Some of you may have noticed something a little strange on Denver streets this week.

Cars driving around with nobody behind the wheel.

Waymo's driverless cars are now officially operating in Denver.

And for some of us, seeing them glide down the street feels like a glimpse of the future.

But for others, it's pretty unsettling.

And maybe that's fitting, because we're living through a moment when a lot of things feel uncertain and a lot of things are changing, sometimes faster than we can process.

Let's talk through some of it and get started with this week's Colorado Inside Out.

And that Hi, everyone.

I'm Kyle Dyer.

Let's get started by introducing you to this week's insider panel.

We start with Patty Calhoun, founder and editor emeritus of Westword, Elena Alvarez, reporter with Axios Denver Adam Berg, senior policy advisor at Brownstein, and Christy Burton Brown, executive vice president at Advanced Colorado and former chair of the Colorado Republican Party.

Colorado's November ballot is set, and in one month, ballots will be heading to Colorado.

Voters.

But there is a lot happening behind the scenes that could affect how voters experience this election.

Will the Postal Service get those ballots where they need to go and can Colorado protect voters confidential information?

The Secretary of state's office acknowledged that a software error exposed personal information belonging to voters who had specifically asked to keep that information confidential.

And one of those voters is Republican Michael Allen, the D.A.

for El Paso and Teller counties.

And the man who is running against Secretary of State Janet Griswold for Attorney general.

Allen is now calling for an independent investigation.

Now, are most Coloradans paying attention to any of this?

Patty.

Last week, Penfield Tate was sitting in for you in that seat.

And he didn't think that people, for the most part, were aware of the behind the scenes stuff going on and that they'll get their ballot, they'll vote and they won't know any different.

What do you think?

Part of the problem right now is there's so many court challenges to President Trump's executive order regarding the Postal Service and what's going to happen with ballots.

Just another case in Massachusetts yesterday that no one really knows yet what's going to happen.

You have the exposés coming out with the Justice Department still screwing around with the Postal Service.

So federally, we're still not sure what's happening, but the odds are good everything will be stalled.

The Trump's pushing, and we will continue to get our mail in ballots in Colorado unless Jenna Griswold screws up again and she is error prone.

But the last one is a doozy.

130,000 people who have made the effort to say, we want to remain confidential, and that's usually for issues of safety and oops, somehow all those were released and oops, it wasn't found for a while.

Her damage control is sometimes worse than her damage.

And as we see that with Michael Allen's name coming up, he's going to be able to make hay with that and his name will be right by hers when you can vote for attorney general in November.

Elena.

Because if voters aren't paying attention to this, it makes sense because there's already plenty on their plate they are having they're being asked to weigh over a dozen different ballot issues.

And those are big ballot issues.

Very controversial a lot to unpack.

So it makes sense why they're not following, you know, what's happening in the court because it's very confusing.

But who is following this very closely are the people who will be running these elections right.

They're being asked to build contingency plans, you know, for something that could totally change the game with weeks, you know, before Election Day, I saw that Matt Crane, who's the Colorado County Clerks Association head that represents clerks across all Colorado, 64 counties.

He told TPR that they're planning the possibility for ballots to not be mailed at all, which would mean having to significantly scale up the infrastructure for ballot distribution centers and also in-person voting and putting together all of those plans.

With just a few weeks to go before Election Day and not knowing if they're going to be needed, it's just remarkable.

That kind of level of uncertainty this close to the election.

I mean, we haven't seen something like this maybe ever.

And that and the county clerks and recorders across Colorado are already busy.

Part of it is because last year the legislature passed House Bill 26 1113, which was a large voting change bill in Colorado.

There's a list of some of the things it modified.

So procedures involving mail ballots, dropboxes, voter service and polling centers, election plans, voter registration, election watchers watch emergencies, election offenses, and some other aspects of election administration.

So these are going to be changes that they'll be virtually invisible to your average voter.

They'll probably either mail their ballot back if if things proceed as we hope, or they'll show up in the poll.

And unbeknownst to them, their clerks will have been working for months in advance of the election trying to prepare.

We have to remember that, you know, with 64 counties, you have the hypothetical of 64 different clerks and recorders working to enforce these processes, make them a reality.

How that plays out in November, how smooth your election may be for you may depend a little bit of where you are.

Okay.

All right.

Christy okay, I'll go back to the General Griswold issue.

The piece of this, I think it's really important that people know when she's running for attorney general.

The top what they say law enforcement official in the state.

This is not the first breach she's made of voting systems.

I think at some point in the question becomes, if Colorado has the gold standard for voting, when does that system begin to be eroded by the person in charge?

She already there was already a release of passwords for the voting system earlier, and.

Oh, that was an accident.

Oops, a mistake.

Now, 130,000 confidential voters have their information.

Oops.

Released.

Like, how can you be the top election official in the state and continue to have this many problems, not to mention all the human resources problems and HR staffing problems in her office?

The whistleblowing that's gone on in that office.

So I think anyone looking at the attorney general's race should look at that kind of information and say, is that really the person you want to put in the top law enforcement job in the state, or do you want a district attorney who has dealt with crime, who's been in the courts consistently all the time himself, and probably has a bigger grasp on the issues our state is actually facing?

So I sometimes wish the governor's race didn't always get so much attention, because all these other races matter a lot to people's everyday lives and the protection of their privacy and information.

Yeah, okay.

All right.

72% of Americans say there is way too much money in politics.

That is according to a Politico poll from a few months ago here in Colorado.

This coming Tuesday is another major campaign finance filing deadline when candidates have to report their latest fundraising numbers.

The secretary of state's office is pursuing a big fine of more than $50,000 against Republican gubernatorial candidate Victor Marks over alleged campaign finance violations.

And then it was reported this week, Congressman Gabe Evans spent more than $300,000 on tacked on, taxpayer funded communications to constituents.

Now, spending that is allowed.

It is allowed under congressional rules.

But Democrats say that amounts of self-promotion during a campaign season.

And, you know, on Tuesday, some of the Democrats, you know, war might be raising eyebrows as well.

So it just the fact is, there is so much money swirling around this time of year.

And Allen, it just seems like, are there rules, you know, who was paying attention, who's enforcing them?

So many, so much money swirling, so many questions swirling.

I think we'll get a little bit more clarification this Tuesday at least, to understand the strength of these campaigns.

Right.

We're looking at Greg Lopez specifically.

The question is whether he's going to raise enough to stay visible and potentially peel some support from Victor Marks when it comes to Victor Marks, the, the bigger story remains how he is, gathering some of these, his campaign contributions.

So in the finance reports, the latest data that we have, that we reported on back in August, it showed that Greg Lopez had about $10,000 in his account compared to, Marks's $137,000 on hand.

So significantly lower.

But now with this big, potentially record breaking fine.

But the elections division is seeking over marks.

It'll be really interesting to to see how that sort of plays out.

You know, Mark says he's now complying.

A hearing officer will ultimately decide the penalty, but it's a real test, as you sort of hinted at, of whether Colorado's campaign finance laws actually have teeth.

You know, we elections move fast, campaign finance cases don't end if violations aren't resolved until months later.

I mean, does it really deter bad behavior before it actually matters?

So we'll we'll see what happens with this this case with marks.

And it'll be interesting to to see if Greg Lopez, who was a Republican now running as independent, has gathered some more money.

And maybe he's peeling away some otherwise support from Victor Marcos.

Right, right.

Yeah.

Tuesday will be interesting because.

It will be interesting to see who has money.

I think it says a lot about momentum behind some of the campaigns, or at least support I think, is Elena, know that the question is do voters care?

And we'll find out.

Right.

I think it's not, you know, a secret team at this table or a lot of voters about the amount of violations we've seen against Victor Marks and the accusations and this most recent sort of fine of $50,000.

My larger concern is like, will voters, will that sway their opinion on the candidate?

I think it's unlikely.

I think our politics are pretty deeply entrenched at this point.

We'll see how that plays out.

I think the skepticism and the role of money in politics is also not something that's new.

We heard a lot in Colorado.

We know it's expensive to petition on to a ballot, write hundreds of thousands to a couple million dollars.

And that does have an influence in what goes in front of voters.

We've also created this system that allows that, and that is the system we have.

So whether we think that's right or wrong, by the very nature that is the process in which, we've allowed measures to go here in Colorado as well as other states.

Okay.

Christy.

I sure will.

And talking what Adam was talking about with the ballot measures, I think there is definitely a perception that the only way you can ever get something on the ballot is by having millions of dollars to pay for signatures.

That's most often true, but this year, we actually see at least four measures on the ballot that either entirely run by volunteers or at least half run by volunteers.

And so I think that's something interesting that should be considered in this space, too.

Is is if your issue is well liked enough by at least a certain dedicated segment of volunteers, can you actually go put your issues in front of voters?

And that's certainly how the ballot measure system was designed to be and created to be in Colorado, sort of say, hey, if you don't like the politics that are going on the state, if you don't think the legislature is representing your issues, step outside the system, be part of it yourself.

Go get measures on the ballot.

And so I think it's very interesting.

We've seen volunteer groups in schools on the left and the right, be able to put measures on this year.

We'll see what voters do with that.

Money still speaks in politics, but small dollar donations can speak just as much as big donors if you go raise enough.

Patty I wish we could find Victor Marks for the things he should be fined for.

You know most of the ethics issues are regarding his crazy merchandizing where you can now buy anything but like dial a Satan card which would be actually I'd probably buy one of those.

But he yells at a woman, a constituent, at one of his campaign finance events.

He stopped the parade at the Colorado State Fair to kind of campaign.

But the poor little sterling Sterling Marching Band was stuck behind him for 15 minutes because he just didn't follow protocol as you're going through.

And I understand he's a new candidate, but there's no excuse for the mistakes he's making with campaign financing issues and just with good behavior down at the state Fair holding up the parade.

I don't know, maybe Satan had called him, but there's an issue that way.

We've got to remember the money in politics.

What did it take to get the gubernatorial race through the primary, like 60 million huge amounts of money?

Bennett wound up having to pay a fine for one of the things he did.

The rules are complicated, and the amount of money is ridiculous.

Given what we're left with.

With a campaign now with my back as the Republican candidate, I mean, Republican money must be able to do something better.

Okay.

All right, let's switch gears now and talk about Ice arrests in Colorado.

They jumped sharply in July.

Nearly 500 people were arrested, according to a Denver Post analysis.

It was the highest monthly total in more than a year.

Attorneys in Colorado continue to challenge ICE's actions on several counts, and the issue is getting attention beyond the courts.

With students across Colorado organizing a walkout to protest Ice.

Colorado lawmakers wrestled with this issue during the last session, when they passed a bill that would have allowed people to sue federal immigration officers in state court over alleged constitutional violations.

But then the governor vetoed it.

Adam, with a new governor coming in next year and the state kind of continuing to take on the federal government on issues, do you think we're going to see this kind of topic again in the legislature?

I think there's no question any voters will.

There is a ballot question related to some immigration enforcement.

In November, we saw multiple measures aimed at immigration in Colorado legislature.

We will see them again next year, certainly with some new lawmakers who are returning and others we know who are coming, who've already spoken about this being a priority.

The greater question to me is, is Congress going to attempt again to address what I think both parties can say is a broken immigration system?

It's something that a lot of people agree on.

It doesn't work.

I worry about sort of this state approach, which is each state trying to find avenues to navigate a broken system.

And what we really need to do is encourage Congress to come together and figure out something that's better across the board for all of us here in Colorado, and for those people who are coming to the United States, and looking for a way of life here.

Okay.

Yeah.

I couldn't agree more with that.

We need to fix this system.

You're going to continue to have problems pop up if you don't resolve the core issues that a system has that is broken and has been broken for decades.

And I think when we look at specific Ice arrests, I actually like what Congressman Gabe Evans says about it.

He lives he represents a very heavily Hispanic district, and he says we should be arresting gang members, not grandmas.

Like I agree with that.

I think that's true.

I think Ice should be very narrowly focused on people who've committed violent crimes.

People are repeat felons.

Get them out of Colorado.

That's a policy that, you know, is agreed on on both sides of the aisle.

If you're a violent criminal, you really have no business being in Colorado if you're not legally entitled to be here.

And so I think it's commonsense policy solutions that can reach across the aisle and just have Ice narrowly focus on people who they should be taking out of Colorado rather than painting with a wide brush.

Okay.

And I think the stat is nationally, two thirds of the people who are being taken out don't have a criminal violation.

So the focus is on the wrong people here in Colorado.

I think it's great that students are paying attention.

I hope they educate themselves as much as they can about the system, about the stalemates in Congress, about who's responsible for the real problems here.

We already have, yet again, more lawsuits because of the Geo facility in Aurora, where Adams County and Aurora have the right to find out what's happening, especially with the case of tuberculosis in their backyard.

Geo has been consistently stonewalling not just over this case, but overall health issues, which is really the biggest issue with detainees there.

And with Geo Group wanting to take over the Hudson facility, we open a $560 million facility out there.

They'd better come clean with the state of Colorado.

Okay, I know.

I can't get Geo to contact me.

They won't respond to any of my requests.

It's really frustrating just to know what's going on over there.

I think when we talk about immigration, it's really important to talk about what this enforcement push actually costs Colorado.

So we've seen, some recent estimates.

One came from the economic policy Institute that found that Colorado taxpayers are contributing about 5.4 billion, to support the Trump administration's deportation push.

And that includes deportation and detainment at the geo, facility and potentially more of them.

And that kind of equates to $2,400 per taxpayer.

Now, that's money that critics say could be flowing to other things like housing, Medicaid or food assistance.

Separately, this week we saw a survey come out from the Associated General Contractors, Group.

This is a national group that found more than a third of Colorado contractors say immigration enforcement has disrupted their workforce or their sub subcontractors crews.

And that matters because construction companies have been struggling to find workers for a long time.

And when the labor pool gets tighter, that means higher costs.

That means more delays, which is really impactful when you talk about affordable housing that's so desperately needed in Colorado.

And so I think the through line is that the fight over immigration, we're seeing it in the courts, but it's playing out far beyond them.

It's showing up in budgets, it's showing up in businesses.

And now even our schools.

Okay.

All right.

Nearly 4 in 10 of Colorado's 64 counties are considered maternity care deserts, communities where pregnant women have limited or no access to maternity care close to home.

In rural Colorado, hospitals are having to close labor and delivery units as they struggle financially, and there are a number of forces behind all this.

Chrissy just became a mom again earlier this year.

You've also lived in rural Colorado, so when we look at communities where maternity care is disappearing, what does that mean for families and what does this mean for communities?

That's true.

Val, I think it's a it's a really rough issue and it's a complicated one.

There's so many pieces that feed into this that I don't know if there's one silver bullet that would fix it.

I think a few issues playing into it are, drop in birth rates.

You don't like there's this one rural hospital in Colorado where in order to cover their costs, they would need to have 300 birth.

Here in the hospital, they have 115 to 130 births.

So they run into a scenario where they're just not having enough births happen there to cover their expenses.

You run into also issues of Medicaid, for example, Medicaid reimbursement is about 6500 a birth compared to the average of 15,000 for private insurance.

So ask a little also why hospitals are getting something.

They're getting a little bit more than a third of what they would be getting with private insurance.

And in Colorado, it's pretty easy to qualify for Medicaid.

We have a high percentage of our population on Medicaid more than other states, because we've expanded that law in Colorado.

So I think there's a number of pieces that would have to be reformed to fix this.

It's absolutely a problem for families.

I do worry about moms in rural Colorado who have to drive 50 miles to get to a hospital.

You're not getting there fast enough if you're in an emergency situation.

And so that's very concerning for families.

And I think it's something the state should jump in together and find a way.

We have to fix this.

Okay.

By having just come from the wilds of Montana, I can say rural health.

Health care is horrible around the country.

It is.

So health care is tricky anywhere, even in urban areas.

But in the rural areas, especially in Colorado, like the eastern Plains, where you just have hospitals closing up, they can't do any kind of care, much less maternity care.

And it's interesting that Eileen La Baca, who's running against Lauren Boebert, just toured all the remaining hospitals in her district to see what she could do.

And it's going to take a concerted effort of all Colorado's elected officials to figure out how they can continue funding.

And it's critical.

Okay, Elena, also a new mom, when you think about the mom, I also think about prenatal care.

You might not go 45 minutes and, you know, get your fingerprinting.

And it's important to have all those medical checks.

That's right.

Yeah.

Some of this federal data is really, really stunning to me to look at, you know, 57% of rural counties don't have a practicing ObGyn.

And some of that prenatal care that's needed.

You know, 4 in 10 counties are maternity care deserts.

In rural areas, nearly half of women live more than 30 minutes away from a birthing hospital.

And as Christy said, when you're an emergency situation, that's way too far.

What really stands out to me is that so many nationwide, 80%, according to the CDC, of these, maternal deaths are preventable.

And this is one of those issues that on both sides of the aisle, people can agree that this is a problem.

And yet our rapes here in the US are worsening almost every year.

There's so much that gets complicated.

Again, Christy noted.

So many of the issues that play that really, flub up the efforts, the unified efforts to fix this from like insurance coverage to Medicaid reimbursement, staffing shortages, the number of patients that are needed to keep a hospital open.

It gets really complicated and really political really, really fast.

But we can all sort of agree this is a major issue in Colorado.

And nationwide.

Okay.

You're an expert in all things.

How do we fix this?

I was going to say I'm probably the least qualified.

On.

The table.

But I mean, I think everything that's been said, I think Christy raised a lot of good points about.

It's a complicated mix.

Right?

You have labor and delivery, expensive service.

You have rural Colorado towns where there just aren't a lot of babies being born.

You have, hospital networks that are already struggling financially for a variety of reasons.

And you tend to have a patient population who is largely under government programs where they are not able to cover cost.

And all of that eventually comes to impact, whether or not these are viable, because it is unfortunately for a lot of these hospital networks, a financial question.

And I think it raises the point where we as Colorado, if we view this as a value and if we want people to live and work and have families in rural Colorado, we need to make a determination of how do we provide a service even when they're not individually profitable on a single basis?

As a clinic in a community?

But there's there's no question it's an issue across the country.

And it's a complicated problem to solve.

But I remain optimistic that we can come together to solve it.

Do you hear talk about it.

The legislature?

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

All the time.

It's it's one of those, all rural lawmakers talk about this, which is the need the lack of care in their communities and how much it really is a genuine problem for them and can be a life and death problem.

Okay.

All right.

Thanks to you all for your input here.

Now, from a serious challenge in rural Colorado to a very different kind of change on the streets of Denver, a lightning round for you all Denver REITs are now able to hail a ride in a car with no human driver behind the wheel.

I've seen quite a few of those Waymo vans out on the streets this week.

You can't really hear them because they're electric.

So I'm just curious, what do you guys think?

Are you any of you game to jump in one?

Patty what do you think?

I was safer than most of the people I know.

You think so.

But I have more to say about.

That.

Okay.

All right.

Would you get one?

I've been in one, I got it.

I got a sneak peek.

For a story.

Before they launched, and honestly, it was surprisingly normal.

I felt very safe.

I was surprised, but how?

Like, decisively, it makes decisions.

On this, on the split.

Very split decisions that don't feel they feel safe.

But not to a fault.

I would ride again.

Would you bring your car seat in for your son?

I would okay, okay.

I mean, the smartest branding by Waymo is that they are a transportation safety company.

At the end of the day, one of their marketing tools is that they're they're trying to reduce traffic fatalities and traffic accidents.

And these sort of AI systems can mitigate that.

I would say maybe I enjoy the taxi Uber Lyft because I like the interaction, with the driver.

But, you know, I'm not opposed to using a Waymo.

Okay.

What do you think?

Yeah, I've had too many bad Uber interactions.

So like and my husband is a techie, so I probably go for it.

You go for it I go for it.

Right.

Well today I almost got T-boned.

So maybe if they're Waymo's safer, maybe some that would have been better having an intersection with the Waymo.

All right.

Let's go on the table and talk about some of the highs and the lows of the week.

We'll start on a low point.

And with miss Patty.

More about Waymo.

Okay.

So the fact that there's many of those cars still are not licensed in Colorado.

They're from California.

So we're not getting money from that.

We're not getting gas tax money obviously.

And now we found out that the DPD cannot really charge charge Waymo or different people.

They have no one to charge because of the way the law is written.

If the Waymo car commits a bad act.

Oh okay.

Yeah.

It'll be interesting if the legislature takes that up in January.

Denver is tied for its third hottest summer on record since recordkeeping began in the 1870s.

And I'm just so over it looks like early forecasts are going to show this sort of similar, record breaking, temperatures in other Colorado counties to.

Yeah, okay, I believe it.

Recent federal Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City report said that, the shortage of workers is the biggest short term obstacle to economic growth in Colorado and surrounding states.

So gets us back to, higher education, producing a workforce and getting them to stay and live here in Colorado.

Yeah.

Right.

So in other states, Hassan Piker, a Democrat socialist, has been getting a lot of attention for campaigning.

But in Colorado, they've been kind of silent about the fact that he's come into the state to campaign for the progressive tax hike.

I think that's something that backers of that tax hike should be held accountable and have to answer for.

Okay.

All right.

And something good.

Patty.

I don't know what came over the metro Denver Chamber of Commerce, but they honored me yesterday with the Del Hawk Lifetime Achievement Award.

And I love to make fun of the Chamber of Commerce.

But one good thing, business wise, that happened yesterday is also LTA is not moving to Salt Lake City, is moving into the old Denver Post building now owned by the city.

It's a business win win.

Yeah.

Congratulations.

Thank you.

You mean you totally deserve that?

Yeah.

Lina.

The city just announced $50 million to restore Sloan's Lake, which is so needed.

It's super sludgy.

It gets really, really hot and gross.

Kills a bunch of fish.

It's poisonous for dogs.

People can't paddle board.

So if all goes according to plan, this would be a really big benefit for the neighborhood in the greater community.

Okay.

No.

Shut down.

At least for the short term.

The U.S.

House, approved a previously Senate approved CR, or basically a funding pot until December 11th.

It was signed by the president this week.

Gives us at least through Election Day, where we don't have to worry about the government.

Sure.

Then go.

Okay.

All right.

The Rockies won on.

Was it Tuesday night is my daughter's first baby.

Daughter's first time going to Rockies game.

And they broke their ten game losing streak at home to that game to the Orioles.

It was great, kids.

Oh, that's so cool.

She just took her son to the first game too.

Yeah, I didn't know that they did such a big thing for babies.

Go into the basement too.

That's nice.

Excellent.

All right.

My high is that I am just hours away from vacation.

A chance to step away from the 24 hour news cycle, celebrate my 26th wedding anniversary, and reconnect with family back east as we celebrate my youngest niece getting married.

But you were in the best of hands, Chris.

The cave will be filling in for me here next week, so thank you insiders so much.

Thanks, crew.

I'll see you when I see you.

Thank you for watching along or listening to our podcast.

I'm Kyle Dyer.

I will see you back here.

I think it's September the 17th.

Take it easy, Colorado.

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