elena said.

There are so many ways for candidates to talk about what they believe as a person and the policies that they stand for.

I think that we might be looking for the wrong thing if we're just looking for policy prescriptions out of debates.

I think that debates and forums are a window into who candidates are, how they react to stressful situations, and being challenged.

I think the opportunity to get them in an unscripted environment where they're not just going through their talking points or reading off a sheet, but they're responding in real time to questions that might be difficult to answer.

They're challenging problems gives you a window into who these folks are.

I think that as the value of those forums, I think, is an increasing number of Democrats and Republicans in Colorado, and we saw both this year shy away from debates where they know that they will be asked difficult questions.

I think it's incumbent upon media organizations to still present forums to voters that contain useful information.

And the race for governor Victor Marks will not participate in a moderated debate that should not keep Phil Wiser from speaking in unscripted forums to voters.

So that's why we held a town hall with Mr.

Wiser and voters up in Greeley.

He didn't know any of the questions that were coming at him, and he stood there and took all of them.

When the cameras went off, he said, who else has questions?

He did the rest.

We would have been better served if Mr.

Marks was there.

In the eighth Congressional District, Republican Gabe Evans and Democrat Manny Root now have really struggled to answer unscripted questions.

So they stick to their safe spaces TV stations.

They won't ask them tough questions.

Ideological media.

Neither of them would show up for a debate or a town hall with voters.

So we held the or town hall without them.

And the response from the community in Greeley was enormous.

People were so hungry to get out and be heard, even if the men seeking to represent them did not have the courage to show up.

You have interviewed a lot of these people with two podcasts, totally different vibe.

Or do you feel like people are comfortable talking with you and podcasting more than what was yesterday?

I think maybe so, because they're not going out in front of an audience when that happens.

And I don't disagree that asking them questions that will make them uncomfortable is important for me, though, personally, and this is for both the podcast and because it talks about what Chris was saying, too.

I think the big point of a debate is, or a forum, as we held yesterday, is is comparing and contrasting because, for example, if you want to know where someone stands on health care, just do this.

Go to two candidates websites and look up their health care positions and see if you think they're talking about the same subject.

It isn't.

Lots of things mean different things to people.

So when you have to garret down to, hey, how are you going to make health care more affordable in this state?

Hey, exactly what are you going to do on the Labor Act?

Just having them there to see the differences is key.

And thanks for referencing that in my podcast, Colorado Chamber Office Hours.

We do interview separately for that podcast, but we ask the same questions to the people who come on, and it's really I try to get people thinking about, well, how different is this going to be?

And if you can't find the difference, then, you know, maybe there are other factors in the race, but if you could really see the difference there.

I live in a world where I'd like people to pay attention to that and think, what's this person going to do in office?

That should be a big part of my thought.

We need more people to care, right?

And not be looking for the sound bites.

Yeah, I'd love that.

All right.

Our insider, Jesse Paul with the Colorado Sun left the chamber for forum Thursday to host his own that night over at Rocky Mountain PBS.

But it only featured Phil Wiser because Victor Marx would not agree to attend.

Much like what Kyle experienced a few weeks ago.

I wanted to check in with Jesse about that conversation.

I think Phil has been really frustrated during this general election to basically be the only candidate running in this race, and I've heard from his, folks several times, effectively, that he he feels like, you know, he they miss running against Michael Bennett.

They wanted a candidate who they could interact with and have a conversation with about the future of Colorado.

And that's just not happening in this general election.

just talk about how you're approaching this race.

Given that you have a candidate who's he's not really engaging and it's not it's not a super substantive issue based, campaign so far, this is so important to see every forum.

I have questions from people.

I'm always learning how do we get better?

But if you basically say, I'm going to stay in my bubble cure, rate my message, never leave my bubble, never have real engagement, you're to my mind undermining what the democratic process is about.

Do you have a feeling that this no debate behavior is going to continue, or is this just a weird thing, this election season?

I hope it's not going to continue.

I mean, look, there's a reason beyond kind of the spectacle for these debates to happen.

It shows how these politicians, how these leaders interact with tough questions in the moment, like when you're governor of Colorado, there's no script to being governor of Colorado.

You have to deal with issues as they come up in the moment.

And that's why, you know, we don't provide questions in advance, and that's why we try and get the candidates interact with each other and tackle really tough things.

And that's why I ask questions that I don't know the answer to, or at least try to, when I when I do these debates, you want the candidates to show how their minds work, like how they can do critical thinking, because that's such a key component of being a leader, being a member of Congress, being a state legislator, being the attorney general, that that matters.

And I think voters can glean a lot from that and hopefully can can take away some information from how people think on their feet.

by now, you should have received your ballot in the mail.

And of all of the issues on the statewide ballot, there is one I keep hearing described as the most consequential.

Since 1987, Colorado has had a flat income tax.

But if amendment 87 passes, that could change, creating a progressive income tax where the more you make, the higher your tax rate for individuals and businesses.

Chris, please start us off.

Yeah.

The graduated income tax would go from 3.7% to 8.4%.

Currently we have 4.4%.

It's a flat tax.

We're one of nine states that has a flat income tax.

What's interesting about 87 and this is obvious in the blue book, the manual that kind of tells you what each ballot initiative is about.

It doesn't index or it doesn't allow for inflation.

So gradually you bump up in income.

And if you think about your cost of living increase, you get, you know, your 3% raise you get every year to compensate for inflation.

You're not necessarily getting more buying power power, but your income is progressively going upward.

So therefore you're going to eventually get into a new tax bracket and be taxed more, even though you're buying power is in more, joint filers are going to have to pay a penalty because the combined income will be more, some residents will pay some of the highest tax rates in our country.

In fact, the upper level of of this income tax, you know, progression would put us in the top ten, income taxes in the country.

So there are a lot of repercussions from this.

Businesses will be impacted.

Those making more than $500,000 a year definitely will be paying much more taxes, individuals as well.

And then there's the element of small business income that is passed through an individual, tax return that will qualify for a higher tax as well.

And this week, Governor Polis weighed in on where he thought about amendment 87.

And your team kind of called out some of the things that he said.

Yeah, I think both the proponents and the opponents of 87 have done a good job of explaining why they think that a progressive income tax should benefit Colorado, or why it would be ultimately harmful.

Where we have focused some of our attention lately, once you get past the pro kind of some of the misinformation, and when the misinformation comes from someone as powerful as the governor of a state, I think it needs to be called out by journalists with one voice.

What Democratic Governor Jared Polis is saying about 87 is not true when he says that it would it would target seniors and that it would target veterans.

Yes, it would target a senior who say, created a rocket company and has more than $500,000 in annual income.

It would not go after grandma on the corner in her small house.

Right.

And we saw that some other, opponents of 87 were doing, text message blanket campaigns out to people pushing these same misleading messages.

We want voters to be informed of the pros and the cons, and then make their choice and not be misinformed by powerful people and powerful organizations.

I will point out, I think we saw this with prop eight years ago, when that was deceptively marketed to the public, and that thing went down in flames.

We know that Coloradans do not like higher taxes.

Generally speaking.

They also don't like being lied to, and it will be curious to see whether it backfires on the opponents of 87 that they have, not that they have gone deceptive in the closing weeks.

As Chris mentioned, this includes businesses is something that I'm sure the chamber is watching.

Yeah, absolutely.

And full disclosure, my organization came out against amendment 87, but I'm going to try to analyze more than opine here and explain why businesses are so worried about this.

So first of all, let's take it from a small business standpoint, the idea that you are hitting $500,000 in revenue is a lot quicker, a lot easier to do for a business than it is for an individual to hit $500,000 in revenue, and especially with the LLCs and other pass through the Chris mentioned that combines the portion of the revenue that the LLC co-owner gets with the salary they pay themselves, and so you suddenly see how quickly you can get into this higher tax bracket.

And particularly for businesses that are just over that line, that could be tough seeing, you know, a jump from, 4.4% to 7.4%.

If you're making 500,000 more, 8.4%, you had over $1 million.

So that's kind of the small business fear in this on the big business side.

And it's easy to say, oh, big businesses, you know, they can pay more.

You know, we can debate that.

But let's remember that Colorado has lost a lot of its economic competitiveness in recent years.

You are seeing more regulations, which we've documented over and over again.

You are seeing higher cost of living and higher cost of doing business in the state for various reasons.

Right now, one of our few advantages is that we are one of the lower income tax measures for companies.

That goes away.

Suddenly the equation changes a little bit.

And those large businesses who, by the way, employ a lot of the people who will be getting the tax breaks that, the amendment 87 proponents are advertising so much here, we'll have to say, do I want to expand here?

Is this where I want to invest in the future or do other states with lower rates, bode well for me?

Those are the questions businesses are asking.

And I think that's what we just want people to think about those things.

Elena, what are you thinking?

Something that I'm watching right now is all of the legal issues that are kind of looming in the background right now.

So for starters, amendment 87 is, being challenged in Denver District Court right now.

This is something that's kind of gone under the radar a bit, but it's over the, it's challenging the ways that signatures, were were gathered.

So the campaign had submitted roughly 130,000 signatures, which is just above the required, roughly 125,000.

And so the lawsuit is challenging about 9000 of those signatures over, required trainings or certifications.

There's a chance that even after, you know, voters weigh in and votes are tallied on this issue, that the issue could be disqualified altogether, that this won't hold up in court.

On top of that, there's, of course, the competing ballot measure, proposition 136, that would cap our current tax rate at 4.4%.

And you have to wonder if both of these passed what that means legally, it's going to it's going to have to get untangled in court.

So a lot of questions, looming around there.

I think the bottom line is that everyone, you know, you'd be hard pressed, hard pressed to find anyone who would disagree that more funding, for education and child care, isn't needed in Colorado.

It's it's some place that we really lag and, raising the taxes, you know, that revenue would fund some of that.

But, to Ed's point, you know, you also be hard pressed to find anyone who doesn't acknowledge that Colorado has lost a lot of its competitive edge because of these regulations, because of our cost of living.

And so voters have a lot to sort of grapple with to decide.

You know, the right way forward.

Let's talk about the race for attorney general.

Republican candidate Michael Allen is the Da for the fourth Judicial District, which covers El Paso and Tyler counties.

And Jenna Griswold, who is term limited in her current role as secretary of state, is running as a Democratic nominee for AG Griswold and the secretary of State's office have been the topic around this table a lot in the past.

Not so much recently until now.

Okay.

This week, word came out, that, on the ballot, there are some misprints to the tune of 800,000 misprinted ballots, all regarding the cocoa train, the Colorado Connector train.

This proposed that would require a tax.

So this does put the spotlight back on the secretary of State's office, which General Griswold runs, and race for something else.

Will this affect voters decisions about the ag race, do you think?

Well, I would say our reporting suggests that the ballot issue seven a for the passenger rail funding being mistakenly put on 800,000 ballots is not the fault of Secretary of State Jenna Griswold's office, okay?

Which is a refreshing change given the number of enormous blunders that she has made in her time in office.

To just quickly recap, sending voter registration mailers to non-citizens not once, but twice, telling people who had voted that they had not voted, putting voting machine passwords online, not protecting the identities of confidential voters like police officers and domestic violence survivors.

To say this latest issue does not appear to have been caused by Jenna Griswold's office, but people's view and their faith in our election systems has been degraded by her repeated blunders over the years, and this latest error appears to be a miscommunication between the rail district and the county clerks, who had to draw the maps of who got the ballots.

I will say this does not inspire confidence in the team that is literally supposed to make the train run on time.

They are asking voters for $300 million a year, but could not competently figure out which voters to ask for the $300 million a year.

And one fear that I have is that if this train, which is a pet project of Governor Polis, turns out to be a boondoggle, people will look back at this moment and say, yeah, we should have seen that coming.

Ed, you've talked with both of these candidates, Jenna Griswold and Michael Allen.

There are two completely different people, and that is what I'm taking from this race.

And and I, you know, I've had the opportunity to talk to all four of the, pairs of candidates running for statewide office.

And in no race to me, do you see as big a difference as in the AG's race.

And Jenna Griswold has come in and she has said, look, I am coming in to this office and I want more enforcement authority.

I want to be even more so than Phil Wiser has been, someone who is is enforcing our laws and keeping people to it.

She, for example, said she wants to start a wage theft unit, investigating wage theft in the AG's office right now.

That's done by the Colorado Division of Labor and Employment.

This would be a whole new thing.

She's also come out and said, I would like to see more workplace safety laws passed and given to the AG's office.

This is a bill that was considered last year and died at the last day of the legislature.

And in those powers given to the AG's office to enforce workplace safety, which is something the AG's office and in fact, the state of Colorado does not enforce right now, that's an OSHA, parameter.

Michael Allen is, wanting to be a little bit more conservative in what the office does.

He's not coming in to go after people.

He comes in with a strong background on water law.

That's kind of one area where he said, I want to be very active in maintaining Colorado's water rights.

Here is we're fighting Nebraska and we're fighting other states, in the Western.

You asked for water right now.

But I would I would just behoove, folks, wherever you think the AG's office should be in terms of enforcing, and creating new laws here.

And I guess they don't create new laws.

They would simply be enforcing the laws coming from legislature.

Check these two candidates out because they are a stark difference from each other.

Okay.

I know one of the biggest differences between these two, from my perspective, is their, their perspective on how to take on the Trump administration.

So we know that Phil Weiser, who's currently in office, has has sued the Trump administration over 80 times, since Trump stepped in in the second term.

Now we hear from Jenna Griswold, who wants to continue that sort of aggressive nature and potentially even ramped up.

Michael Allen, on the other hand, is saying that he's going to review some of these cases.

He thinks some of them that, Weiser has filed are politically motivated.

And so he's willing to dismiss some that he, that are still pending that he sees, as, you know, on unwarranted, so that's a really big difference.

And on that note, when we talk about the Trump administration, we also have to look at ice, right?

And defending Colorado against ice.

Jenna Griswold is not shy calling ice.

You know, a disgrace to communities.

She talks about how agents often are attacking them, when you have Michael Allen, who's taking a sort of softer approach, she says, you know, when when Ice does something constitute unconstitutional, he will step in.

But he, is being criticized, including from former Denver Mayor Federico Pena, who recently wrote an op ed about this in Colorado politics.

For some of his past comments, including back in January when Rene Good in Minneapolis was fatally shot by an Ice agent, he went on a radio show and said that, that officer who had fired three rounds at this woman, displayed trigger discipline.

That's a quote.

And so, that that is, a moment in an interview that is now being picked up by the Colorado Democratic Party.

They're jumping all on it.

And he's you're going to see more of that resurfacing, as people sort of compare these two and how they would take on the Trump administration.

Right.

Chris.

Well, back to Coco.

I was one of the 800,000, ballots that seven day was on my ballot and shouldn't have been on it.

And what's disturbing about it is I like to consider myself a fairly well-informed voter.

And I didn't pay attention.

I was like, oh, am I voting on this?

Okay, I voted and, and went on with things.

So it shows that I was trusting my ballot to be correct.

Now, the Secretary of State's office has come in and said they're going to assist with counting the right ballots or whatever, and you're absolutely right.

I have some uncertainty about Jenna Griswold counting my ballot, even though that's the whole process is is shaking down, so it's concerning to me because this miscommunication, this redrawing of the district wasn't communicated.

In my understanding, the redrawing of the district was to eliminate certain people from voting for this, this tax increase, for example, if all of Douglas County was included in voting on this, it probably would not pass, which I find an interesting thing.

It's also in Adams, Arapahoe and Weld County.

I thought about it and I compared it to Wolves.

And yes, I'm going to tie in wolves to this issue.

We saw the whole state of Colorado vote to reintroduce wolves, and it was passed narrowly with the help of Denver and Boulder, which are were not impacted by wolves.

You could argue that wolves on the Western slope of Colorado is now a tax on ranchers who have to do extra work, however, lower birth rates who are losing cattle, despite the fact that they are compensated for it.

Why shouldn't we statewide get to vote on this passenger rail if it's going to be such a benefit for the state as a whole?

Shouldn't we all get to vote on it?

Chris, if I could put your mind at ease, Jenna Griswold and her office will not be counting your vote.

It will be the it will be the county clerks who will decide which votes are valid and which are not.

Which brings up an important part of this story about the AG's race that I think has been under-covered by me and everybody else in the media, which is Jenna Griswold is highly likely to be the next attorney general because of this current political composition of the state.

I don't think that there's been a lot of coverage of what will happen if she runs the Attorney General's office, the way that she is run the Secretary of State's office if she runs out, key staff, if there's blunder after blunder after blunder, because as secretary of state, she had the safety net of the bipartisan county clerks, who are the ones who actually run the elections, they were there to clean up her messes again and again and again.

There's no outside safety net for the attorney general's office, and I think it's an undercovered issue of what would happen if she makes similar blunders as attorney general.

And what impact could that have on Colorado?

So what what, assistance is she offering county clerks and county, because she's saying that their her office is going to step up and make sure that this is all cleaned up.

The goal will be to have a unified approach, county by county, which is a little bit tough because all of the counties involved, with the exception of Douglas County, all use one voting machine company.

Delco uses a different one, but the but the machines should be able to sort out which votes are out of district and which are in.

But try explaining that to a voter who is then supposed to have confidence in this system.

From a secretary of state's office, which has fallen on its face again and again and again, a president who is casting doubt on elections.

And you're going to tell people, don't worry us, and the machines will sort it out for you.

Well, like I said, I like to think of myself as an informed voter paying attention to what's going on.

And I didn't know all the ramifications of all of that.

So what is your average voter who is trying to get to soccer practice, trying to keep a job, trying to.

Oh, and by the way, I've got a vote on my ballot.

Wait, is it going to count or not?

Yeah.

Okay.

Coming up on Wednesday the 14th, Jesse Powell will be co moderating a debate between the attorney general candidates Allen and Griswold together for the first time this season.

A lot of firsts since this is one of the big races that has not been talked about enough.

It needs to be talked about.

And I asked Jesse what he's expecting.

hoping that both will provide kind of a vision in terms of how they plan to handle the legal issues of the state, including how they plan to approach Donald Trump.

So Jenna Griswold doesn't have much legal experience.

And I think Michael Allen's going to probably press her on that.

And then Michael Allen has taken issues that, maybe are against what the, the, the majority of Coloradans believe, whether it's on abortion or gun rights and access gun control.

And so I think there's you're going to hear two very different visions, for, for the legal future of Colorado.

I also should get a plug in the next debate for Kyle here is this coming Monday the 12th and the race for Kde4 between Congresswoman Lauren Boebert and her Democratic challenger, Eileen Law, back row.

The only debate between those two this season.

Now let's go around the table and talk about some of the highs and lows of the week.

Let's start with you said something negative so we can end on a high note.

So mortgage rates are hitting a 30 year high now.

And I'm not blaming anyone for for mortgage rates being that high.

But I think people need to be paying more attention to this.

When we talk about the affordable housing crisis in Colorado and in other states, this is this is one of the reasons behind it here.

And if we don't do the things we need to do in mind you, that's a combination of dealing with the interest rate, international, situations and things like that.

We're going to see even more of a housing crisis.

And I just want people to start talking about that rather than assuming, oh, look, these mortgage rates are really high.

Too bad.

Okay.

You know, drama on the Denver school board continues.

We have another, school board member, Monica Hunter, who was censured this week over anti-Semitic comments.

There was an inconclusive investigation, but she was centered on the last, she's the latest school board member to be censured.

And the internal conflict that plagues this, school board is just, it's upsetting for children, for parents, for the city.

Yeah.

Colorado Parks and Wildlife has said it will no longer legally remove, retaining walls.

I think this is, breaking the trust with ranchers.

This was an agreement with ranchers that wolves that are found to chronically deprecate would be removed.

We've seen repeated violations of the wolf reintroduction plan.

We've seen dating packs moved.

We brought Deborah dating wolves from Oregon to begin with.

A wolf wandered into New Mexico, which was a devastating wolf.

It was captured and taken to Grand County.

So we've seen repeated violations, a break with the trust, with ranchers.

I think this is a bad move.

All right.

Kyle Milo for the week is the continued exploits of Tina Peters, brought to you in part by Governor Jared Polis, who commuted her sentence and turned her loose early.

Former DOJ official said that Tina Peters was back in the white House this week meeting with President Trump to talk about their plan for elections, which that officials suggested involved federal intervention in elections, which by the Constitution are run by states.

Peters attorney, Peter Tilton, appeared on a podcast hosted by a coloradan and outlined what exactly Tina Peters plan is.

And it is for the Trump administration to seize ballots nationwide and conduct its own recount to announce their own election results.

That same attorney for Tina Peters talked about the potential for coming civil war, and said that it should happen while Donald Trump still has control of America's armaments.

Tina Peters continues to have the ear of the president, in large part because of Colorado's governor.

All right, let's get to something good.

Please add.

One of the industries that's been really hit in Colorado is the craft beer industry, formerly a $3.3 billion economic engine.

The Great American Beer Festival is this weekend.

It's in a new shape.

It's in Leavitt, Park in southeast Denver rather than inside the convention center.

It'll be a great way to celebrate the industry, though, if you want to go out and give it a little hand and good weather this weekend for it, they're lucky.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

Cheers to you.

All right.

Lina, with elections on everyone's mind in the city, installed it's 49th ballot box on East Colfax and underserved, underserved community.

And it's an honor of Mark Kang, who was, fatally struck by a stray bullet in 2022.

And she's a community activist over there.

So now people have another place to drop in, drop their their ballots.

All right.

Thanks for the back story.

Well, I'm going to bring something up I bring up every year.

Oh, the winner of the fat Bexar County.

Yes.

Name is backpack.

It's bear number 89.

He's the son of Holly, who was the 2019 Fat Bear winner.

Okay, if there's such a thing as a high that has a slightly dystopian flavor, Aspen Snowmass is working on ways to preserve snow from season to season with these enormous blankets made by, I believe, a Finnish company, where they cover up the very last dwindling bits of the last year's snow pack.

Keep it away from the heat and sun, then pull back the blankets in the fall to use it as the base for the next year.

They had a very small pilot project, which they unveiled as like a little ski park.

And I think it's promising, even if it is flavored by the fact that we are mired in drought and a warming planet, there are smart people thinking about how to keep the ski industry alive.

All right, my high of the week, actually came from LinkedIn.

I'm not on LinkedIn all that often, but I happened to click on it yesterday morning, and I looked at the who's looking at your page section, and there was someone from Turning Point USA and someone from the Colorado Democratic Party.

And honestly, I found that very gratifying because as a journalist and a storyteller, I want to create work that all people can relate to and learn from.

And I want Colorado inside out to be a place where all viewpoints can be heard, discussed and understood.

So seeing those two organizations from very different points on the spectrum made me think that maybe we're doing something right.

Thank you, insiders, for joining us this week, the big week.

Thanks for the forum.

Thank you for first timing here on CIO.

We appreciate it.

Thank you for watching and listening to our podcast.

I'm Kyle Dyer.

I will see you next week here on PBS 12.

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