There is a lot of pushing and pulling going on in Colorado right now.

Washington is pushing hard against Colorado, and Colorado is pushing right back.

The state is also on the offense, pushing back against a private company that runs the Ice detention center in Aurora.

Already, you can feel the tug of war on some of the issues that we'll be facing on our ballots in November.

And when it comes to back to school and education in Colorado, there is also a push and pull there.

Some highs, some lows and some gaffes.

Now, this may sound like a lot to take in, but we can thanks to those around the table behind me who are all ready to share their insight and perspective.

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

hi everyone, I'm Kyle Dyer.

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

We start with Patty Calhoun, founder and editor emeritus of Westword.

Eric Saunderson, columnist with Colorado Politics and the Denver and Colorado Springs Gazette.

Tyrone Glover, criminal defense and civil rights attorney in Denver and Jimmy Sagan, burger and investigative columnist with the Denver Gazette.

The relationship between Colorado and the Trump administration is increasingly contentious, right?

Attorneys for the state say a white House email from December is their smoking gun.

In a lawsuit alleging the administration retaliated against Colorado over the prosecution of former Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters.

And our mail in voting system, and the administration is appealing a federal judge's decision to dismiss its lawsuit seeking sensitive information about Colorado voters from the secretary of State's office.

Patty, where would you like to begin this week?

Well, once again, Tina Peters.

So on Monday, all the talk was about how a kind of irrefutable county clerk in California had offered her a job.

But Tina Peters could not take a job because she's got a full time job.

Running around talking again about how the 2020 election was fixed.

And we see it is has ramifications in the white House.

So last week, the Denver Post got its hands on a great memo that was in the case about the case, about the election issue.

And it's said flat out, let's get together for brainstorming about how to hurt Colorado.

Didn't mention Tina Peters, but the timing was so suspicious.

Went to five different agencies, And this is not the only time we've seen the evidence.

And then things, you know, we didn't get our disaster declarations.

There were other issues, but already in another court case, we've seen that, states that did not go for Trump lost energy contracts.

And although Chris Wright said that wasn't the case, it was all science.

We have since seen that he lied.

And in another deposition, they admit they went after the states and pulled the contracts.

And to quote Senator Michael Bennet, who I think put it well, this is a federal government or, you know, you referred to, quote unquote, weaponizing the federal government.

And this is a federal government under Donald Trump that really doesn't see its duty or mandate or responsibility being to serve all 50 states and territories and all the rest.

It's to serve the red part of the country.

I think the memo that was referred to in your question, Kyle, is sort of the smoking gun.

But it's one thing to deal with the law.

It's another thing to deal with norms.

And I think the big tragedy of these Trump years is not that it's not the illegalities.

It's what is done to what has long been regarded as normative behavior in this country, which is, yes, you campaign hard.

Elections are hard fought.

But after the election, the president of the United States is the president of all of the United States.

And I'm not sure this president defines his job as such.

What does our lawyer think of all this?

Eric, address the the behaviors and the norms.

I will talk about the law and the illegality.

The president does have powers under the spending clause.

Right.

But the strings must be clear.

They must be germane.

They must not be cause right.

When you get together like the Department of Transportation, Department of Energy, because you want them to be nicer to your friend in Mesa County.

There's not a nexus there, right?

That that is a violation of the spending clause.

And as somebody whose firm regularly prosecutes retaliation cases, I can count on my hand the number of times I've had a smoking gun sort of email or memo like we have in this case.

A lot of times you're piecing together all different, you know, pieces of circumstantial evidence to try to sort of imply that there was some sort of retaliation for, but for them to essentially put it in a 3 a.m.

memo slash email, hey, y'all, let's all get together and figure out what we can do about Colorado is pretty unprecedented.

For, you know, folks purportedly operating at some level of sophistication that they're with the federal government.

And, Jimmy.

I think there are a couple of things at play here.

One, Republicans are at risk of setting a dangerous precedent here in any sort of retribution scheme or even the perception of that.

And I think they need to be wary because it can come back to bite them with the next Democratic administration.

But I also think that we need to acknowledge Jared Polis, his role as governor in this because of the commutation he gave at least the sense to President Trump that there's a vindication here He cited the First Amendment and freedom of speech issues.

But the fact of the matter is that if the appeals court hinged all kinds of things on that, that it was so wrong of Judge Matthew Barrett to raise some of those issues, they would not have given Judge Barrett the case back to him.

They would have had a different judge.

They would not have said, you can address this how you want to.

When you get to resentencing, even you don't have to.

They never told him he needed to do a hearing or anything else.

So Governor Polis, by approaching it the way that he did, at least gives President Trump the sense this can work.

And there are two aspects to this that we can't separate, Okay.

All right.

Moving on now.

Colorado students are back to school now.

And we now have a clearer picture of how they're doing in the classroom.

There's new statewide testing results that show some encouraging progress.

Fourth and fifth graders, for example, improved in reading and writing, while middle schoolers struggled a bit.

Math scores continue to rise among elementary and middle school students, with eighth graders making the biggest gains.

However, the picture isn't all positive.

There are still significant gaps.

Eric, where would you like to start with?

Stands out to you?

Don't get me wrong, any progress is to be celebrated.

Any progress is to be acknowledged and honored.

But the progress has been pretty marginal that we've seen with a few exceptions and a few schools.

I don't think any serious person out there really regards the Colorado education system from K through higher education as being all that it should be, and as being touted at the moment as being the somehow the gold standard.

And I finish by saying, if we are indeed the gold standard, as everyone is now proclaiming at the top of their lungs, why all these complaints about all the chronic underfunding?

If we are doing this well, if we're rocking it with we're number one in the country and we're doing it being underfunded, doesn't that say something?

Okay, I run, one of the sort of gaps that I'm not, thrilled about, is this 9% presidency for the IEP kids?

I mean, these are kids who've been identified with specialized learning plans and still have 90% of them, you know, being kind of under where they need to be.

I realize that that's up from 5.5%, but I think that that statistic is really, troublesome.

But I do think celebrating what I think is like the grassroots, you know, in the trenches work of the three teachers, Archuleta, Greenwood and, Horace Mann, who were able to cut I think I just want to make sure I get the statistics right.

The below grade level, for black students and reading by ten points and to get them above or at by 20 points in one year, it's just a reminder that the real work for these districts isn't happening at the board level is happening in the classroom.

And that's to me.

When we look at the data, three 37.3% proficient in math, 44.8% proficient in English, that's less than half on all of those numbers.

You go to a district like Denver Public Schools in particular, and it's not just in the data that shows 35% overall proficient or 42.5 proficient in English.

But when you specifically look at the minority communities that are being most left behind by the district, the, black and Brown students in particular, 26.6% of black students are proficient in English and Hispanic students 25% a quarter, black students when it comes to math, 21.6% 19.4%.

For Hispanic students, that is dismal performance from a district that puts out a press release celebrating its wonderful achievement.

And I think this goes to the failed leadership of Superintendent Alex Marrero, who absolutely, without question, should go.

But he's the same person who last year, when DPS, the largest school district in the state, achieved green accreditation barely by the skin of its teeth for the first time in six or so years, celebrated that when it's the bare minimum that we should be expecting from our districts, unfortunately, we've got this is an improvement, but we've got a lot more to do.

to play off what Eric said, it is no surprise that the all the different school districts and the state would be touting the number one win just because they've been they've been slapped for all the other U.S.

News and World Report not doing well in business, not the other things the the all those are fuzzy math.

When you talk about our improvement in math, we're just getting better at fuzzy math.

And U.S.

News and World Report does it too.

So if people can take a victory lap over a slight improvement that at least looks good nationally, you don't blame the state for doing it.

But the slide in language arts is concerning.

And it's not just teaching, but it's what are the phones doing It was kind of refreshing at least, to see Suzanne Cordova, who got dumped basically by DPS, at least head of the board of education, who can issue coherent sentences and doesn't seem to need consultants to tell her how to do it.

Okay.

From how colored schools are doing to how do we pay for them?

Local school boards are working really hard right now to put funding measures on the November ballot.

No matter where you live, you're likely to see either bond measures or military overrides.

And statewide voters will weigh in on prop nine, which would allow the state to keep more of the surplus revenue collected under Tabor for K through 12 public education.

So we have about ten days before we know exactly what will make the ballot.

But there will be plenty for voters to consider coming from financial issues to social issues.

Everything in between.

Tyrone, what are you keeping an eye on?

I'm keeping my eye on this immigration measure that I think runs in opposition to one of our most sacred constitutional tenants, the presumption of innocence.

This immigration measure is essentially saying that if police and prosecutors must notify the Department of Homeland Security within 72 hours of someone being charged, not convicted of a violent crime.

So someone who is presumed innocent, you know, cases that oftentimes either get dismissed or are pled down to something that is nonviolent prior to any sort of admission or finding of guilt, they are now be to be reported within 72 hours.

I have just some real concerns about this, because I think it does trample on the, the presumption of innocence.

And if it's enshrined in our Constitution, it's going to take a Supreme Court decision like we saw, you know, when we were the, I think the hate state right back in the 90s with Romer v Evans, it's just, I think going to be really difficult to undo this if Colorado decides to go down this path.

So that's the one that I'm watching.

Okay.

All right.

Give me a couple things that I'm keeping an eye on.

One, of course the big tax proposals of the graduated income tax, which Colorado abandoned back in, I think, 1988 and solidified with the taxpayer's Bill of rights in 92.

I think it would be a disaster for us to go back to that era, particularly given that we are already a state that businesses are fleeing as opposed to coming to.

And juxtaposed with that is advanced Colorado's measure to keep our flat tax at its current rate of 4.1% or wherever that is.

And I think that is a fruitful measure to ensure that we can have some competitiveness in the state.

But I'm also very interested in the measures from Protect Kids Colorado.

This parent coalition that includes, one to crack down on child trafficking, another that I sort of think of as like a title nine provision, which is to protect girls sports.

When we have the debates over biological males in girls sports, I think that's of value.

But then I also look at the third provision that they have, which measure that they have, which would just guarantee something that isn't really done all that much really, but to put a guarantee in it that would forbid, sex change, surgeries for youth and that sort of thing.

I think that's, a beneficial proposal that they've put forward.

But the biggest thing here is the discussion point that their measures, whether they fail or they succeed, at least having a conversation is valuable.

There are a lot of conversations about that, Patty, and they're.

Going to keep going.

I wanted to talk more about the bigger picture, the citizen initiatives.

I know some people hate them.

They were introduced in 1910 here in Colorado, and I think they're big this year, partly because people do not trust the people they've elected.

and they're taking it to the ballot box.

It's unfortunate that people, rich people, have also figured out how to game the system with these citizen initiatives, because we don't want that to happen.

We truly want it to be a vote of the people to see.

Where do they feel progressive or flat tax?

The ridiculous gender surgery bill, initiative or not?

I mean, there are a lot that really take the temperature of the state amendment to which you were talking about, which made us the hate state in 1992.

And that's also when Tabor passed.

In some ways, this is such an independent state, independent voters, unaffiliated, they want their say, and it's going to keep happening.

And I would hate to see citizen initiatives going away, but we might need to fix it so they can't be bought.

Okay.

All right, Nick.

I'm looking at a few things.

the graduated income tax, The other one I'm looking at is the road, the one about how all road taxes and road fees have to be dedicated to roads and can't be stopped up into other general fund expenditures, or even into other, quote unquote, transit related causes.

It's the road people saying, you know, to quote, a ballot initiative from a few years ago, fix our damn roads.

And I think the notion of road money going to road related expenditures could be attractive.

And then there's a hope that one additional ballot measure that I guess requires that all ballot measures in the future be awarded at an eighth grade reading level.

Well, we just saw what an eighth grade reading level is per the education scores.

And it's not that high.

All right.

Colorado has filed a lawsuit against the Geo Group which runs the Aurora Ice Processing Center, seeking to force it to comply with a tuberculosis investigation.

The lawsuit comes after state health officials issued an order for the health records of a detainee who tested positive for TB in June.

The Geo group ignored the order and missed the deadline to get back to the state.

And so, Jimmy, what do you make of the attorney general now getting involved in this case?

Well, I think a few things are going on.

the Geo group Ice doesn't do themselves a service when they don't sort of play ball here to provide documentation.

At the same time, there isn't trust on sort of both sides, where one you have an attorney general who's now running for governor will almost certainly be the next governor of the state and has touted his filing of lawsuits, taking the Trump administration to court over 60 times.

You can sort of add that this case to the list.

But also, Democrats have increasingly been pursuing an effort at the state legislature to get more access to a facilities like the Geo Group and I think that involves overreach, that involves trying to look under every nook and cranny to see what they can find for criticisms of Ice.

So there's a lot to balance here where the administration should be proactive in providing necessary information.

But I think they're worried about that kind of encroachment that could happen that this is sort of representative of.

Geo Group has been here running this this facility for a long time.

There have been health problems there for a long time.

There have been lawsuits.

The Geo Group has lost.

So for them to now refuse to comply with a state law asking for just some basic information about an infectious disease like TB is ridiculous.

They should.

They want to put in a $500 million facility in Hudson.

They just had a security guard shoot a protester in the foot to comply with a state order about a specific case is only reasonable, and they should do it.

Now sign me up with Patty on this particular issue.

I agree entirely.

I think there's a bigger issue, bigger than we can get into in the limited time here about private prisons generally and the growth of the private prison industry.

And it certainly is an industry.

But given that Geo Group is here, is running that facility has a long track track record, a spotted track record of doing so.

I think it can be a minimum expectation, minimum expectation that, they cooperate with the state on an infectious disease like that and that they follow state regulations, etc.

as far as Bill wise was concerned, I think, you know, he's almost got to be nostalgic.

He's about to take on executive functions in terms of legal functions.

And I think he just wants to flex that, that litigation muscle 1 or 2 more times before he moves his office to the first floor there.

Okay.

Tyrone, who is accountable when a private company is carrying out federal detention operators in a state.

Well I mean they are accountable to themselves first and foremost.

I mean, because they're actual, you know, orders within the geo, group say that they must report TB cases to the state and health department within one working day.

So, I mean, this is literally just, you know, folks asking them to comply with their own mandates.

This really has nothing to do with, you know, the fact that there are federal workers and stuff there.

This is directly against Geo.

This is asking them to actually go forth and honor their own mandate.

Is an Adams County District Court, though I think they'll probably remove it and have it be federal.

And I think the fact that we're using not this new law, but a decades old TB statute under title 25 is, you know, they should just comply.

And I think that to sort of try to lump this under all of this, these other more, I think politicized type lawsuits is a bit of a red herring.

let's go around the table, talk about some of the highs and the lows that we've witnessed this week.

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

And as always historic Patty.

You know our low probably for the decade is going to wind up being messy woods.

And what she did with so many cases with her DNA evidence.

Alleged evidence what the CBI did in not dealing with her right away, but the judge who just came down, judge vigil, who came down with a decision throwing out this case because of what the CBI had done and because of Missy, what Missy Woods had done, he said everything we want to, except he didn't tie the current case to actual evidence that Missy Woods had been involved with it.

So that's going to wind up going into appeal.

It's just going to mess things up.

More on what we know is a long running low point in Colorado.

And still, rape cases are backed up and backed up because a. Slightly better.

But still it is a long way to go.

All right Eric.

Well our rookie at the table Jimmy is going to cover where I think I was going to go.

So I'll let him have this one.

I'll deal with, our president, who is not the first time I've mentioned his name in this category.

The grift that is going on.

I'm not suggesting that all his predecessors in the white House have been somehow angelic when it comes to taking advantage of the office, but the magnitude of the corruption of this administration is unlike anything we've seen.

Estimates are that in the first year of this latest term, he's enriched himself and his family to the tune of well over $2 billion billion with the B, and then most specifically recently, this notion of true social, which is his company that they are going to sell for $100,000 a month, a service where financial firms and other market sensitive firms get a few milliseconds of advance notice of of Trump's truth social posts.

I mean, I don't know how you defend this.

It is just grift.

It's corruption.

There's no other way to describe it.

Right?

Yeah.

I'm actually going to go back to Missy Woods and CBI, because I do think that the oftentimes the focus is on what Missy was did and her bad actions and her criminal case where she'll be sentenced, next month.

But I think one thing that judge very focused on in his order is just the the failings of CBI.

I remember when I started in 2011 as a public defender in Denver, we all knew about Nikki Woods, right?

And there are all sorts of rumblings there.

And I was pounding the table trying to tell the judges, I think the CBI was certainly on notice by 2014 and warned again in 2018, but they chose I'm just going to take this quote from Judge Veal to first ignore, then place a bandage on the tumor until it could no longer be hidden from public view.

And now we're seeing with this decision over the outrageous government is conducting.

My heart goes out to the victims.

Just the implications of this being hidden for so long.

Right?

CBS Colorado was the first to report on a story regarding Secretary of State Jenna Griswold, who, of course, wants to be the attorney general for Colorado.

And the bottom line or the thrust of this, is that in 2020, they hired a firm called sage River consulting to provide a leadership development, evaluation and recommendations and so forth.

And there's now this tug of war and a legal battle trying to get this report that the administration and the consultants say was pretty much destroyed.

There is tumultuous turnover in Secretary Griswold's office that has needed to be addressed for a long time.

Just goes and shows that she is not the kind of leader that Colorado needs, and this transparency issue just underscores that failure.

Okay.

All right.

Let's talk about something good in our party.

On Thursday, we learned that Denver is one of three finalists to bring the Democratic National Convention in 2028.

Atlanta and Chicago have both been booted.

I kind of thought Atlanta might have the edge, but now I'm going with Denver because we need it a and B. I think the nostalgia factor with with Barack Obama having been nominated here in 2008, might be what the Democrats want to bring the party back.

Decision comes at the end of the year, is that right?

Or early next year or end of year?

Okay.

All right.

Speaking of Denver, obviously the city has its challenges, but it has been served really well with a recently passed leader, president of City council, and now the incoming city council president, Amanda Sandoval, and now Diana Romero Campbell.

Our true public servants in every sense of that word.

And hats off to both of them.

Okay.

All right.

Darren.

I celebrated my 20th year in Colorado this month.

But originally I am from California, and when I was going to court down by the federal courthouse earlier this week, I, turned on California Street.

So, I thought that that was really funny that they, couldn't spell my original home state properly, and it would have been my low.

But it's just so dang funny to me that it's my high.

I think it's already been taken down.

I think someone gave the city the heads up on that one.

Well, if anyone wants to sell me that.

Oh, yeah, you'll take it if you put.

It off.

To hire a proofreader.

Exactly.

Debbie, I'm going to go with something a little more abstract, and I'll say music is my high of the week in art.

This Sunday, Joe Bonamassa returns to Red Rocks.

He's one of my favorites.

I'm looking forward to seeing his concert, Red rocks, being a wonderful venue that we have.

In fact, I think it's probably the best thing that the New Deal, actually happened to bring us.

And then since I'm new to the panel, yes, I might as well dovetail with that.

My sort of shameless plug.

I have a harmonica here.

I have a blues band called the Jimmy Jr Blues Band, which is doing a Friday night gig at Taco Tavern in Parker.

We were just at Lincoln's Roadhouse in Denver a couple of weeks ago.

So looking forward to having a weekend of music.

Okay, excellent.

That's very good.

My high is a big congrats to the graduating members of the PBS 12 Creator Academy, an intensive internship and apprenticeship program that just ended this week.

This group of digital media makers, photojournalists, and storytellers all around the age of 20 got involved with our in studio productions and were also part of some of the station's community focused media projects like the Civic Speed Championship and the killer Queen show at Red rocks, along with content creation about local businesses.

And full disclosure, I do have a little extra reason to be proud of this cohort because my daughter was one of the young people in the program.

Congrats to all of you.

We're going to miss your energy around the building, but we're super excited for the next group to begin next month.

Thanks to our insiders for joining us this week, so appreciate it!

Jimmy did a great job first time out.

So good to see Tyrone back off and taking some time off after little Dario was born.

Your son?

Yes, I have an eight week old.

Shout out to Dario and Mom.

Oh that's awesome.

Thank you all for watching every week with us and engaging with us, listening to our podcast.

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

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