There was a lot of activity in D.C. this week regarding members of Colorado's congressional delegation.

So we're gearing up to talk about all of that here at the table.

But at the state Capitol could open discussions, open meetings, open records, laws go by the wayside.

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 have Patty Calhoun, founder and editor of Westword.

Marianne Goodland, chief legislative reporter of Colorado politics and the Denver and Colorado Springs Gazette's Alayna Alvarez, reporter with Axios Denver.

And Chris Rourke, consultant with Rourke Media.

Colorado's congressional delegation is now on its spring break, its spring recess.

It is a time when they come back home to Colorado to meet with their constituents.

This past week was an eventful one for many of them.

Patty, I will start with you.

Part of the reason it's going to be very eventful going forward is with Senator Michael Bennet exploring a gubernatorial race.

We could have an open Senate seat where someone would have to be appointed, and the Democrats in Congress are definitely a group you would look at.

But first, I have to return to the Republican side.

Last week, I said something nice about Jeff Hurd.

Now I'm going to say something awful about Jeff Hurd.

What is with the project 2025 playbook?

He has just announced, basically for the rape and pillage of public lands in western Colorado and beyond there.

So don't love it.

I hope it doesn't make it out of Congress.

We've seen Brittany Patterson with her child and going forward with the proxy vote, and I think that is something we know that Congress has to deal with, not just for new mothers, but also for people who maybe should be out of Congress by now.

And speaking of out of Congress, Lauren Boebert with her reference to Al Green and his pimp cane, which she said once on television repeating maybe something someone had tweeted.

But then after a Philadelphia Democrat wanted to censure her, she doubled down on the pimp cane reference.

Lauren Boebert cheap shot, bad behavior.

Okay, Mariana.

Well, I'm going to counter Patty here with a compliment for our Western Slope Congressman.

and he and and and something of a dig at his predecessor who never did anything on this particular issue.

And it has to do with water.

we found out this week that the, money that was going to come to the Shoshone power, project, which is going to put a million acre feet of water permanently into the Colorado River, as a way of sustaining it for agriculture and recreation and all the things that people on the Western Slope rely on the river.

And like most things with the Trump administration, this got put on hold and heard is now, doing his best to advocate for that.

Those dollars to be, released, according to comments that he made in a town hall earlier this week.

So I have to say, thank you, Representative Hurd, for continuing to work on that particular issue.

frankly, his predecessor, as far as I know, never did anything about it.

Okay.

I know we're watching Bennett really closely.

We have a story prepped for when he's, going to announce.

people say, you know, any day now, we'll see.

His bid is would be really interesting because of the high profile, showdown that it would set up with Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser, who has announced that he's running.

He was he would be the opposing Democrat, running against him.

And they offered an interesting contrast.

And styles and ideology, with Bennett being a little bit more of the moderate pick if they were to be up against each other.

I personally haven't heard of a frontrunner yet.

that would replace him in the Senate if Bennett does decide to run.

I'm not sure if you guys have heard any names yet.

so that should be pretty interesting to watch out.

But if he does end up resigning from the Senate to run for governor, it would be up to Governor Jared Polis to appoint somebody, to take a seat through at least the 2026 general election, which is interesting, because that's how Bennett ended up in his seat in the first place, when former governor Bill Ritter, I think it was in 2009, appointed him when Ken Salazar, left the seat.

But no doubt that Bennett jumping into the race, which we expect him to do, is going to shake things up significantly here in Colorado.

Have you guys heard of any possible replacements if he leaves the Senate?

I think you can look at the fact that the Democrats have an incredibly deep bench here in Colorado.

If if Bennett jumps into the race, I think you could see something akin to what happened when John Hickenlooper jumped into the race in 2010.

Everybody got out.

Everybody who was planning to run left and Hickenlooper became the frontrunner immediately.

it would not surprise me if we saw something similar, but it becomes a frontrunner.

And everyone else who is being talked about either for governor or, some of these other very high profile races, all four statewide seats are up, are open this year, which are next year, which we haven't had happened since the 1900s.

So I think you could see some of that bench stepping up and saying, okay, I'm not going to run for governor.

I'll run for the Senate.

He also doesn't have to resign in order to to run for governor because his Senate seat continues on.

So there are so many moving pieces and everyone's name is out there except maybe everyone at this table.

Yeah.

Okay.

Well, and the other thing is if if he stayed in his Senate seat and wound up winning governor, he would appoint his own successor.

So there's another wrinkle that you have to look at.

Chris, I'd like to announce that, well, back to Jeff Hurd.

he's introducing the Productive Public Lands Act, and it's a he wants to have nine Biden, resource management plans, our MPs, reissued.

One is in regards to the Gunnison sage grouse, which was listed as a threatened species in 2014 under the Endangered Species Act, and I covered it for ten years.

the problem is there are satellite populations of this bird that were suffering in other parts of the state in that region, but other parts of the state.

So what the Biden, our RMP did was to equalize everything with herd ro rolling that back.

I don't know that that's raping and pillaging public lands.

Patty I will I'll disagree with you on that.

However, the key to that is have local control.

And if if it's not equal, why not bring the areas that are not doing a good enough job with conservation efforts up to the standard that maybe the Gunnison Valley's doing it?

I'd also like to point out, in addition to Shoshone water rights, herd has gone against the grain with with Trump on Ukraine aid.

The January 6th protesters, you know, he did not like to see those pardons, rehiring federal workers.

And so.

We'll see.

all right.

Last Saturday marked the halfway point of the 2025 session.

That is, if this session does end on time with a budget.

And Marianne wrote this week, that is a big assumption these days.

A lot of focus this week has been on the many timed amendment amended, Senate bill regarding a weapons, and now it's a regulated plan as to how one would get a certain firearm.

But Marianne, you are also reporting this week on the anti transparency measures that are moving through the statehouse.

And what that what could that all mean for Colorado?

I think Colorado citizens should be deeply concerned about these anti transparency measures.

It is a continuation of what happened last year with Senate Bill 157, which exempted the Colorado General Assembly, from certain facets of the state's open meetings law.

And they're now holding meetings.

And they held meetings in secret last year and wouldn't allow reporters to even cover some of these meetings when they were talking about the property tax, measures that were coming out in the special session.

there was one bill to try and walk that back, that died in committee.

but there will, in all likelihood be a ballot measure.

At least there's a very large coalition.

There's like 50 groups involved, that are putting together a ballot measure for 2026 to roll that back and to make some improvements, overall, to the open records and open meetings laws.

The other two bills, one is Senate Bill 77, which would make it far more expensive.

If you file an open records request, it's going to get more expensive than it is now.

And it ain't cheap now.

The third bill has to do with the name, image and likeness.

contracts that are being, set up this year.

the Siu athletic director said, in testimony this week that eight states have the same law that Colorado is considering, while 24 states do exactly the opposite.

And they make this information transparent and open.

And the thing about this is that they're carving out a new exception to the open records law with this bill.

And while this isn't taxpayer money, this is public money.

And I think, you know, people do have a right to know what's going on.

And it doesn't protect the athletes.

They keep saying, this will protect the athletes the minute I see you or CSU or someone else uses an athlete's name, image and likeness, you're going to know exactly who's getting these contracts.

Senate Bill three, the gun control bill that you mentioned has been getting a ton of attention this week.

because it would mark one of the biggest changes to Colorado's gun policies in state history.

And that's true even after it's been diluted with over a dozen amendments.

There's been a ton of debate over this legislation.

Earlier this week, there was a roughly 13 hour, committee hearing with 13 hours of testimony.

and there's still more debate to come on this bill.

unsurprisingly, the state House GOP is leading the opposition.

They're pretty much unanimously opposed to it.

but of course, Colorado's capital is under Democratic control.

So this bill is on track to reach the governor's desk, and it's expected to be signed by him.

But that's because, Governor Polis, his office struck a compromise on the bill, which carved out certain weapons from it.

And allowed purchases of some of those weapons.

If a buyer passes a training course, all of this gets a little bit into the weeds.

And some of these things are still changing a bit.

we'll see how fast it gets to the governor's desk is still, you know, to be to be determined.

There's still a lot more debate that we're going to see.

There has been so much on this.

Well, I think they're up to like 23 amendments now, which tells me, although the Republicans are unified in opposition, I don't know that all the Democrats necessarily.

I when you amend something that many times, leads me to believe that maybe there's some doubt among the Democrats.

Not sure about that.

But the fascinating part for me is how much plays into this they're going to be doing the the safety training courses so that you can buy these firearms.

CPW who has mismanaged wolf reintroduction.

So I don't have a lot of, you know, confidence there who also lacks transparency when they're reintroducing wolves.

So you've got a transparency issue there.

It'll be interesting to see, you know, we've seen with these gun laws, they do not stop, violent offenders, violent offenders do not take hunter safety courses.

They you know, I don't know that we're really doing much good there.

Eventually, I think this this legislation will end up in the courts.

CCW it does Hunter education courses now, but they have an extreme shortage.

I'm told of people to do that work.

And frankly, this is this kind of work is not in their wheelhouse.

And they admit it.

Katie.

Well to go to the transparency bill.

But one of the issues has been how you define what's the media.

The media is working in the public interest.

And we understand that with blogging and with all the other things people can do now it gets difficult to see who's a professional reporter who is an interested member of the public, but you can work that out.

The fact is, there should be transparency for everyone and the media is just working on behalf of them.

With the gun bill, would there are that many amendments coming?

You know, we're going to have the law of unintended consequences.

Something will go very, very wrong after it's passed and after sunset into law if he does.

And another very amended bill still being considered is the minimum tipped wage bill that's coming up again next week.

And if the gun discussion is ugly, nothing has beaten this restaurant discussion.

We get new numbers every day from both sides.

People are threatening each other.

It is grim.

On Thursday, Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser of join 20 other attorneys general from across the country and sued to block the Trump administration's plans to close the Department of Education.

when it comes to funding for education, there are questions about how the federal government will support teachers and students.

And then locally at the state Capitol, lawmakers have to, make a lot of cuts in the budget.

And how will this play into education in Colorado?

A lot of talk about education.

Elaine, I'll start with you.

If there is one person the Trump administration is keeping busy, it is wiser.

This is his, if our count is correct, his 11th lawsuit against the Trump administration in about a month's time, if not a little less just just wild.

so in this specific lawsuit, the AGS, which are from across the country, from California to New York, they are arguing that this move to dismantle the Education department is reckless.

It's illegal and wiser.

And a quote that he put out, this week is saying that Coloradans rely on funding and support from the Department of Education for a range of different programs that include special education, student loan services, rural teacher training.

And although about only about 10% of education spending comes from the federal government, comes from the US Department of Education, with the rest coming from state and local governments.

Weiser's argument takes on particular urgency right now as the state grapples with its billion dollar deficit, which is forcing lawmakers to contemplate cuts to schools as a result.

But I will say that I think it's intriguing that Trump right now is essentially promising to abolish this department, that he also really needs to carry out his sort of MAGA vision for American public schools, you know, cracking down on this wokeness that he perceives around race, gender, sexuality.

And we see him using that, the Department of Education as a weapon right now, even here in Denver.

You know, he's having it investigate Denver Public Schools for transforming the girls bathroom.

At least high school into a non-binary bathroom.

So it's kind of an interesting sort of counterintuitive dichotomy that's going on right now.

as far as education funding goes in the state of Colorado, it needs to be fixed, and the state lawmakers need to do it for 15 years, we have seen, you know, this thing that was called the negative factor, and then it became the budget stabilization factor or the base factor.

so education has not been properly funded for a very long time, you know, independent of the federal government.

Lawmakers need a real fix.

And it can't be something like proposition H where it was, oh, we'll give, property owners a break on their taxes, but we'll take from Tabor and we'll do this formula.

It's got to be something simple, concrete and really meaningful.

If you really want to see, public education funded, there's talk of a, ballot initiative perhaps being floated to raise money for education.

If it's a tax initiative, three times those have failed in the state of Colorado since 2011.

I've looked at studies over the years, and there's so many conflicting studies on does more money mean a better education and better outcomes?

Sometimes, yes, sometimes the studies are very compelling, but they're just as many studies that say more money does not necessarily mean better education.

Okay, Patty.

Phil Weiser has had a very busy couple of months.

First, he announced his that he was running for governor.

He's raised over a million, I think a million and a half so far that as soon as Trump comes in, he was early to jump into most of the lawsuits that AGS have been filing.

I think you're right.

It is 11 right now.

Education, especially the cuts in rural training where we so many teachers, those hurt a lot in Colorado.

And also Weiser just had to respond to the Department of Justice's brief, on the whole Tina Peters case, on whether or not the prosecution by Colorado was politically motivated.

So he filed that on Tuesday, a response to that.

So he is going to be working very, very hard in his current job before he gets to another one.

Yeah.

I want to go back to the point about the rural teacher program.

I, why is there filed a lawsuit against the Department of Education over this specific program?

This program has put 121 teachers over the last couple of years into rural schools, which have had a shortage of teachers.

It's a it's a crisis situation.

This is a program that works.

There are 77 teacher teacher students in the pipeline.

They are hiring these students before they're even out of school.

And they found something that works are actually addressing this program.

And to get the funding is has just been devastating.

the good news is a judge in Massachusetts this week put a hold on it, put a hold on Trump's plans to gut this particular program.

So so there is a little bit of good news toward that particular issue.

The Supreme Court announced this week that it is going to take on a Colorado case, which raises the question can state and local governments enforce laws banning conversion therapy for LGBTQ plus children?

Kris, here we go again with another case before the Supreme Court.

Yeah, I think it's the third now from Colorado.

in 2019, a law was passed to ban conversion therapy.

A Christian therapist, has gone against that challenge.

That law in court went to federal court, based on free speech and freedom of religion.

it she was ruled against.

She went to the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals.

They upheld the ruling.

the state has basically argued that they are regulating a licensed profession.

They're regulating conduct, not free speech.

But she has said that.

Look, I have clients that come to me voluntarily and that I should be able to speak to them and answer their questions regarding sexuality and the things that they are concerned about with their religion and whatnot.

Is it conversion?

I don't know, I listen to what she does for, voluntary clients who come to her and she's just answering questions.

I'm walking them through the process.

I don't know that that's much different from therapy in general.

So it'll be interesting to see how it plays out.

Okay.

Colorado is one of 24 states that have similar laws regarding this.

The nuances get pretty difficult when you're dealing with children, teenagers, and I'm just going to tell the story about Bowen Yang, one of Colorado's great alumni, Saturday Night Live.

Wicked.

He wrote a story there.

It was an interview, I think, of The New Yorker about when he was a teenager in Aurora and his parents decided he needed to go to a conversion therapist in Colorado Springs, and the horror stories he tells would be pretty persuasive for some regulation of this.

I did not know that.

Okay.

And.

I do find this an interesting conundrum.

is it speech?

Is it is it conduct?

Is it therapy?

However, I think the justice system does have a right to, put its imprint on on things that are pseudoscience.

I took a look at, some studies on this issue.

Cornell University not long ago.

Did a review of 47 peer reviewed articles on is conversion therapy helpful?

Is it harmful?

They could not find a single one of those 47 studies that said, yes, this works.

And they, and the American Psychological Association has also come out strongly against it.

So, you know, do does the public have a right or do, gay and lesbian children have a right to be able to, to determine, to make their own determinations?

on an issue where this there's no, there's no proof that this stuff works.

Actually, I did a lot of work on this this week.

This case.

They did.

Yes.

And shout out to my colleague Gustav Hernandez who who led that coverage.

you know, I think if history is any indication, we've mentioned the past two cases, in Colorado that have gone to the Supreme Court, related to similar issues.

So if history is any indication, it would seem like the court might rule in favor of, Kaylee Chiles.

I think I'm saying her name.

Right.

The, Christian counselor in Colorado Springs because of free speech.

You know, two years ago, we have the case over the Colorado web designer who declined to make a website for LGBT couples.

And the Supreme Court ruled in favor of that web designer.

Then, of course, in 2018, the very famous case of the Christian Baker from Lakewood, who didn't want to make the wedding cake for the same sex couple that Christian Baker also, came out on top in that case.

So, you know, the Supreme Court right now in its particular makeup, tends to rule in favor of free speech.

So it'll be really interesting to see what happens.

It seems like the court is going to hear the case, when it term starts beginning in October.

So that means that we probably won't have a decision until at least summer 2026, according to someone's reporting.

so certainly something to stay tuned for.

Right now it is time to go down the line and talk about some of the highs and the lows we have witnessed this week.

We'll start on a low point and we'll start with Patty.

Just eight blocks from the studio is the last incarnation of the Mercury Cafe, the great moveable feast of arts and music and political organizing and community that Marilyn McGinty started 50 years ago in Indian Hills that went down through Denver.

It's been in this location for 35 years, and now at the end of March, it is going to close.

Good luck to the people who are buying it, who seem to, or at least taking over the lease.

They seem to have the community on their mind, but it is a sad and for a really important institution here.

Yeah.

And in the last week and a half we have had two dead bodies found within walking distance of the Capitol, including one this morning.

That was right at the intersection, I believe, of Grant and Colfax.

crime in the capital neighborhood is it's always been a problem, but it just seems like it's getting it's getting worse.

we have lawmakers who are being assaulted.

We have people who are being accosted when you're walking across across Colfax.

And this all seems to be primarily north of the Capitol.

I ran into that problem last week where a person was waving things and hollering and, just made me very, very nervous.

And the closer he got, the more I was like, I got to get out of here.

So, we've got a real problem in Capitol Hill with with crime, it's always been a problem.

lawmakers are asking Mayor Johnson to step in and have a conversation with him about it.

So which hasn't happened yet.

But.

But something needs to be done.

Okay.

All right, that's bad.

Yeah, I have noticed it looking a lot rougher.

recently it's very noticeable.

we just wrote about a very bleak CU Boulder study that was just published a few days ago.

that showed 7% of adults in the US have been on scene witnessing a mass shooting firsthand.

the lead author said it's not a question of if one will occur in your community any more, but when just terrifying.

Well, I have something, from the Gunnison Valley again, there was a kerfuffle on social media because there was, an animal spotted in the woods looked just like a wolf.

And the most recent map shows that wolves have moved into Gunnison County turned out to be a stray dog.

The hysteria surrounding this on both sides of the issue was was quite impressive.

We had people that were concerned about it being a wolf and taking care of it.

Then when it turned out to be a dog, there were comments about good thing you didn't shoot the dog.

But I think the problem here is you have communities up in arms on both sides because again, there has been a lack of transparency where these wolves are are being reintroduced.

I know Gunnison County will probably get a reintroduction pack at some point.

A lot of anxiety, a little more transparency might be able to help.

Yeah.

All right.

Let's talk about something good.

Patty.

Great weekend in Denver.

Get out.

Enjoy Saint Patrick's Day, the free parade or go up to, Estes Park, frozen dead guy days.

And in between there are a couple wonderful film festivals and festivals.

Okay.

I want to focus exclusively on Saint Patrick's Day.

Colorado is hosting a delegation of individuals from the Irish government, including the president of the Irish Senate, and then the Attorney General of Ireland, who is going to be at an event on Saturday, plus other members of the delegation.

So welcome to Colorado.

Welcome to Colorado.

That's great.

Have fun.

An excruciatingly cute baby giraffe was born at the Denver Zoo.

I'm obsessed with him.

He's nearly six feet tall, more than 150 pounds already.

But he's a baby.

I'm the less.

the public can't view him just yet, but they can vote on his name.

I'm rooting for thorn, but there's also Dag and COO jolly as, options.

You can, vote on it on the Denver Zoo's website with a $5 donation.

Can you imagine?

Six feet tall?

I know, baby.

I like six feet tall.

my high of the week is the West Elk Wolverines Bantam B team.

They.

But they are coached by my son, and they went all the way to state to finish second in the state.

They they ended up losing in the championship round.

But they are a Cinderella team from the mountains and they did very well.

So second in the state.

That's great.

And that's fantastic.

I'm glad you updated us on that team.

my high is that after the full Blood Moon we've just had, which is supposed to release intense energy, I'm following Patty, in saying that we have not only the frozen dead guy days in Grand Junction, there's the almost Saint Patrick's Day pub crawl.

We've got the parade in Denver, which is the largest Western mass city, but in Boulder, the world's shortest Saint Patrick's Day parade.

So after this moon, we all need and can have a lot of fun this weekend.

All right.

Thank you for watching at home.

Thank you for listening to our podcast.

I am Kyle Dyer.

I will see you next week here on PBS 12.

Happy Saint Patrick's Day.

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