Colorado's Graduated Income Tax and Housing Crisis | Jarvis Caldwell

[00:00:00] Well Jarvis Caldwell, I am so looking forward to this conversation. This is gonna be a lot of fun. And you and I just met not too long ago, but before we get into that, I want to recognize you for the service that you've given to our country. So thank you for that. We just had 9-11, which brings back kind of emotions for most Americans that were born back then.

[00:00:22] And you reflect on your life on that day. You reflect on the people who make us safe, make us secure, the sacrifices that people have gone through. So it's very top of mind for me because of that. But thank you for the service. So why don't we start there? Tell us about your background in the Armed Forces. Yeah, so I can go back a little bit further than that if you'd like, just to kind of give a perspective on how I ended up in the military to begin with.

[00:00:51] So I was born in Florida on the east coast of Florida. I was born actually at Cape Canaveral Hospital, where all the shuttle launches are and now the SpaceX launches and everything else. My dad was a Kentucky coal miner originally, so he was born and raised in southeast Kentucky. My mom was born in Warren, Ohio. And as a teenager, she moved down to the east coast of Florida. When my dad graduated high school in Kentucky, he went into the coal mines and he was an underground coal miner for about six years.

[00:01:22] And he actually was watching... Not an easy life. Not an easy life at all. Most of my family from Kentucky, most of them are still there. My dad is the only one that actually left. Most of them are coal miners and truck drivers to this day. But I think it was around 1986 when the shuttle explosion, I believe it was Challenger, if I'm remembering correctly. Yes, definitely. So my dad said he was watching that on TV and he saw that I think the film footage was like Titusville, Florida.

[00:01:50] And he'd been wanting to get out of the coal mines because he'd been there for six years. And he was like, you know what? That'd be an interesting place to move to. And so just kind of on a whim, him and a couple buddies packed up their vehicles and left and headed down to Florida. Stopped in Daytona for a couple months and taken odd and end jobs and then ended up there to the east coast of Florida. And then my parents met around 1987. Did he tell you about stories from those two months in Daytona? Yeah, yeah. I bet so it was pretty crazy.

[00:02:19] You know, he liked to reminisce that, yeah, he used to be able to drive on the beach and all these things. I think you actually still can in Daytona. But, you know, he would just take odd and end jobs. He's a very handy person. He was a mechanic in the coal mines. And so it was very hard to find jobs to do. I think he did some road paving, did some roofing, construction, other things. Just kind of made a dollar and then eventually made his way down to the Cape Canaveral area. And then met my mom in around 1987. I was born in 1988.

[00:02:49] So I grew up mostly in Florida on the east coast. 1988. And we're going to get into what you're doing now. Because for what you're doing right now, you're kind of young for having the position you have. But we'll come back to that a little bit. Yeah, I appreciate that. Yeah, so you grew up, I mean, I grew up in a trailer park. My mom, she was a high school dropout. And she worked at a local diner. And that's actually where my dad met her at the time. He was doing construction.

[00:03:18] And he'd always go into this local diner. And she was the waitress there. That's probably why he always went to that local diner, don't you think? That's right. He said it took him a while. He spent a lot of money in the diner before she finally went on a date with him. But yeah, so grew up, you know, grew up very low income. I would argue probably poverty. I would say probably whatever the financial requirements were to be considered in poverty.

[00:03:44] I think that's where we were at for the first probably five, six years of my life. And then I would say moved up into lower middle class. My mom finally was able to get a single family home. My parents did separate around, I was around four years old. But my dad was always in my life and a very big part of it. But, you know, I grew up, you had a mom who never even graduated high school. You had a dad who did just enough to get out of high school.

[00:04:12] And so I didn't really grow up with a lot of people around. My dad would always say things like, son, you need to go to college. You need to go to college. But when you are growing up in an environment where you don't really see people and know people going to college, it just kind of seems like a pipe dream. You kind of, I didn't know any doctors or lawyers or anything like that growing up. And so I kind of went down the same path as my dad as far as I did just enough to graduate high school. And then I think maybe the day of graduation or the day after, I went,

[00:04:41] now what am I going to do with my life? And I went to community college for about a year. Again, because we were still considered low income, got a grant from the state of Florida to go to community college. I went into the medical field and I don't know why. I think I was a lazy teenager. And all my friends were saying, oh, go into radiology. If you go into radiology, you just, you sit behind a booth and you take pictures of broken bones and it's easy.

[00:05:09] And so I found myself about a year into community college going, I don't even like going to hospitals. I don't know why I'm doing this. And then my best friend one day, who I'm still best friends with to this day, stopped by my house. His dad was in the Air Force and he said, he goes, hey, I just signed up for the Air Force. And I went, okay, well, I guess I'm going to sign up for the Air Force too.

[00:05:33] And I went down to the recruiting station and not long after that, found myself in basic training in January of 2009. And that's where it started at and didn't take long. My first duty assignment, I got to it in December of 2009. And that was in England. So my first station was RAF Lakenheath. And I worked on F-15s. Before we go back there, as you were talking, you think about your own life, right?

[00:06:01] You know, you were talking about your journey. And my grandparents on my mom's side, well, on both sides, they were very close to each other. They were only about two miles apart. But on my mom's side, down the street from their house was a recruiting station for, I don't know if it was all armed forces or Army or Air Force. I don't remember. But I remember going in there one day without telling my parents, without telling my grandparents. And I talked to a recruiter.

[00:06:30] And, of course, I mean, the first thing they want to do is have you sign on the bottom line. I mean, like, oh, that's great. You're interested. Can you sign your name right here? Like, what if I sign your name? Well, then you're committed for the rest of your life. And I'm like, well, I'm not sure I'm quite at that point yet. And, you know, they talk to you more. And they're like, so now are you ready? Yeah. So they were trying to get me signed right there. And I think once you signed, you can't, like, go back the next day and say I changed my mind. And I was never that close to signing. But I did go in there. And, you know, and I did also get letters of recommendation to go to the Air Force Academy.

[00:06:59] Even though I was in Chicago, the Air Force Academy was here. I don't know that I ever applied. But I know I got at least one recommendation. I wouldn't have gotten in in hindsight because it wasn't – I didn't even know who to go to to get strong recommendations. And I don't think I had anything that was that interesting, you know, when I was in high school that they would have selected me. But, you know, certainly my life would have been very different if I would have, you know, either signed on the dotted line in that one recruiting station or gone to the Air Force Academy.

[00:07:28] But so you did go in there. And you did – it sounds like somewhat on a whim. Yeah. And then you started to say you – Yeah. So first assignment was in England. And now when you're working on F-15s, especially if you're overseas working on F-15s in a time of war, obviously we were in Afghanistan at that time. The ops tempo, I mean, you're going to deploy. So I got there in December of 2009.

[00:07:53] And by May of 2010, I was on a plane going to Afghanistan, did a deployment there. And that was about – it was about five – there were technically four-month deployments. But I believe Ramadan had started around the month that we were supposed to be leaving. That's usually a time where it gets pretty hectic as far as the ops tempo. When you were in Afghanistan for the first assignment, what was your assignment? What were you doing?

[00:08:20] So in Afghanistan at the time, we had – I'm trying to remember how many, like 12 F-15s at the time. And so I was avionics technician, so maintaining the F-15s. And you're always keeping jets in the air because even if they're not engaged in the moment and there's not necessarily a target, they're flying around the country because you have troops all over the country. And when those troops get ambushed or under attack, we call it a TIC, troops in contact.

[00:08:49] You know, if the jet's already in the air flying around and it's anywhere in the vicinity, then you can get there much faster than having to, you know, launch the jet, get the pilots in the jet, launch it from the ground, then fly there. So you're constantly maintaining jets in the air. And that was quite the experience. You know, one of the rewarding experiences – these are things that you – they just can't teach you, right? You have to experience it.

[00:09:13] So when you get a call of troops in contact, sometimes you have jets that are low on fuel. They're already in the air and they're coming back. Or maybe they go and respond. But usually you send more jets. And so you get a call over the radio and they say, scramble, scramble, scramble. And all of a sudden you see the door fly open of the small building where the pilots are. And here they come running out and they're throwing their gear on.

[00:09:36] And they're climbing in the jet, the F-15, and they're literally spinning up the engines while they're crawling into the jet. They're flipping the switches while they crawl in. And from the time we get the call to the time that the wheels are up in the air and the jets taking off the runway is about seven to eight minutes. Wow. As opposed to like 45 minutes to an hour when you're just doing a normal training mission. But when those jets go out there and you know that they're going to go protect Americans who are under attack,

[00:10:05] when they come back and they land and you see everybody's looking at the bottom of the jets, and when you see the bombs missing, then you know that they've had to deploy ammunition on targets. And you know that it's saving lives. And that's one of the most rewarding experiences of that. So how much contact did you have with the Afghan people while you were in Afghanistan?

[00:10:30] So at Bagram Air Base, they contract out to the locals for a whole lot of jobs. So you do get a lot of contact that way. I wasn't somebody who was going outside the wire like a lot of our Army and Marine troops are doing. You know, they kept us on base because the reality is I wasn't much value to the military going outside the wire, which is outside the gate, because of the experience and training that I had on fixing these $40 million to $50 million jets.

[00:10:58] You know, they want me there able to fix the jets. So with the local Afghans that work there, which they go through clearances and everything. So you interact with them there fairly frequently, I would say on a daily basis, whether that's you're getting your hair cut, whether they're doing laundry. They have like a bazaar, they called it, on base. It was like a little flea market, and they sell items there. So you had that kind of interaction.

[00:11:25] And then, you know, not going outside the wire was one thing, but I remember the first time getting mortar attacked and rocket attacked. Because you have to imagine, you know, you're working on these $50 million jets, which are kind of the workhorse there, and they're out there causing damage to the Taliban. And, you know, if they can hit one of those jets with a $100 mortar round, that's a big win. Oh, yeah. That's a big ratio. Would it ever happen?

[00:11:52] Yeah, so we've had F-15s get hit, get shrapnel into the canopy, get shrapnel into the wings, into the external fuel tanks, a couple different areas. Because they very much, they aim for that area where the jets are parked. And at Bagram, you're actually about 5,000 foot above sea level, and you're surrounded by mountains. You think you're, when you first get there, if you're not thinking about it, you think you're on the ground, and you're looking around at mountain peaks. But what you don't realize is you're actually kind of like in a bowl on top of a mountain.

[00:12:22] Essentially, very high up. And so, you know, they could see the whole layout of the base from the sides of the mountain. So they know where to aim them to have the best opportunity to strike. But, you know, that's another one of those things where, you know, they tell you about it that, hey, this is what happens when you're there. But until you experience it, it's a very different, yeah, it's kind of, you're almost in shock at first. Like, is this really happening?

[00:12:49] And, you know, kind of when I get asked by people, how did I find myself getting involved in politics? I can actually pinpoint it to an exact moment, and it was during my time in Afghanistan. So I had somewhat followed politics as a young teenager, and I thought I knew everything, and I really didn't. And then I kind of got this point in my life where I was like, you know, nothing changes. It doesn't matter who's in charge. It's all corrupt. You know, just a common mindset, I guess, especially as a teenager.

[00:13:17] But I remember in 2010 in Afghanistan, we were being mortared, attacked, and I was sitting in a bunker because that's kind of what you have to do because you can't really shoot back because they're shooting them from a mile away over the gate. And so you just go get into the closest bunker. And I remember two of the airmen that I was serving with, the two airmen were arguing, and they were saying who, they were arguing over who was shooting at us. And one of them said, oh, it's the Taliban, and the other one said, no, it's Al-Qaeda.

[00:13:47] And, you know, and I'm sitting there, and I'm going, you know, I actually don't know the answer. I don't know the answer to this question. I'm in a faraway land in a foreign country in a war zone. I'm being shot at, and I couldn't tell you who was shooting at us. I don't know the difference between the Taliban and Al-Qaeda. And I'm like, I should probably start paying attention if I'm going to be risking my life in doing this. And so kind of from that moment, I started paying more attention to geopolitics.

[00:14:12] I ended up a little while later when I was working on my bachelor's, I switched it from marketing to political science and just really started paying attention. And that kind of is what got me to basically where I am now was just simply that one conversation and going, you know what, I should pay attention. Prior to 9-11, I never heard the word Taliban. I never heard the word Al-Qaeda.

[00:14:41] Never heard about, you know, Osama bin Laden. Never understood the culture that still existed in and around here is life like Afghanistan. You know, all that was just shocking to learn about the way of life there and the long history of Afghanistan and how it was evolved. And I knew about the Russians going in there and how disastrous that was. You know, the Soviet Union helped really bring an end to the Cold War in many ways,

[00:15:10] but never understood the cultural dynamic and the longer cultural history of it. And it's amazing and shocking in many ways. And even to this day, you know, you almost have to kind of put yourself in a position that says, you know, what's right, what's wrong, what's, you know, how does one society and culture, when is it okay for them to judge another society and culture versus when do you just accept that

[00:15:39] that's just part of the human existence? But certainly a lot of their practices are hard to just look at and say, well, that's just their culture because the way they treat women, the way they treat, you know, children, the way they live. It's hard to just say, well, that's their choice. It's like, well, is it? Or is there more to it? And is it our business? Is it not our business? It's hard to sort through that. It is. You know, you brought up 9-11 again there.

[00:16:04] And I was, so over the weekend, I was sitting at my house and I was watching some videos on my phone. And they were playing the initial footage on the morning of 9-11 when the first plane had hit the first tower. And I was sitting with my kids. I have two sons. They're actually, funny enough, they're both 12 years old right now, but they're not twins because they're 11 months apart. I got a brother who's 10 and a half months apart, so I know that. Yeah, so that time between mid-September to mid-October, they're the same age.

[00:16:32] So my youngest just turned 12 and my oldest is about to turn 13 next month. But I was sitting on the couch with them. We were watching these videos. And I was telling them, I go, you know, I was 12 or 13 on 9-11. And I remember walking into my, I think it was homeroom classroom in Florida. And my teacher had, my science teacher, homeroom teacher also, he had the news on. And I remember him saying, yeah, a plane hit the tower.

[00:17:01] And at the time, being 12 or 13 from Florida, I didn't know what the World Trade Center was. I didn't know that was a thing. But I remember looking on TV and going, how in the world could a plane accidentally fly in to that huge building on that clear day? And at the time, we didn't know it was a jetliner. I remember my mind initially going to, this was like a Cessna. They were sightseeing, flying around, got too close. It was what I was thinking as a teenager because I was like, how else would that happen?

[00:17:30] And then I don't know if it was why we were changing classes or something. But then we'd heard that there was another plane, a full-size plane, a jetliner hit the other tower. And I remember one of my teachers saying, you know, this is an act of terrorism. And I remember thinking, terrorism, like, you know, obviously I knew the word like terror.

[00:17:50] But like terrorism, that was just like, I'm trying to explain this to my kids that you grew up in a world where like terrorism is a word that you've probably known since you were pretty young, you know, and probably kindergarten or first grade. But even as a 12, 13-year-old at the time, it was not something I would ever thought about or ever even really heard. Well, I was in my upper 30s at the time and the same reaction. I mean, we didn't, we couldn't even process what happened.

[00:18:15] I told the story in the book I wrote, Bandwidth, around where I was at. You know, we all remember where we're at. I was on a steamboat at a management offsite where it was my team. So I was the senior person. And I remember going to get coffee in the morning. And the first tower had already been hit. I didn't hear about it. So there's a TV in the coffee shop. And one of my colleagues is, as I remember, it was with me. And we're watching and they're talking about it. And while we're watching it, the second plane hit.

[00:18:44] And what I remember most distinctly is that the newscasters were trying to explain it. And they're doing exactly what you did. They're like, well, that's really shocking. A second plane hit. We're not sure why. Maybe do you think maybe it was the smoke in the air and that confused the pilot? So they never even dawned on them. And maybe it did and they just couldn't say it on air. But they weren't speculating. Right. It was intentional. Yeah. And let alone it was an act of terrorism.

[00:19:11] They were just totally befuddled by the coincidence of it happening a second time. And it must have been something about, I mean, and we're all looking like, how do you process what you just saw? Right. I remember a couple of the quotes when I was watching those videos with my sons. I remember one of the newscasters, or it may have been someone calling in to the Today Show or Morning Show that was live streaming it. I remember the quote. They said, what are the odds when the second one hit? Right.

[00:19:41] And then I remember someone saying, maybe this is an air traffic control problem. You know, as if because the air traffic control was having an issue, planes were just going to start hitting buildings. It seems ridiculous now. But at the time, that's just kind of how stunning it was. Yeah. And you'd never seen anything like that. Yeah. Nobody had ever seen. But so Afghanistan was a really life changing experience. But you're also in Iraq too, right? No, no.

[00:20:08] My wife has served in Iraq because she's military as well. She did 22 and a half years in the Air Force. Wow. Just retired a couple of years ago. She, I think, done a couple tours in Iraq. And then I did one tour in Afghanistan and then came back to England. And then in 2011, a lot of people forget about this, but Operation Odyssey Dawn. Operation Odyssey Dawn was when President Obama did the no-fly zone in Libya.

[00:20:34] And so that happened, I think, March, April. I may be off a couple months there in Libya. So our F-15s actually, we launched our F-15s from our home base at Lakenheath, RAF Lakenheath in England, straight over. I believe they flew over to France, refueled, and then went straight into Libya. And then were the first Americans in Libya. Why did he do no-fly zone there?

[00:21:04] So there was a civil war in Libya, and Qaddafi was still in power at the time. And Qaddafi was using his military forces against the civilians slash militias that were in the civil war with his government. And so he was using his aircraft to bomb essentially civilians, militants, I think probably is a more proper term for him. So the no-fly zone was to keep that from happening.

[00:21:34] I wrote an op-ed when the Ukraine-Russia war kicked off. And it was specifically about fly zones because at the time, if you recall, there was a lot of talk nationally about, you know, we should do a no-fly zone over Ukraine to keep Russia's jets from, you know, dropping bombs on civilians. And so I have a very unique perspective on it because I've actually deployed to – we went to Italy, but I've actually deployed to enforce a no-fly zone.

[00:22:01] And the first thing we did when you go in to enforce a no-fly zone is you bomb their surface-to-air missiles. You bomb their runways so their jets can't take off. You bomb their jets. You bomb their radar systems. Anything that would be a danger to your aircraft in the air, you take those out first. So a no-fly zone – Like a World War III. Right. A no-fly zone is not simply just you go fly your jets around in the air because you've got to protect those jets.

[00:22:25] And so, you know, in the op-ed, in the Gazette, what the argument I made is like, look, a no-fly zone in Ukraine would essentially be World War III because the people who own the surface-to-air missiles there and the runways and the jets and stuff are the Russians. And so it was a very cautious warning from a firsthand experience on that. It was actually really well received because it came out at a time where that was a serious debate. Yep. And have you listened to the podcast Hardcore History with Dan Carlin?

[00:22:55] I'm familiar with it. I believe I've maybe listened to an episode. Does he cover, like, Genghis Khan and all those? Yes. Yeah, a long series on Genghis Khan, which I've listened to. But I'm toward the tail end of a long – it's five, six episodes, but each episode is, like, two and a half hours. So it's lots of hours. I'm toward the end of one about World War I and all the conditions of World War I. I mean, just terrifying, horrible.

[00:23:23] I mean, just what people went through throughout that many-year war is hard to even get my head around after listening to this. So I guess I kind of knew some of it, but not to that level of depth and breadth. But then I think about what's going on in Ukraine and Russia right now. It's like, how can you not find a way to bring an end to that human suffering that is associated with that conflict?

[00:23:48] Because however it ends, it's not going to be much different than what exists on the ground right now. And the amount of people who are losing their lives and limbs and way of life, both in Russia as well as in Ukraine, is just incredible. I think humans could be, I don't know, better than that. Yeah. The numbers are staggering according to the numbers that Ukraine intelligence, Ukraine militaries put out.

[00:24:17] I believe it was last month they reported it was either 40,000 or 60,000 Russian casualties, almost all from drones. And you're like, that's hard to wrap your head around, that many casualties. And you're like, I don't know how it can continue. Well, there are days in World War I where a single day where 30,000 people would be gunned down and lose their lives. A day in a battle. I mean, not a lot of days at that level, but specific days.

[00:24:46] 30,000 people just got, you know, because they didn't know how to fight wars with machine guns. They're like, well, keep throwing more people at it. Yeah. So somebody share something. This is kind of a secret that I don't want you sharing with others. Okay. A lot of people think I'm a Republican. They are like so worried that I'm a Republican. Yeah. I'm like, I'm not a Republican. I'm a Coloradoan.

[00:25:11] And, you know, I frankly, you know, I like politics, I guess, but not enough to spend a lot of time with politics unless I feel compelled to. And right now I feel very compelled to. And a lot of what I've been doing is, as you know, and this is how we came across each other, was to really express myself in a way that is trying to protect Colorado. And a lot of people are like, oh yeah, you're trying to protect Colorado for the wealthy, for the rich. I'm like, no.

[00:25:40] I mean, I guess it sort of sounds that way with some of the things I'm saying. But I'm protecting for the next generation of Coloradoans. And for everyone in Colorado who grew up in circumstances like you described, and frankly, in circumstances like I described, that like I grew up in, not quite at the level that you did. But, you know, came up with mostly a blue collar upbringing and being so thankful to be living a life, you know, not just here in Colorado, but let me start with America, where it's still the land of opportunity.

[00:26:09] And Colorado is even more so. Colorado has been just a great place to live in an environment where people are accepted and where there's a lot going on and there's a lot of reasons to want to be here. There's a lot of reasons to want to come here and there's all kinds of ways to, you know, build a life here. There's a vibrant tech scene, a vibrant culture, a recreation scene.

[00:26:32] And yet I'm seeing like a lot of going on in politics right now that is a threat to, you know, that vibrant future of Colorado. It's not a threat to Colorado itself. Colorado will still be a beautiful place to live and to be and to, you know, want to live. But when it's, you know, when a lot of jobs and opportunity that should be in Colorado begin to migrate to other geographies like Texas and Florida and Arizona, and you could just see it playing out in real time.

[00:27:02] It's like, what are we doing to ourselves? Why would anyone who considers himself a leader in Colorado, regardless of party affiliation, want to be supportive of policies and of rhetoric that scares away those who are most equipped to create jobs and create economic activity that benefits our overall culture? So I've been speaking up on it. And speaking up, I think, well, I know in a very balanced way because I get that feedback across the board.

[00:27:30] But at the same time, when people are hearing me, you know, talk or hearing me or reading the work I put out, they just equate that to being Republican. I'm like, what is it about what I'm saying that's Republican? Right. I mean, a lot of what I'm saying is let's just think through things a little bit more and do what's right for Colorado. And if it sounds like a Republican perspective, maybe those who consider some Democrats should reflect on that a little bit. Like, why is saying those things associated with being a Republican?

[00:28:00] Because, you know, don't you agree with most of those two? And many of them have trouble publicly acknowledging that they agree, but don't want to share that publicly because they're afraid of being, of sounding like they might be, you know, a Republican. Well, it's like when did being just pro-business become like a Republican tenant? Now, you know, for political purposes, I'm like, yeah, consider Republicans the pro-business people. I'll take that, right?

[00:28:29] But, I mean, the reality is I think what you see right now in Colorado is there's this, like, struggle to balance, like, pro-business versus pro-workers' rights. And that's kind of the constant struggle, the debates that we're having. We have the same thing with landlords and tenants. You know, and what I try to bring across is I go, look, you know, like, my dad was a landlord. Okay, my dad to this day lives in a double-wide trailer in southeast Kentucky.

[00:28:55] Growing up, the trailer that we grew up in, he kept that. He ended up paying it off eventually. And that was part of his, like, retirement plan for extra income and whether, you know, he wanted to sell it or keep renting it out. But, you know, the trailer we grew up in, he got a bank loan. It was like a 15-year loan. And looking back on it now, it was like $40,000. And he took out a 15-year loan on it. And when he saved up enough money to buy a different trailer, we moved to a different trailer.

[00:29:24] And then he started renting that trailer out. Well, he was only renting it out for like $300 or $400 a month. And the people who would rent it, they couldn't afford to buy it themselves. So he was providing a service, right? He was providing a service to another low-income family that couldn't afford to buy it themselves. And they couldn't afford the upkeep because people don't realize when your septic tank goes out, it's a $15,000 job. Now it's even more than that.

[00:29:50] And because my dad was a handyman, he could afford to fix it himself. But we don't look at landlords or people who own second homes and rent out the second home. We don't look at it as a service. It's this, no, you're hogging the housing supply to yourself, right? So this is what we've experienced at the Capitol. There's always this debate that if you own a second home, then you're robbing somebody else from home ownership.

[00:30:18] When in reality is that second home, you're providing a service by renting it to a family who maybe otherwise couldn't afford it. And we have the same thing on the business side. Actually, before you go a little further, we kind of skipped over what you do now. So what do you do now? And why did I comment earlier about your age relative to what you do now? Because most people think of, first of all, you're a Republican. I am, yeah. Second of all, you're under the age of 40.

[00:30:46] And third of all, you're in a leadership position in the Republican Party in Colorado, which we'll get a little bit more into. So most people think of Republicans as a lot older than you are and not of your age group. And they think of them as people who come from a lot of wealth. But what we know is Republicans are like Democrats. They're people. And they're people that come from a lot of different backgrounds.

[00:31:14] And I think sometimes you've got extreme Republicans. Sometimes you have extreme Democrats. Maybe those two extremes don't see a lot in common. But if you're kind of somewhere leaning toward the center, you've probably got a lot more in common with people who are also leaning toward the center from the other party than you do perhaps with the extremes of your individual parties. At least that's what I think. So with that as context, what is your role in the Republican Party in Colorado? Absolutely.

[00:31:44] So I'm still a freshman legislator. In the statehouse, you can do four terms. So eight years total. Each term is two years. So I am still within that first term, within my first two years. But I serve as the House Minority Leader. So I am the head Republican. Why would someone in their first two years at your age be serving as the minority leader? I wish I had a good answer. You know, it's voted on by the other House Republicans.

[00:32:12] So, you know, we all kind of make our pitch. Did someone approach you on this? Or did you raise your hand? How did that work? No, I guess kind of part of what it was is I had actually worked at the Capitol. Just kind of part-time as an aide for the former assistant minority leader. And just kind of learning state government, really. It was kind of my role there and helping him out, obviously, as an aide. And then I'd met the minority leader at the time, Hugh McKean.

[00:32:39] And Hugh McKean was doing some staff changes in the fall of 2022. And he asked me to come on as a staff member as a communications director. And I frankly felt unqualified to do it because I'd never been in a communications role. I was a political science major. And just I have okay communications in general. So I... Oh, you're pretty damn good if you ask me. I appreciate it. So I felt like I could, you know, learn as I went.

[00:33:05] And so Hugh hired me in October 3rd of 2022. It was my first day. And unfortunately, Hugh passed away on October 30th of 2022, completely unexpectedly. And so I ended up serving as the communications director for the House Republicans in 2023, that legislative session, most of that year. Well, a lot of those, a lot of the House Republicans I currently serve with and the leader for now,

[00:33:34] they were brand new. They were freshmen coming in after the 2022 election. So we had 19 members at the start of 2023. 12 of them were brand new members. So, you know, it's kind of crazy how it worked out, kind of the full circle. But I am now serving as leader for a whole bunch of Republicans who I've known since 2022, 2023, when I was a staff member there. And I was helping them write op-eds and do interviews with the media and everything. And now we're all serving together.

[00:34:04] So I think that was kind of a big benefit, as in I already had that relationship. So yes, I am a freshman legislator. But I've had a few years of friendship and relationships with those members. And building trust, it sounds like. I mean, they wouldn't have asked you to do that unless they trusted you and felt like you were a strong leader. Yeah. You know, I think most of the Republicans in general, and I think a lot of Republicans across the board kind of feel this way,

[00:34:32] is, as you mentioned earlier, there is this perception that, you know, if you're a Republican, you're very old and maybe boring. And, you know, and I'm like, well, hopefully I'm not those things. And so maybe I can, you know, bring a unique perspective there. I think there really is that kind of cliche or just in general what comes to mind is it's an old white guy as a Republican.

[00:34:59] Now, obviously, I'm a white guy, but I'm fairly young. I'm 37 years old. But, you know, I have a young family. My wife is actually an immigrant. She immigrated here as a teenager from the Philippines and also served the country for over 20 years in the military. And so, you know, if I do break the mold on what people think of as a Republican, then I, you know, I take that as a win.

[00:35:22] Well, you're one of the very few people I know, and this is a serious statement, even though I'm saying it with a big smile on my face, you're one of the very few people I know in Colorado who admits to being a Republican. Now, I'm sure I know a lot of Republicans, but, you know, I like to joke in Boulder, you know someone's a Republican because they call themselves an independent. Right. No, I don't think that's true. Because we are a plurality of independents in Colorado. Is that right?

[00:35:49] Like there's more people are independent than are Republican and Democrats combined. Right. And I think independent can mean a whole bunch of different things. I think a lot of independents certainly feel aligned more with the Democrat Party. I'm sure a lot of people who call themselves independents feel more aligned with the Republican. I'm sure a lot of them don't feel particularly aligned with either one of them. And I put myself, well, let me change that middle one a little bit different.

[00:36:11] I put myself as a true independent in that, you know, I could get comfortable with, you know, a policy regardless of what party is behind it. And I also can understand, for the most part, kind of those who have more extreme views on the left or the right. Doesn't mean I agree with them, but I don't too often find views that people have that I feel like I totally object to.

[00:36:39] Even, you know, the Socialist Democrat thing has my curiosity right now. Like, okay, what's really driving that? And, you know, what does it really mean? And, you know, people are getting behind it. What's making them get behind it? As opposed to like, you're a communist, you know, go to Russia. You know, I don't feel that way. I feel like the curiosity of what is it that is happening that is making particularly young people identify with what this Socialist Democrat movement is.

[00:37:08] You know, what's drawing them to that and what's drawing them away from. I mean, capitalism is kind of viewed as a bad word. I sort of get that. I mean, a capitalist can be a really bad thing. And I totally get, you know, that connotation. And there is some truth to, you know, extreme capitalism, you know, is kind of dog-eat-dog. And that's not the right answer either. But, you know, I think the most important thing right now is people being able to talk to one another and listen to one another. Yeah. I very much agree with that.

[00:37:35] So there's something that's going to come out the next day or two that by the time we drop this podcast would have happened that I haven't told you about. But really a ton of momentum over the weekend. I'm going to, you know, you're familiar with the first open letter that I was largely behind with a lot of people in support. I'm going to be dropping a second open letter. And it's already got a sufficient number of critical signatures that I can say that it will happen for certain. And this open letter is about two ballot initiatives.

[00:38:06] And so I don't even know where you stand on these ballot initiatives. Well, listen, I read your letters that you sent out. Oh, so you know the Dumb and Dumber. So I know where you're coming up. So it is about the Dumb and Dumber series. But it's an open letter to our governor, who I think is already aligned, as well as the person who's highly likely to be our next governor, the Democratic nominee, Attorney General Phil Weiser, and our senators. And it's explicitly asking for them to publicly get behind this notion that, you know, we should not pass the graduate income tax.

[00:38:36] And the reason for that isn't to protect people who have wealth or who are about to create wealth. It's to protect Colorado. It's to protect Colorado because, you know, I believe deep into my bones, deep into my existence that a thriving and vibrant economy is a necessary ingredient.

[00:38:58] It isn't the only ingredient, but it's a necessary ingredient to have the kind of opportunities of prosperity for broadly for kind of, you know, the communities in which you live. If you don't have that, you could have everything else work right and you just won't have the economic activity to support, you know, whether it's local businesses, whether it's retail, whether it's, you know, public services like education, healthcare.

[00:39:22] You know, you're like the Rust Belt, you know, places that, you know, were common where, you know, the areas I grew up, you could just see, you know, the hollowing of towns and the hollowing of communities. And if you have that, now Colorado is not going to go there because of our other attributes, but there's a big difference between having a nice steady growth rate of jobs, of tax base, of everything else versus having a stagnant or declining one. That's all the difference in the world.

[00:39:49] So, you know, I think it's something that just shocks me that isn't really easy for everyone to get behind because it's in the best interest of Colorado. Yeah. So having said all that, what do you think? Yeah, I think we're actually very much aligned on how you feel on that issue. We would have to edit this whole part out of the podcast if not.

[00:40:11] So when I look at Initiative 195, right, so the graduated income tax and raising it up to as high as 8.4%, what I always think about when it comes to income taxes in general is I go, okay, when we look at like sin taxes, right, we increase the taxes on things like nicotine, like cigarettes, right, because the idea is to disincentivize the use of it.

[00:40:36] And I'm like, so is it not disincentivizing working that may put yourself in a higher tax bracket and then you're actually going to be losing more money because you're now in that higher bracket. But, you know, I want to bring an interesting perspective to you that I came up with this idea roughly because someone else spurred a different idea.

[00:40:57] And it had to do with around sports because when we talk about the graduated income tax and nobody ever talks about, well, you know, how about the Denver Broncos players? How do they feel about this? Will this keep them from maybe not wanting to come to Denver and instead going to play in Texas for the Texans or someone? And I was like, you know, has anybody talked to Deion Sanders about this? Because with the whole NIL issue and, you know, recruiting college players, that's a real consideration.

[00:41:26] If I was a college student and I was a top recruit and I was going to be in that tax bracket if this were to pass and I was looking at I could go to Colorado or I could go to, let's say, Texas that has a zero dollar state income tax versus an 8.4 percent, that would make it a really easy decision for me because at the amount of money the college players are making nowadays, that's a significant amount of money. And I'm like, you know what?

[00:41:52] Somebody needs to talk to Deion Sanders about this because I do think it's a very interesting perspective that I had not heard anyone weigh in on. And let me just, I mean, you're exactly right. Right. Now, NBA kind of distorts that a little bit because NBA has salary caps. So, you know, so there's a little bit of, you know, everyone can't go play for the Texas teams. But that's not true in the business world. In the business world, everyone who's creating a great business can go play for the Texas team or the Florida team. Right.

[00:42:21] There's no salary cap that says, well, Texas, you only get so many of the great players and then you're out of salary cap. So Colorado, you'll still get your fair share no matter how high you raise your taxes. Right. They don't work that way in the tech and the business world. In the tech and business world, like, you know, hey, if I have the opportunity to move, you know, I'm going to strongly consider moving. Another thing that's happening, this is already happening on a widespread basis in Colorado, certainly in California and New York and others.

[00:42:49] You know, people are going either way to make themselves be a taxpayer of another state, not a taxpayer of, you know, California or New York. Right. And that's happening with Colorado now, too. People are like, okay, I see the writing on the wall. Well, what happens? Not only do you lose your taxes because they're going to go pay their taxes somewhere else, maybe somewhere else where they only have to pay taxes, like Florida and Texas. But they're also taking all their disposable income with them, too. Right. And they're spending money largely where they are. So, yeah, they'll keep a home here.

[00:43:18] And, yeah, they'll continue to spend some money here, but not for more than 50% of the days. Right. Because they're going to want to qualify somewhere else. And why would we want to see those people leave? Right. I mean, it's just. And they have the means to leave. That's the big thing. And I know you've pointed this out before, but 2025 was the first time since, I believe, 2004 where we had net migration loss, more people leaving.

[00:43:41] And, you know, when I talk to people, even Republicans, you know, sometimes I get this, well, good, you know, we're overcrowded. Housing's too expensive in the first place. I'm like, yeah, but at the same time, a lot of the people, those people who are leaving, it's because they're fed up with the bad policy. You know where it's cheap to build, cheap to get housing? Where? In the 1990s Detroit. Yeah. In the 1990s Detroit, you get really, really a lot of housing for your dollars. For very cheap, yeah.

[00:44:10] Now there's nothing around here. There's no jobs there, and it's not particularly safe, and the schools suck. Yeah. But, boy, they sure made their housing inexpensive. They drove all business away. So, yeah, we destroy all business in Colorado. It won't be more affordable, by the way, because affordable has two sides. Yeah. How much money, you know, do you have as an income versus what does the housing cost? So, yeah, it might be, the housing might be less expensive, but the ability to pay for it goes down. I mean, that's just supply and demand at work. Yeah.

[00:44:40] So, how people don't think all the way through that is beyond me. I think about that in Kentucky, in southeast Kentucky. So, where my family's from, it's Appalachia. It is, I'm pretty sure per capita, the poorest region in the entire United States. And it's like, you can get beautiful houses there. I mean, would look like what you would consider a mansion for $400,000, $500,000. But the average salary around there is like $30,000 or $40,000.

[00:45:06] And so, it's like, yeah, you know, the housing's very affordable, but there's no jobs, you know, for the most part, unless you're a truck driver. Yeah. And here's the part that I'm trying to figure out is, okay, let's say I'm a college student. I'm at CU Boulder. I'm at CU Boulder. This is true for other colleges, too, but I'm at Boulder, so CU Boulder. And I'm a sophomore. I'm a junior. I'm like, you know, at some point, I'm going to graduate. And when I graduate, I think I'm going to want to have a job, right?

[00:45:35] And I'm thinking I'm liking Colorado. In fact, I kind of even like Boulder. I got like the foothills and, you know, there's a lot going on in Boulder. So, I'm thinking I want there to be a really, you know, active job market out there, people hiring. Right. People hiring into interesting jobs, and I want to join a company that's going to grow. And if that company was the wrong choice, I want to be in an ecosystem where there's another kind of startup that's taking off and scaling. And maybe I'm going to want to go start my own company.

[00:46:03] And, you know, maybe it's because I'm into the biosciences. And great, there's biosciences jobs here. Or maybe it's space, you know, and space tech. Or maybe it's quantum. Or maybe it's, you know, fitness and wellness. I mean, Colorado has all that stuff. But how do you, like, how do you collaborate with those college students, particularly the ones who, you know, have a vote,

[00:46:27] and have a conversation that says, isn't a vibrant tech ecosystem something that will benefit you? Right. And if we take actions that will undermine it and potentially destroy it, you know, destroy is a big word, but certainly undermine, who do you think is going to pay the price for that? Right. It's you 10 years from now. It's you five years from now when you're looking to build your career.

[00:46:53] And you're like, oh, my gosh, do I really have to, you know, move to, like, you know, Texas? Do I really want to go live in Dallas? I mean, do I have people in Dallas come up to the mountains here to cool off in the summer? Yeah. And that's what's at stake with something like that. And if that passes as an amendment to the Constitution, it's going to be hard to unwind that. And it's not going to, you know, what's going to happen the year after it passes, we're going to have higher revenue. You know, look, we've got higher revenue. Right. Okay, fast forward three years.

[00:47:23] Oh, we got about the same revenue we had before we passed this. Fast forward three more years. Right. We're declining revenue, tax revenue, you know, revenue base. But that's just one element. All of the economic activity and job creation and career opportunities, you know, so much of that would be just cut off the top. Yeah. There'll still be others, but you want to get more to your fair share of growth. You don't want to be like, well, at least we kept some of our stuff. I mean, how defeatist would that be?

[00:47:53] I mean, when you have 50 states, it's not hard for someone who, again, if they fall into that highest bracket, they have the means to move to a different state or change their headquarters. Like, you know, we've seen a number of companies do. And so, like you said, it's – they're not stuck here. Right? Like, this is not a national tax where it's like you have to leave the country if you want to, you know, avoid that tax bracket.

[00:48:20] And I think you see it in New York, the amount of capital that's left New York in the last several years, not just recently under Mom Donnie, which that's certainly happening too. But people are fleeing, and they're going to the more business-friendly states. I did an event with the Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce last year called Site Selectors. And it's where you have these multinational companies send representatives to all these different states, and they're looking to expand.

[00:48:49] And you have Colorado Springs and Denver and Boulder come out, and they do their pitch. Like, here's why you should, you know, build your new warehouse here and, you know, other examples. And they appeal to them on the energy side. They appeal to them on permitting side. You know, from start to finish, this is how long it will take. This is how long it will cost. And what I constantly heard from those site selectors, the representatives for those companies,

[00:49:16] is it is not hard to convince people to want to live in Colorado just for the beauty alone. That's the easy part. Like, even if you don't ski, you can figure it out. But even if you don't ski, you can go hiking. There's a million things to do here. There are days of sunshine. Right, exactly. Like, Colorado is just the perfect place environmentally, in my opinion. But for the companies, they're going, it's the legislature is the number one thing that they bring up, and it's because of the policy.

[00:49:46] They're like, you know, if we come and start building a huge, massive facility here, we don't know if you're going to change your energy policy and your utility policy in January when you come back to the legislature. And how can we plan 10 years down the road? We can't even plan one year down the road. Well, I would say it a little bit different because you said it in a way that I think is too kind. Yeah. If the words coming out of your mouth, so I use the word rhetoric, if the words coming out of your mouth is, we're going to come get you. You think we got enough of your stuff already? We're going to come. We're going to go. Next is going to be a wealth tax.

[00:50:15] And then we're going to repeal the Tabor Act. And then we're going to do more taxes, and then we're going to increase spending there. It's like we hear you. We hear you. We see that from a mile away. I have the perfect rural example for you. So Philip Morris International just built a $1.2 billion factory in Aurora. It's a Zen factory, right? The flavored nicotine pouches. Flavored nicotine pouches, all right?

[00:50:44] There's going to be a bill this January. It's 100% going to happen. I won't say the name of the Democrat legislator because until it's actually introduced, I want to give that courtesy at least. But there will be a bill in January to ban flavored nicotine. After convincing them to build their factory. After convincing Philip Morris to come here and invest $1.2 billion and employ hundreds of Coloradans to come here,

[00:51:11] we are now going to have a bill next year to ban the very product that this facility makes. And I'm like, guys, if you're not paying attention, do you think that companies looking to expand here aren't paying attention to that? Of course they are. It doesn't matter. Right. It doesn't matter what their industry is. I'm building space. I'm going to build thrusters for space. Right. Well, we're going to go past the law in the future that says thrusters for space isn't good because they could be used for the environment. Yeah, the environment or they could be used for military purposes.

[00:51:41] So we're going to put a big tax on those. I mean, you don't even have to talk about that, but they just extrapolate. I mean, that's what people do. They're like, look for patterns. And they're like, okay, that place is unfriendly to business. They're already doing things that maybe it didn't affect me, but they're doing things. They're talking about doing more things. So I'm going to go somewhere that's doing the opposite. They're doing things to make it more favorable.

[00:52:02] Like when I was doing all my clawed-assisted research for some of these newsletters, Arizona had a graduate income tax, and they got rid of it. They got rid of it, and they put their tax rate down to, I don't know, maybe 2.5, I think. 2.5, and I think it's slated, hopefully, to go down, for them hopefully, to go down to zero. Are they doing that because they like wealthy people more than Colorado likes wealthy people? No, it's because they want our jobs. They want our jobs. They want our expansions. They want our investment.

[00:52:29] They want the entrepreneurs who are leaving California to go there, not go to Colorado. Why can't we see that and think about from the perspective of all Coloradoans, particularly the generations that are depending on us to make good decisions for their future? When it's so obvious, this isn't like, you know, you don't need like the latest version of like AI on, you know, Anthropic to figure this out. It's this very basic example. Yeah.

[00:52:58] Not unlike your, and on your NIL, your Deion Sanders, in college, they don't have the rules like they have in pro sports where Texas can't, you know, stack up every great player. So that's a really good example because. Yeah. The NFL, you might get traded, right? You don't necessarily have free agency. So you might get sent somewhere. You don't have a choice. But with college, you very much, you get a whole lot of offer letters and it is your decision. And so, which is why I think it's an interesting perspective.

[00:53:25] I did want to touch on, you'd mentioned the DSA thing earlier. And the first time we met was actually before the primary. And we were, I think it was very close to the primary. And we were having. The DSA is Democrat Socialism. Yes. Democrat Socialists of America. DSA backed candidates, right? And we were having this conversation. And I think most people, including myself, did not anticipate that it was going to, the primary elections in Colorado were going to go that way. And we had national news out of it. Yeah, we did.

[00:53:55] Yeah. Right. Yeah. We've been making a lot of national news, I think, for a lot of the wrong things, in my opinion. But, you know, I try to, the same thing that you were saying earlier, like trying to understand it, right? And I think I have a unique perspective in the fact that I graduated high school in 2007. Well, we all know 2007, 2008, 2009, that area, the Great Recession, right? And so I was graduating high school and I was coming out into a market where you just had a huge housing crash.

[00:54:25] And collapsed. Yeah, collapsed. And the job market was terrible. It's like houses were very affordable. But at the same time, you couldn't afford, you couldn't find a job, especially as like an 18-year-old. And that very much, and I saw it amongst my friends' groups, who we were not, this was kind of before really social media became a thing. People were not as engaged with politics the way they are now. Like, I'm around a lot of 18-, 19-year-old young Republicans and, frankly, just young people in general who are involved in politics.

[00:54:55] And I'm like, good on you because I was not, I did not care about politics when I was 18, 19. I couldn't care less about it at the time. But I saw around my friend group, like the economy was very bad. You had a guy named Barack Obama running for office and he was doing the hope and change and all of that. And it was very appealing to young people. And I think that's kind of what you have now. I enthusiastically voted for him the first time.

[00:55:22] But I think you're experiencing the same thing now where it's, because, I mean, really since the start of COVID, we're at a period of very high inflation, housing unaffordability. Like, things are rough right now, especially if you're 18, 19 years old. And I tell people all the time, I go, look, the housing crash was really hard on me as an 18-, 19-year-old. But you didn't have this skyrocketing inflation. Stuff was still affordable.

[00:55:47] Like, I know pretty young people in their early 20s who have, like, a $100,000 a year job who are working two and a second and third job just trying to be comfortable at least. And I'm like, we didn't have that problem in 2007. And so I think you have a lot of young people going, this isn't what the American dream was supposed to be. I'm working three jobs and I don't see an end in sight. I'm barely breaking even. I'm still struggling. I'm 30-something years old.

[00:56:16] I still live with my parents. They're having that struggle and they want something changed. And they're like, you know what? Same old, same old is not good enough. Like, I want some kind of radical change. And I think that's what is appealing to the DSA message is it's radical change. Now, as someone who is very much, I like to consider myself a student of history, I'm like, okay, you might want radical change. But what you're advocating for has been tried before. And it wasn't very good for, you know, the millions and millions of people that had to live under it and, frankly, died under it.

[00:56:47] So I don't want to get too deep into this next part because I want to come back to more on point. But what has been grossly underreported as a cause for the 2008-2009 crisis you described was the fact that there was social engineering around home purchases,

[00:57:06] the ability to get loans for homes that lowered the bar dramatically with kind of government policy around Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which resulted in a lot of people getting super discounted loans with adjustable rate mortgages. Yeah. And it was a big housing boom that preceded it until what happened, you know, as it played out. Now, that wasn't the only reason.

[00:57:35] The other reason had to do with, you know, derivatives and stuff like that. Right. But those were interrelated. But all the press wanted to talk about was the financial derivatives and the Wall Street. Right. Which Wall Street was responding to large part with this, you know, this, oh, we could give loans to people and the government will back the loans. And then we could give artificially low interest rates that will pop up three years later. Right.

[00:57:58] And then all of a sudden people are in over their head with homes that can't afford and mortgages that are underwater and a rising interest rate environment and it implodes. Yeah. But, you know, I bring that up because that's when I started to realize the press was very biased because they wanted to talk about one of those two things, but they didn't want to talk about the other one. Right. They just wanted to ignore it and pretend it didn't exist. And it's like, why aren't they talking about this? It's crazy. Yeah.

[00:58:27] But I wanted to get back to, oh, first of all, you know, when I was saying about people need to talk to one another, I'm going to invite you to something now. Yeah. So I'm doing an event here at the house. It's actually two different days, same event, two different days with two different groups of people. Each one is 40 to 50 people. And what we're going to talk about is near to your heart, Colorado politics. Yeah. Now, you aren't invited to the main event. Okay. And I'll explain why.

[00:58:54] Because the main event is going to be mostly tech and business leaders. And it's a really compelling list from both Boulder and Denver and even a little bit further away in Colorado. And it's set up to have roundtable discussions, each 10 to 11 people. And we rotate through a series of topics where, you know, we're there because we're all concerned about the direction that Colorado has taken.

[00:59:18] But the structure is not to get up there and hear someone talk at us and tell everyone else what they should know. It's to have the people talk to each other and say, what's really going on? How do we make sense of it? And my guess is 80% of the people there probably, if they had to affiliate with Republican or Democrat, they would affiliate with Democrat Party. Most of them probably call themselves independents. But this isn't about politics. It's about, you know, all the things we've been discussing, how to get Colorado back on a better trajectory.

[00:59:48] But what we're going to do is, at the end of the day, we're going to invite some of the political leaders to come join us and hear the readouts from, you know, we have an open mic session at the end where anyone can get up and tell what they're taking away from it. So listen to open mic and join us afterwards for some food and cocktails. And we're going to get some music here as well. In fact, Anna, it's your music. Your music friends are going to be at one of them, right?

[01:00:13] So we're going to, so hopefully you'll be able to join us for one or both of those days. And you'll have to, like, hide the fact that you're Republican because you'll be in Boulder here. So you never know what might happen to a Republican in Boulder. I say it in jest because I think a lot of people here are, you know, we joke about being, like, the Democratic Republic of Boulder. But I think people are people. And, you know, I don't really buy into that as much. But I think people need to talk to each other.

[01:00:42] More importantly, they need to listen to each other. And we as a tech leadership crowd and a business leadership crowd, we need to do what you're doing right now, which is to get deeper into, okay, what is it about what feels so obvious to us that a vibrant tech ecosystem and a vibrant business ecosystem is a necessary ingredient for a prosperous and healthy state?

[01:01:04] Why is it so obvious to us that we're taking political acts and saying things, rhetoric, political rhetoric, that's undermining it? Why is it so obvious to us yet those very people who are, you know, saying these things that we are, like, alarmed with are getting the super majority of the votes and are getting elected and are getting rewarded for putting these policies in place?

[01:01:34] So what are we missing? Why are we unable to connect those dots? Because it can't be that we just need to talk more and talk louder and express ourselves to try to convince other people that, you know, we're right and they're wrong. There's got to be more to the story than that. But what is it? And that's what you got into a little bit. Yeah, I have an interesting thought on this kind of philosophically because you'd mentioned earlier, you know, you're a young guy and you're a Republican. That's kind of not typical. And I reflect on, like, how I was raised, right?

[01:02:03] And so, yes, you know, grown up, you know, very, I would say, very poor and below the poverty line, certainly, when I was very young. But I remember my dad having this very independent, like, rugged individualism mentality where he used to say things like, the only time the government comes and knocks on my door is when they have their hand out wanting more, right? And so he very much viewed the government as I'm paying taxes to you.

[01:02:33] You're taking this percentage of my income and all these other fees and whatnot. But, like, what am I getting in return? Because he was very independent in that sense. And so I grew up very, like, the government is not there to solve my problem. It's more to get in the way I'm trying to solve my own problem, and I'm doing that by working harder. I'm getting educated, you know, doing different things to make myself better and get out of the situation that I'm in.

[01:03:00] And the government is actually the one kind of getting in the way in a sense. And I do think there's a very big philosophical difference there between what I would say probably most Democrats, whether you're the DSA kind or even moderate, which is, no, no, government is there as, like, the safety net and the blanket to help you. And I say this as someone, you know, my parents split up when I was very young, three or four years old. And so, you know, they were both, they were, in a sense, single parents in that sense, right?

[01:03:29] And they, my mom got government assistance when I was young, very much so. And she still worked full time and everything, but she would get help. I believe I was on, like, Florida's equivalent of their Medicaid program for, you know, medical insurance. So, like, we did get government help, and it was there. We also paid into it, right, and probably paid into more than what we actually got out of it. But it was there.

[01:03:56] And so Republicans aren't against, at least I'm not, against those safety nets to help people. No, let me say it stronger. Yeah. I'm for safety nets. Right. Safety nets are an essential part of a functioning society. Right. And the absence of that is not the answer. Right. And, you know, so it's degrees and structures and incentives and motivations.

[01:04:20] I mean, you know, I think we would certainly agree on this, which is we want to be in, you know, in a culture where people have opportunity. Right. Right. They have an incentive to live the life that they want to live, to pursue, you know, happiness, to use kind of words out of our, I guess, Constitution, wherever that is written down. Right. And so we've got to be in a healthy environment where people have freedom.

[01:04:49] They have the opportunity. They can rise themselves up from whatever circumstances they were born in. And, you know, but we also recognize that doesn't mean, you know, you don't take that to the extreme. You don't say, and then therefore everyone's on their own. Right. And, you know, yeah, there's certain people who are born into more advantage than other people. And you've got to find ways to kind of deal with that. Right. You don't just ignore that and pretend it doesn't exist.

[01:05:15] And you certainly don't have, you know, a society that doesn't have, you know, have safety nets built into it. Right. But you've got to be pragmatic and you've got to, like, you've got to respect the laws of supply and demand of economics. Because if you ignore those, which socialism does, you know, you'll end up, you know, with what are very predictable outcomes. Yeah. People do have to have the incentive to work and they have to have rewards.

[01:05:42] It's not, you know, what's the motto in traditional socialism? You know, I'm going to forget the words, but do what you can do, but only take, you know, what you need. Yeah, to each according to their own. It's like, that doesn't work. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I don't know who invented the laws of economics, but the laws of economics don't permit that. You know, it just doesn't. You can't legislate that to be the case.

[01:06:11] If you do, you end up in a society that is just totally imbalanced. It just doesn't work. It's extremely hard to dig yourself out of a hole and out of your situation if you're paying, like in Canada, where you're paying 50, 60, 70% of your tax. Again, because you're just kind of left over with a small percentage of what you have. And I don't think that's a system that most Americans would agree with.

[01:06:36] Like, if you said, hey, you could get free housing, but you have to pay 70% of your income to it. I think most people would say, you know what, I think I can use my- That's government-controlled housing. Exactly. I think I could use my money better to invest how I want, and I'll keep it. Thank you. I think when we use the word affordable housing, and what we're really talking about is government-controlled, government-subsidized housing. Right.

[01:07:03] We should say government-controlled, because there's a role for government-subsidized housing. But a lot of times, people are using affordable housing without realizing. You do realize that that's a whole category of housing that really is under control. And my guess is there's people making money on affordable housing that your jaw would drop at when you realize how distorted that gets at times.

[01:07:26] Again, it doesn't mean there isn't a role for truly appropriate housing that there are subsidies to help people in times of need. But as a widespread program, all you're doing is making other housing more expensive and less plentiful. And then you complain that housing's too expensive. It's like, okay, let me give you, I'm really good at saying naive things and expecting them to happen.

[01:07:52] So tell me why this isn't an obvious way to solve affordability. Maybe not solve it, but at least make a dent in it. So the thing that makes things least affordable is housing, right? I mean, there's other things too, but certainly if inflation is under runaway control, that's priority number one. But then priority number two is the cost of housing. If the cost of housing is high, things are less affordable. Right.

[01:08:17] So, you know, we would agree, I think, that, you know, the cost of housing is high and therefore the biggest hurdle to affordability. So I would think that we should declare, you know, as a priority that we need more housing. Because if we had more housing, we'd have more supply. And if we had more supply, then there would be at least pockets of more affordable housing. Right.

[01:08:45] By definition, because people would go in those housing and you have more supply, you know. So the question is, okay, and the opposite is also true. If you don't have a lot more supply, you could talk about affordability all you want. It's not going to become affordable unless you, unless, you know, your economy's, you know, falling apart. Right. So if you want there to be more housing, why wouldn't we get all of our heads together, all of our collective wisdom, say, what can we do to spur the growth of housing?

[01:09:13] Let's just come, let's get that, you know, whiteboard out and our markers out and sit around in a circle. You know, hey, you know, Republicans and Democrats, why don't we sit, you know, together as opposed to you on one side or another. And let's just get some business people in here and some other people in here. And let's come up with all the things we can do to spur a housing boom. You know, and by the way, we can't do it by using government money to subsize it because then we'll have to increase taxes and that will counter it.

[01:09:43] So what else can we do? I got an idea. Let's streamline our permitting process. Good. Let's come up with 10 ideas of that. Yeah. What else can we do? Let's, you know, relax. Let's make it so that unnecessary requirements that add to the cost of build get eliminated. You know, so let's review all those and see if we can lower the costs and let's make our land use a little bit less restrictive. And let's just do a bunch of things and see if we can get the pace of housing growth to go up. Why wouldn't we do that? I mean, is that a Republican or a Democrat thing?

[01:10:12] Or is that just like common sense 101? You need more supply? Let's look at everything that interferes with more supply and get that out of the way. I have a bill that I think you'll be very interested in. I don't want to go too much into detail right now because I still haven't pulled the title, but I'm working through the initial processes. But it has to do with the streamlining permitting that I think you'll find very interesting, which I'll tell you off camera. But to your point, I was sitting down with a very well-known developer down in Colorado Springs just a few weeks ago.

[01:10:42] And I believe he said for a single family home, he's $84,000 out of pocket before he even starts to actually build the house. It's my understanding that there is a, I believe, I don't know if I'm using the right terminology, task force, some kind of commission. Something is happening in that space around housing affordability very soon, which it's kind of funny because it's like we have endless task force in Colorado.

[01:11:11] I don't know if every state is like this, but we have a task force for literally everything. And it seems like I'm constantly, as minority leader, I'm appointing people to different task forces all around the state. So those conversations are happening. I feel like we probably already know a lot of the things you said, the permitting and other fees and requirements just to break ground.

[01:11:36] And in the months and months, if not years, before you can even actually get everything approved to get started, all adds to the end cost. And I think the, sorry, the Common Sense Institute, I believe it was said that they did a study a year or two ago and they did a report on it.

[01:11:55] And just with some of the energy green, I guess you could call it regulations, that it was adding something like $23,000 per new build just from like one bill that passed in the last couple years. And I'm like, you know, if you're trying to get a starter home, especially if you're young, you're starting a family, it's your first house. Like that $23,000 increase that you may already be kind of at your limit.

[01:12:23] That extra $23,000 just for essentially maybe something you don't need, like requiring wiring for an electric car in a garage when maybe you don't even have an electric car. Just kind of different standards that we've enforced in the law. Like that may be the difference between whether you can afford the house or not. And whether the house gets built or not.

[01:12:44] Because the other cumulative effect is if there's less housing supply because of all these, you know, well-intentioned ideas that, you know, prolong the length of time to build and add cost to the build means a lot of things that want to get built won't get built. And then on top of it, if you criticize like those who are building and developing, well, they're going to make money on that. Well, maybe they'll make money, maybe they'll lose money. Let the market decide that, but let's do everything we can to get them to build as much as possible.

[01:13:13] And, you know, and if some of them make money, great. If some of them don't make money, well, they took the business risk. That's their issue. But our job as regulators, as people who care, and I think it's general, I almost said who say they care because I do think they care. I think we all care. We care about making housing more affordable. Right.

[01:13:34] So, but if that's your goal to make housing more affordable, you've got to roll up your sleeves and be part of the, okay, what can we do to make it, you know, the housing supply be more plentiful. Right. But you can't do it by saying, hey, I got a great idea. Why don't we, why don't we subsidize the costs of certain types of housing and pay for it by increasing the fees we collect from, you know, those who are building other kinds of housing. Right. Like, you didn't solve anything there. All you did is distort the market and make less housing get built.

[01:14:04] Right. And you took away the opportunity for some people who would also like to own a house, by the way, or live in something more affordable. You remove that opportunity by making it much less likely things get built because you want to use that money to subsidize housing for other people who, what, are they, you know, more, you know, entitled to a house than the other person who wasn't able to get one because you made it less affordable? Well, let's just like do everything we can to do what we say we want to do, make housing more affordable. Yeah.

[01:14:34] And I don't know why that's, that's not a, that shouldn't be a Republican versus a Democrat issue. It should be a, let's do what's best for Colorado issue. Yeah. Well, you know, I mean, kind of since we're on housing, I think rent control is going to be, is going to be a bill that we see next year as well. Which again, you have plenty of case studies of where this has happened before and it doesn't work. And everybody involved in that industry and sector will tell you why it won't work.

[01:15:01] But I think we're going to see it again because it's, you know, and I hate to be cynical. I am pretty cynical though. When we're talking about. Well, at least you have a smile on your face when you're cynical. Well, I mean, there's so much about politics that is, there's a lot of demagoguery, there's a lot of virtue signaling and it's like, well, I'm going to run this bill. Even though I know, you know, historically rent control or whatever the issue is, doesn't actually work out in the long run.

[01:15:27] I can go back to my constituents and say, look, I tried, you know, to be, you know, equitable and all of this. It's just so lazy. But it is very lazy. Intellectually lazy. When you talk to a lot of politicians behind closed doors, you go, you know, this is not going to work. Like there's plenty of examples of how it doesn't work. And it's kind of like, well, maybe it does. You know, you'll kind of get that like, well, maybe it will this time. And you're like, you know better than that. Like, come on.

[01:15:53] To me, it's like, this is what I struggle with is let's say it does work and it does pass. You know, it's going to harm Colorado down the road. So is that a victory because you've got votes? Or is it like, oh, I fooled my voters to convince them that I did something that was good for them, but I'm smart enough to know it really wasn't.

[01:16:18] And, you know, that's what's, I'd say that's what's frustrating me, but I'm past the point in my life where I get frustrated by this stuff. I get, you know, dangerously, I get, you know, almost humored by some of this, but I know how devastating and damaging this is to real everyday people. And it's like, that's where I get torn. Like some days I'm like, well, what do I care? You know, I can live whatever life I want to live right now and spend my time however I want to spend my time.

[01:16:46] And, you know, why get all riled up trying to, you know, speak up against things that just don't feel right. And then fortunately, at least up to now, I overcome that and say because it's the right thing to do. It's the right thing for all of Colorado. I don't care deeply about Colorado and I don't want to see Colorado following the footsteps of states that are, you know, flat or declining. Right.

[01:17:13] You know, and I don't, as much as I love people from Texas and Arizona and wherever else, I don't want them to win. I want us to win. I'm a competitive person. I want Colorado to win. For us to be like, we're going to do stuff that allows Texas. But I just picture them laughing at us. Right. All the policies and like, good, you know, let's pass more of those stupid policies. Colorado will come, we'll come hang out in Bale and Beaver Creek in the, in the winters. And, you know, and we'll go pay our zero taxes in Texas while our economy is taking off.

[01:17:43] And, you know, you'll get some of that back when we come visit you guys. But keep passing all those stupid policies because that allows us to attract all the high growth businesses. And we are on an island of our own. I mean, if you look at a map and you look at our surrounding states here and it's like none of the states around us are doing these kind of extreme things that Colorado is doing. And that's the frustrating part. Right. And, and the amount of people who I know who have moved to Wyoming and have moved to Texas, moved to Kansas, you know, they're just like, yeah, no, I'm done.

[01:18:12] Like they have really nice mountains in Utah also. You know what I mean? Like I'm going to go to Utah and enjoy the mountains and not have to deal with kind of the nonsense that has been going on in Colorado here. And it's like, and they're, and they're good people that are leaving and that you're like, no, you want those people here. You want them to raise their families here and have future generations. Like these are great, you know, Coloradans. And unfortunately I think we are losing some. I go to a lot. Yeah.

[01:18:38] And a lot of it is not as obvious because what people do is they, they, they, they do the opposite of what Texas are doing. So if you, I was at a golf event in the mountains and more than 50% of the people in the event were from Texas. Yeah. Like how could that be? We're in a Colorado golf course. You know, how could that be? And it's because they're, they're residents of Texas and they spend, you know, multiple months up here in Colorado.

[01:19:08] Well, we're going to have Colorado people who do the polar ops of that. There's been multiple months Colorado, but they're going to be residents of Arizona, of Nevada, of Texas, of Utah, of, of Wyoming. And how can that be good for us? How could that be good when, you know, their kids are being born in those other states. They're going to school in other states. You know, they're, they're spending the majority of their money in other states. How could that be good for everyone else in Colorado?

[01:19:34] How could that be good for, you know, the, the kids who grew up in circumstances similar to what you described. How is it serving those kids by taking that economic activity and, and, and seeing it exported to Florida or, you know, Texas or, you know, some other state. I mean, it's not. Yeah. And how are political leaders, because, you know, I do believe in Colorado, which is maybe a unique positive relative to some other areas,

[01:20:03] is most of our political leaders, I think are very smart people. And they're, you know, they understand what we're talking about right now. This isn't like, you know, they just have a different point of view because they know this to be true. They have to know it to be true. They were in business themselves. They were supporters of entrepreneurship. You know, Phil Weiser, you know, I've known him for years and I first knew him through Silicon Flatirons Entrepreneurship Initiative, which he, he led and the tech crowd would get together, we'd work with one another.

[01:20:33] So I know he knows this to be true, but how can he know it to be true and others like him, yet be supporting policies that they just know are going to harm the long-term best interests of all of Coloradoans? That's what I just can't figure out. My experience at the Capitol is when you see policies where you're like, I know it's obvious that this in the long run will be hard for Colorado. What's difficult, I think a lot of times for politicians in general,

[01:21:00] is you'll have advocacy groups coming out in support or against, you know, whatever the certain scenario is. And it's that, that like demonization, like if you don't support rent control, you don't care about X, Y, Z, right? You don't care about poor people. You don't care about this mother here whose rent has went up. And, and, uh, you know, it's, it's kind of that, the politics of it that pressures people into, because they don't, you know, their next election cycle,

[01:21:30] they don't want to have mailers being sent to their constituents saying, you know, representative so-and-so voted against rent control because he or she doesn't care about poor people or something, you know, and it's, it's like the politics of it where it's, you're actually more concerned with the messaging than you are with the policy. Yeah. And so it forces you to vote for things that you, you understand to not necessarily be a good idea because you're worried about the backlash,

[01:21:59] your next election cycle or something. Now being a Republican in a very Republican district, I, I think I won by 44 points last election cycle. And I don't even have an opponent this cycle. So 44 points means like 44 votes. Yeah. 44 points. So, uh, yeah, I mean, by points, you mean by points, meaning percentage wise. You won by 44 percentage. Yeah. I live in a very Republican district in Northern El Paso County. Okay. And, and I don't even have an opponent this cycle.

[01:22:29] So that tends to make the elections easier. As long as my wife votes for me, I have one vote and then I should be good. Um, so I, you know, maybe. Is she questioning what the vote is? No, it depends what day it is. Like if she's mad at me or not. But, you know, I, the, so maybe I have the luxury of being like, you know what, I'm just, I'm going to do what's right. I don't care what the messaging is. It doesn't matter to me.

[01:22:52] And if, if it causes me to lose my next race, my next election, then the people wanted something different, you know, and I tend to, that's how I approach it. But I'm also not an overly ambitious person, which, uh, some people find funny cause they're like, okay, you're a freshman minority leader and still relatively young. And I'm like, but I, I actually called a friend and said, Hey, you should run for this office. And he said, look, the job doesn't pay enough.

[01:23:20] Uh, and I'm, I'm the, uh, the primary provider in my family. And so it got kicked back to me to do it. But, uh, so politics wasn't my original ambition. Um, and I think that gives me some freedom cause I'm not looking at climbing a ladder and going, okay, well, what's the next office I'm going to run for? Or like, that's not where my goals are necessarily. And so I have the freedom to say that it's easy for me to say that just do the right thing.

[01:23:48] Uh, it may be harder if you're in a position where you're like, well, I'm a state representative now, but then I want to be a state Senator. Then I want to be a Congress person. Then I want to be governor. You know, if you're trying to climb the ladder of politics, then, you know, the pressure is probably different. So let's spend this, uh, last amount of time talking about how Republicans and Democrats and independents kind of people who are in and around, you know, the center and, you know, where are there opportunities to collaborate?

[01:24:18] Do they collaborate? Do you guys talk to each other? Do you find opportunities to work together? And let me, before I give you a chance to talk through that, you know, there's a certain amount of pitch going on that people are worried that the Democrats are going to end up with a super majority, meaning, uh, enough of a majority that they could override a veto. I'm like, I don't know that that's a real concern because it, that would imply that the governor,

[01:24:47] you know, Bill Weiser, I think it's safe to say is going to want to veto something and that everyone in the democratic party down the last vote is going to side against them and override his veto. Like that can't possibly be the case. Now it's more likely that, you know, he's not going to want to veto something that the majority of Democrats favor, but if it's a scenario where he's going to veto it, I've got to believe that, you know, there's enough Democrats that would go along with him that,

[01:25:15] you know, over being able to Democrats not be able to override vetoes a little bit of a, you know, of a strange scenario. Well, but do Democrats and Republicans at the center, you know, is there room to work together and collaborate and shoot the shit and say, Hey, this is not about R or D or independent. This is about Colorado. Does that happen or is that just stupid? No, no, it very much happens. So, uh, I believe around 80% of the bills.

[01:25:41] So we have anywhere between 650 to 700 bills per session around 80% are actually bipartisan bills. Now, a lot of that is to the credit of, of people like, uh, majority leader, Monica Duran. Who very much pushes for bills to be bipartisan and pushes her caucus members, you know, but she's term limited and she's running for the Senate. So we'll see who, what the next majority leader, if that's kind of their personal preference and policy and see if they push that for their caucus.

[01:26:08] But, uh, out of the, I think close to around 10 bills that I was a part of this year, uh, every single one of them was bipartisan. Um, I ran a couple with the speaker of the house, uh, I ran one or two with the majority leader, uh, as well as the speaker pro Tim, him and, uh, he and I passed the bill. So very much collaborative. Now coming from the minority standpoint, if you want a bill passed, you pretty much have

[01:26:33] to, um, have a Democrat on it unless it's like the most mundane nothing bill of all time where, you know, you just go, Hey, I'm running this bill. You know, it doesn't cost money. It's changing some vocabulary or something. And, um, and then you get it passed that way, which is still actually a rarity, uh, to not have a Democrat on it. But, uh, so there is a lot of working together and, you know, I think most Republicans, even

[01:26:59] like myself, I ran against someone who I would consider more far right, I guess you could say. And in our primary, I think it was a very distinct difference between us because, uh, some of the, the comments he had made, we were on actually the same podcast, not at the same time. It was like back-to-back interviews. And when I was, I think I went first and I got asked about kind of this, like, you know, bipartisanship and all that.

[01:27:25] And I said, look, I, I'm, I am always going to work across the aisle and come together and work with whoever wants to do something good for Colorado and make, make life better. And I said, but at the same time, that doesn't mean that just because you and I are on a bill together to, you know, maybe cut taxes or something. We're collaborating that way. That doesn't mean that if you then turn around and run a horrible bill that I won't go down there and fight it with everything I have, right?

[01:27:51] I'm going to fight the things that I perceive as bad and I'll collaborate on things that are good, which was a very different approach than my opponent at the time who literally said on the same podcast, like, I'm not going there to make friends. I'm not going to work across the aisle, you know, this and that, like, just kind of like hold the line. And so I think most Republicans, and I would say the vast majority who are in the state house or even the state Senate very much have the same approach I do, which is very pragmatic.

[01:28:19] Like, I just want good things done for Colorado. So let's work together where we can. Now, if you bring something that I feel is like a very left wing type bill, that's going to be very bad for Colorado, then we're going to use the procedures we can and argue as, as hard as we have to, to try to stop that. So it can happen because it does happen. Here's my biggest kind of takeaway, and I hope your listeners probably maybe feel the same

[01:28:48] way about this, is my biggest concern with how the primaries went in June is that if you have a lot of DSA type candidates that are very far to the left, if you, by them winning in the way that they did, I'm worried that what I perceive, what I would consider moderate Democrats,

[01:29:11] I'm afraid it's going to force them to the left because they're concerned about next election cycle, two years from now. And I mean, my understanding is that some of that's already happening. I think you are starting to see some of it because I think you're starting to see some moderate Democrats who normally would not show up to a DSA meeting starting to attend those meetings. And that very much concerns me.

[01:29:39] The last point about the veto thing, I think that it's a very real threat for having two super majorities in the Senate and the House because there will be bills, like Governor Polis vetoed quite a few bills, and every single Democrat would have been supportive of overriding that veto, like if it's like Labor Peace Act or even maybe rent control.

[01:30:04] And again, it goes back to, I think most Democrats understand that rent control is not a good idea, but the politics of it forces them to feel obligated to be a yes. And that's where having Republicans not being in a super minority, we could block a veto override on something like that if the next governor ends up getting that bill on their desk and they have to veto it. Also, the governor plays no role in the ballot initiative side of it.

[01:30:33] So if you have two, if you have the super majority in both chambers, they can put these constitutional amendments straight to the ballot with no governor input, in essence. And so if they don't get the graduated tax this year, they can bring it back next year. And then if it fails again, bring it back the following year. They can, the Independent Redistricting Commission, you know, right now we have four Republicans and four Democrats.

[01:30:58] The proposed maps that were released publicly were seven, one, seven Democrats, one Republican. They could change that Independent Redistricting Commission through a change on the Constitution. And if they have super majorities, they can just put that right through every year until it does pass. So there's a whole lot more to it that I think would be very, very devastating. We were in the super minority from 2022 to 2024.

[01:31:25] We got ourselves out last election cycle in the 24 election cycle. However, the big backstop was that the Senate was not in a super minority. The Republicans were not in a super minority from 22 to 24. So that was kind of the backstop there. But each chamber is only one seat away. So let me ask you one more question, as those are good points. I'm not as versed on certain elements of politics that maybe I should be.

[01:31:56] How do we get college students engaged in conversation? How do we, and I mean conversation, I don't mean come and listen us talk at them, but where they really want to have meaningful conversations about what's going on. And so if they're, you know, because I do get the sense that there's an opportunity to have to, I'd like to understand better about like what's driving, whatever's driving them today. Yeah.

[01:32:24] But it requires a two-way engagement that is, you know, that people are willing to at least show up to even if they, you know, show up without an open mind, at least they would show up. But I don't even know how to convene them. I don't know how to get them interested enough to get in some kind of forum where there's real conversation taking place. So what I personally do is I've went several times to UCCS and went and spoke to 100 plus students each time.

[01:32:54] And it's their class. It's just a part of, and it's not even necessarily, I think it's like an intro to government one time, then the other one was political science. But it was like their class is like a two-hour block. And I showed up as a guest speaker. I talked for about an hour. And then I took questions for the other hour because I wanted to get engaged. And I mean, there were some pretty hostile questions there. It caught me off guard on a couple of them.

[01:33:20] But, you know, it was that perspective and going back and forth. And I had, I mean, I had a line of people at the end of it, like thanking me for coming there. And they weren't all Republicans, but again, it's kind of, I'm trying to change that perception. As far as like, how do you just get them overall? I don't know because I have serious issues with what I see happening on university campuses around the country in general.

[01:33:46] I mean, maybe set up like a fake Coachella in Boulder and be like, hey, there's going to be all these live bands there. And when they all show up, you go, guess what, we're actually going to talk about politics and try to bridge the gap here. But no, aside from that, you know, I don't know other than just getting engaged with the professors who are in charge of the classes and then saying, hey, can we do a roundtable? Can we do an event? And there are a lot of those things happening.

[01:34:16] Unfortunately, I think what you've seen around the country over the last decade or so is if there's a speaker coming to a college campus and it's like, oh, I don't like that speaker because they have a view on something, then I want to shut it down. I want to protest. I want to try to block them from talking, which I don't think is healthy. And I think college administrators, faculty, whoever's in authority on those colleges, like you got to, you got to shut that down.

[01:34:44] Like it's fine to protest, but you can't impede the other students from going and listening and hearing differences of opinion. And so, you know, I think we have to just continue having that dialogue. Me personally, I will go there and engage in the way that I can, but I don't know how else you force people to pay attention. They have to want to, you know. The right people need to merge with the charisma that attracts people to come talk to them.

[01:35:11] Even if they disagree, but enough charisma that they want to show up and express themselves. Yeah. It's surprising that, you know, college campus like CU, that that doesn't naturally happen. Right. Maybe it doesn't. I just haven't seen it. But, you know, I do want to figure out how to crack that nut in part because I'm interested in just, I would love just to hear the conversations even more so. I'd love to participate in them because it is bewildering that there's this support for

[01:35:40] a set of, you know, not just policies, but for a mindset that seems so self-destructive that I would love to just engage in conversation and, you know, understand part of what perhaps I'm missing and a lot of people like me are missing. But also, you know, maybe encourage them to think a little bit more through things and what their life will be like. I'm not talking about 30 years from now, five years from now, 10 years from now. And, you know, because a lot of what's in play right now, at least for Colorado, is going

[01:36:10] to, you know, be harmful to them. Right. And just help them connect the dots. Yeah. You know, I do have an experience that I think you'll appreciate. I believe this was the day that Governor Polis commuted the sentence of Tina Peters, but I was scheduled to go speak at Denver University and there was going to be two separate panels and I was the only Republican from what I recall.

[01:36:37] So it was myself and the Speaker of the House and Jesse Paul from the Colorado Sun was the one kind of moderating it. And when I when I showed up to the event, when I was I was walking down a hallway to the room where it was at and I could hear like an echo, like screaming down the hallway. And I was like, OK, what is going on here? And I come around the corner and there were protesters that had taken over the stage and were yelling and screaming and had signs and saying some very vulgar stuff.

[01:37:07] And I looked at one of the TV screens they had there and it was Governor Polis was on it. And Jesse Paul, who was moderating it, was actually in a side room interviewing Governor Polis from his laptop because he had to go to the side room to try to get as quiet as possible to ask the questions. But the students there, it's a pretty small group, but big enough to like take over the event, totally took it over and were yelling and screaming.

[01:37:35] And I'm standing there and I'm like, well, I don't think they're very pro-Republican either. So like, you know, I was kind of just hanging out there, just watching the whole thing play out. But I was I was kind of, I don't know, surprised that maybe I shouldn't be surprised that at no point where like did anybody step in like campus security and say, hey, listen, you can go protest, but you got to go outside. You know, you can't be in here literally standing on the stage protesting.

[01:38:01] It was just like there was almost no authority to like take control there. And finally, I think they just got tired of yelling and maybe Jesse Paul entered the interview with Governor Polis. And then, you know, they they got off the stage and I think some of them left, some of them stayed. And then I come walking up as the lone Republican and had a really good conversation with the Speaker of the House and Jesse Paul. But, you know, I think, again, willingness to go in there and have those conversations

[01:38:26] and you are going into a hostile environment depending on what college camp it is and what political affiliation you are. I mean, we all are very aware of what happened to Charlie Kirk literally getting murdered on a college campus in Utah a year ago. And so I think those are the realities. But you just have to keep having the conversation because once the conversation stops, that's where history tells you that it gets really ugly. Yeah. And the team of Peters, I didn't really know any of the facts of the case.

[01:38:55] But when Governor Polis did the veto and I saw the reaction, it made me start to dig into it. And I eventually wrote a newsletter about it. And what struck me the most was the dishonesty about the facts of what really happened, with the most notable one being that because people are like, well, she got, you know, convicted through the courts and was serving her term.

[01:39:22] Like, yeah, but you're leaving out the part that, and I'm going to get a little bit wrong here, but there was a ruling from Democrats in the state that it was an inappropriate sentence. That that happened. So that was part of the rule of law that you're talking about. The rule of law included an appeals process where whoever was involved in the appeals process,

[01:39:46] which were judges, I presume, in the facts, you know, came out and said that the sentence was, what was the word for that? Excessive. Excessive. Yeah. And so now, you know, they're, you know, the only thing at play was, well, how excessive was it? But no one would come out and say that. Like, you know, our political leaders, our most important political leaders other than Governor Polis wouldn't say, okay, let's put this in perspective.

[01:40:13] Yes, she was convicted, but also it was determined that her sentence was extensive. And what Governor Polis did was, you know, was as governor, he used his powers as governor to commute the sentence, not say she didn't do it. Right. But to respond to the fact that it was said to be excessive. So you could say, I disagree. He shouldn't have done that. But to pretend that that wasn't part of what happened was like, instead they would go to

[01:40:40] the extreme and just like, she was duly convicted and like, okay, I don't know. Right. Well, I mean, in Colorado, and this is the argument that I made to Governor Polis when I talked to him about it before, a month or so before he did it. And it wasn't like a public thing. I just gave him my two cents on it and said, you know, this is where I stand, whether you care or not. And I just pointed out the fact that in Colorado, 70% of child sex offenders get probation.

[01:41:10] 70%, 7-0% get probation. And I'm like, 70% of child sex offenders get probation. But you have a 70-year-old grandma, first time offender, had never, ever been in trouble before, get nine years. And I'm like, in Colorado, you can steal like three or four cars before you even start getting anywhere close to that kind of a sentence. And so I'm like, in my opinion, that's very excessive, you know?

[01:41:40] And, you know, to Governor Polis's credit, he'd heard it. And I think that's where he came down was like, not saying that what she did was good or anything like that. He obviously, if he felt that way, he could have pardoned her, which he didn't. He just commuted the sentence. And after, she'd already spent a couple years in prison anyways. More than a couple years? Did she spend like four and a half years or something like that? Yeah, I guess it might have been. Yeah. Well, if she was in, because I believe she was in throughout some of the process, because

[01:42:09] obviously this happened around 2020. But I also didn't follow it as closely as a lot of people that I do know that followed it with all the appeals and everything. Yeah, absolutely. So anyways, it's been a pleasure getting to know a Republican in Colorado. I say, talking to you, I know all the Republicans. But not too many people come out and say they're Republican. I assume a lot of them are. I don't know.

[01:42:36] But I certainly, you know, it's funny because like I said early on, a lot of people just assume because they read what I write that I must be Republican. I'm like, first of all, a lot of what I've written was written from the perspective of why is it that entrepreneurs and investors are choosing to leave certain states and choosing to go to other states? Like, what are the reasons behind that? Not whether those are right. I was explicit.

[01:43:03] It doesn't mean that therefore we should, you know, only optimize around that one factor. But here are the reasons they do it. And then people just assume I then therefore agree with it. And I'm like, but you're missing the point. If all that sounds like Republican, you know, pro stuff and anything against it sounds like Democrat, maybe the Democrats need to think through a little bit more. Why do they support all these policies that are driving kind of, you know, economic activity to other geographies?

[01:43:30] Like, maybe that should be the discussion, not you sound like a Republican. But anyways, you sound like a very reasonable, pragmatic, thoughtful person who has served our country and who took himself up from difficult circumstances growing up and found your way forward. You're a sign of the American dream is still alive. And I appreciate what you've done for the country when you were in serving in the armed forces.

[01:43:58] But I appreciate equally as much what you're doing right now and that you're that you're willing to and able to effectively engage to try to find solutions that are in the best interest of the Colorado. So thank you. Thank you very much, Dan. It's an honor to be here and really appreciate a great conversation. Great. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for listening to this episode of The Bear Roars. Check out Stretch, the new song from Dan Caruso with music by Jason Mendelsohn, available now on all streaming services.

[01:44:28] If you enjoyed the episode, please like and subscribe on your listening platform. This podcast was produced by Loud Bear Productions and edited by Hannah Schmetzer with support from Kendall Weinberg, Alex Kim and Gibson Seagert.