We're at the halfway point of October, and our first accumulating snow fall in the high country is arriving later than usual, while flu cases are running ahead of schedule.

But now is the time to check out your ballots and look at all the candidates and all the measures with Election Day just two weeks from now.

We've got our panel ready to talk about all things election.

So get ready for this week's Colorado Inside 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 at westward.

Krista Kafer, columnist with The Denver Post.

Mary Ann Goodland, chief legislative reporter for Colorado politics and the Colorado Springs and Denver Gazettes.

And Tyrone Glover, criminal defense and civil rights attorney, here in Denver.

Former Republican Congressman Ken Buck is crossing party lines to endorse Democrat Phil Weiser for governor over Republican nominee Victor Marks, and Colorado Republican Party Secretary Russ Andrews has resigned after endorsing unaffiliated candidate Greg Lopez for governor instead of his party's nominee, Victor Marks.

Patti.

Endorphins are usually rather ho hum and predictable members of a party line up behind the nominee.

These two are not the only ones in the Republican Party.

Now they are not.

And when you think about the Republican Party in Colorado, is there a line or just a falling apart bulwark?

I mean, it's just crumbling.

What is going to happen with Colorado Republican Party?

This is making them look like geniuses.

In 2010, when Dan Maes ran, Ken Buck coming out, who was the former head of the Colorado Republican Party, saying, Phil Weiser will be a good governor, I am going to endorse him.

That was critical.

But it also Cynthia Kaufman, who's held that job as attorney general.

She came out.

You have Russ George coming out.

You have Norma Anderson, bless her heart, who is involved in the lawsuit Krista was involved in to keep Donald Trump off the ballot.

You have stalwart Republicans who have always been a part of what kept Colorado interesting, that you had very independent minded parties coming out and just saying, we cannot go for Victor Marks.

And that's critical now.

And what the what they have to start thinking about is how do you rebuild a party that let someone like Victor Marx win in the primary?

When you had Barb Kirk Meyer as an as an author, an alternative?

Now, Krista, you wrote something to this effect in your most recent column at the post saying you are not voting for the nominee.

No, he's a whack job, so I won't be voting for him.

I also, I didn't vote for Phil Weiser, although I think he'll be a good governor.

Just some issues that are really important to me that I don't agree with him on.

I'm pro-life, for example, but that doesn't mean I'm going to fill in the Oval for for Victor Marks, the person is unqualified.

I think he's very, well, likely a narcissist or a con man, or if those two things can go together, both.

Whereas Phil Weiser is competent, knowledgeable, he's done a great job as attorney general, doesn't agree with everything that he's done, but he is the kind of person that should be governor.

In fact, I probably could make a prediction he may eventually be president.

He is that caliber of a candidate.

And so to see a lot of my friends endorsing him, I can appreciate that now.

I don't I said I didn't vote for him, but I also am not going to vote for his opponent.

I do think that it's time for the the Republican Party to go from moribund to completely dead.

And I think maybe this will actually do it.

I say this because the only way the phoenix rises from the ashes, as if it is overcome by the fire.

So kudos to Ken Buck.

Mary Ann.

I'm fascinated on on the for some of the same reasons Krista is and what it says about today's Republican Party in Colorado.

And it isn't only just at the governor's level.

It goes down throughout all the way down to county levels.

I'm looking at Douglas County right now, and this is a county that used to be super, super red.

It's not so red anymore, which is a story that we'll have in Colorado politics this week.

But it's just fascinating to me that, Doug, that the Republican Party does.

They don't seem to really care about supporting their nominees.

You look at you look at the fundraising, which is something that's always interesting to me.

And it's not there.

It is not with with some very notable exceptions that I think we'll talk about later.

But but the money just isn't there for the Republican Party this year.

And what money is there, what money Victor Marx is raising is all getting tied up in campaign finance complaints, and he is not out of the woods on that issue at all, even though they resolved a bunch of them in that decision a couple of weeks ago, there are still more than a dozen campaign finance complaints still waiting for resolution against him.

What does it say about this state that we have a political party that seems to be bought into this?

I think it's I think it's kind of heartbreaking, frankly.

Yeah.

Your thoughts?

Yeah.

And some of these complaints are now findings.

And you know, there's been fine.

So, you know, I'm always here reminding folks when something is an allegation and there has not actually been a conviction or finding or anything like that.

But there are findings here.

And, you know, if you can't run a compliant campaign, I mean, that's like the smallest version of being governor.

So how is he going to be a competent governor?

I think at the end of the day, this is something that voters have really been waiting for.

We understand, and folks in the community, I think, understand that there are party loyalties, there's coalitions.

There's always going to be sort of factual ism, but at a certain point, decency, integrity need to prevail in seeing these Republican lawmakers cross the line and do the right thing.

I don't want to be too optimistic and say it's a watershed or tipping point moment, but it certainly is consistent with the Colorado that I know.

Okay.

You know, these endorsements.

Come on the heels of the only face to face forum between the two major party candidates for governor.

And then this week, we've had the only debate in the race for Colorado's fourth congressional district, where Republican Congresswoman Lauren Boebert is defending her seat against retired U.S.

Navy Rear Admiral Eileen Law Backer.

What were the big takeaways?

I'll also ask her insiders the same question about Wednesday's only scheduled debate in the attorney general's race between Democratic nominee Jenna Griswold, our current secretary of state in Colorado, and Republican nominee Michael Allen, the Da attorney, the Da for El Paso and Teller counties.

Okay, Krista, sometimes how the candidates respond to questions and respond to another is very telling.

I think for especially the voters who are watching these debates.

That shows when they're under the spotlight, when they're, you know, under the heat, how do they respond?

Do they get testy if they get testy, like, say, Griswold did?

I think it makes you wonder how they might handle things in the office.

I will I do want to say upfront, though, that kudos to those four people for actually showing up to a debate.

especially the fourth district, because they went up against Kyle Clark.

And they're going to take tough questions there.

So I want to give that to them.

I also want to say there is a bright spot on the ticket when it comes to Republicans.

And that is Michael Allen, district attorney.

Super qualified.

Cool under fire.

I like the way he handled himself.

I also thought his the way he handled himself made a nice contrast to Griswold, who got very, very testy.

My opponent is refusing to answer very simple questions, and I want to make it very clear that fundamental role of the next attorney general is to stand up between immigrant communities and Ice.

People are refusing to come forward when they're victims of violent crime, because of ISIS lawlessness.

And the audacity to attack Colorado State Patrol, who have protected my life, I appreciate so greatly.

6000 serious threats.

The last man arrested when I was in the hospital giving birth because of MAGA.

And Republicans like him who continue to lie, who continue to lie.

When you are considering who you're going to hire for your next Colorado attorney general, you should consider whether they have class.

And what you just said is absolutely atrocious.

And any threat against a public official or any of you is absolutely wrong.

And I'll stand with you shoulder to shoulder to fight.

But what she just did shows you the lack of her character and the fact that she is not equipped to be your Colorado attorney general.

it was nice for voters to be able to see that contrast.

And so again, kudos for them to showing up.

But also I think it gives the voters more information as they go to fill out their ballots.

And that was one vote I was really happy to cast.

And that was for Michael Allen.

I want to shift to the Boebert law backer race, because what the takeaway for me was watching law backer moved to the middle in in this in the talking about the war in Iran, which talking about tariffs people that I talk to talk all the time about the costs, excessive costs that are making life so very difficult.

And she's voting for things that continue to push those forward.

Tariffs more than eight times the Iran war.

These are real problems for the Colorado tariff.

And you even agreed with President Trump's tariffs in his first administration.

I've heard you go back and forth saying tariffs are good and bad.

They're a tool I don't know.

It really depends on.

Actually I would say that's not true.

Tariffs are a tool and can be used effectively.

But what is happening right now is not being used as a tool.

she is a like a lot of the people, a lot of the Democrats who are running in certain parts of Colorado, former Republican who has who has left the party and gone to the Democrats.

We're seeing this a great deal of this town in Douglas County.

And what I'm hearing from these people is that the Republican Party, they didn't they didn't walk away from the Republican Party.

It walked away from them.

And I think that that's one things I'm watching for on election night is to see how many of these former Republicans are going to show up at the state Capitol in Congress.

ET cetera, etc., etc.. Okay.

I'm curious, as our attorney at the table, you're taking the AG's race.

Yeah.

One of the big differences I noticed is that, you know, Griswold was in support, I think probably more litigation, more of this, you know, not only playing defense to the Trump administration, but continuing to go on offense.

Seemed like Allen was advocating for a more restrained approach.

I think just looking in the primaries, it seems like the candidates that were, you know, for being more aggressive and standing up to, to Washington were rewarded by the voters.

So I think that could absolutely play a factor there as well.

One area that I think historically has been really big for the AGS, it just hasn't really been mentioned, is their involvement kind of at the state level with enforcing and investigating civil rights violations, things like that.

I can think about like the consent decree that ultimately came down against Aurora from Wise's office.

Also their involvement in the McLean case.

A couple of other things that I thought were really interesting.

Griswold saying that she's going to use the office to go after and prosecute Ice.

I've spoken about sort of the difficulties in that a second.

You start doing that because they are ice, you know, they're immediately back in federal court and that has not gone well.

And also surprising that Allen went there to talk about how amendment 8081, the one where they're supposed to the courts and criminal justice system are supposed to cooperate with Ice was a little bit heavy handed.

So traditionally, especially like in Woodland Park.

And there we've seen in Teller County, we've seen them actually like cooperating with ice for him to kind of start to walk that back.

I think a departure from his party's platform.

we are saying that Victor Marks is not competent.

It could not be governor.

And really, we have to say, can Griswold really run that department?

The AG's department?

Look, she's had so much trouble at the secretary of State's office.

And you just think managing how many hundreds of lawyers, so many cases that are really, really important, so many issues in Denver that I mean, in Colorado, that is a huge issue.

She also lied about arguing before the Supreme Court.

That's a concern.

My major concern about Allen, who is not an election denier, is will he really go after the feds in the cases that Weiser has already filed that are worth fighting?

Kyle Clark and thank him for being on this show last week when I was not, I was surprised he didn't go after Boebert when she went after her for having moved and not far in order to run in this district.

When Lauren Boebert jumped across the state to run in a district she'd never lived in, she's no real connections to.

That was a problem.

Okay?

You know, we spent a lot of time talking about the race for governor and the congressional contest, but some of the biggest decisions affecting Coloradans are made at the state capitol.

they're are Democrats are just one seat short Marianne of a two thirds supermajority in both chambers.

Let's start with you.

You're following this day in and day out.

For the state Senate.

There are three races that are going to make make the decision about whether or not Democrats get a supermajority, or if Republicans can hold that one seat that they that they need to hold.

We'll start in Pueblo Senate district three.

The Republican is Dana Charles, the Democrat is Aaron Gutierrez.

This is a seat that's held currently by a Democrat who chose not to run for another term.

Then you have Senate District 15, which is Loveland and birthed.

And well, then Larimer County's Janice Markman is the incumbent.

She's a Democrat.

She's running against Rob Woodward, somebody that she defeated for that seat a couple of years ago.

So this is a rematch.

And this is interesting.

The third is in Douglas County, which I'm kind of on a Douglas County bend right now.

John Carson, who was a Republican appointed to the seat by a vacancy committee.

This is his first run to to win the election.

And he's running against Kevin.

And I hope I'm pronouncing the name right wing, who is a former Douglas County School board member, has pretty darn good name recognition down in Douglas County.

What fascinates me about these three races is how much soft side money is being poured into them by the Republicans.

and what's at stake in a supermajority?

We already expect the House to go back to the supermajority it held two years ago.

I'm hearing for maybe five seats are expected to flip.

And you wind up with the super majority in the Senate, and you can start looking at ballot measures like, do we repeal Tabor?

That, to me is always been the the holy grail of what Democrats want and what Republicans want to keep from happening.

That would be huge.

That would be big and a lot to look for if that happens.

Yeah, certainly.

I mean, that's one of the big things that they'll be able to do, but all they can do is refer it.

They can't, you know, with this supermajority, raise your taxes, but they can certainly get it onto the ballot much easier.

They can also override vetoes in some circumstances that there's ways that the governor, I think can play defense on that, especially if the vetoes happen well after session closes, they can call their own special sessions and they can impose a Tabor emergency tax.

I think one of the biggest changes, I think, though, you know, assuming there is this supermajority, is that we'll have a different governor at the helm.

And this was pretty prolific with the veto pen.

And so if we have anyone and it's wiser and he's vetoing less, the types of stuff that's going to be coming out of the legislature and landing on the desk and getting signed is just going to be greater.

And so that in and of itself, I think could change things much more rapidly.

if you are the governor, you might not want a supermajority because you can stop, unplug things you don't approve of faster.

If you don't have a supermajority that can pass it through, ram it through, you can work it around.

So for Weiser, it could be very difficult.

I mean, Polis certainly worked for the legislature when he didn't have the supermajority.

The other thing that I think we'll see is we're going to see more advanced Colorado.

We're going to see more initiatives that are coming up all the time.

Because if you can't get your way in the legislature, and Republicans clearly are going to have a tough time pushing almost anything through, you're going to wind up putting it on the ballot.

Now, I love the citizen initiatives.

I know Krista hates them, but you get to talk next.

But I think it's going to be really interesting and tough when we are going further and further on ballot initiatives.

If we have a supermajority, the next ballot will be much, much longer.

I bet it will.

Well, first I want to say kudos to Advance Colorado because they actually gave people a reason to open up their ballot and fill it out with the train wreck at the top.

I think a lot of people would be tempted just, you know, sit it out completely.

But we've got all of those interesting ballot initiatives, many of which are definitely worth voting for.

I think that Governor Weiser is going to not want a supermajority.

You think about the fact that Colorado has fallen on a number of indicators when it comes to employment growth, down to 46.

I think it's 38th in terms of cost of doing business.

the governor's competitive council came out with its recommendations, a lot of regulations on there that are really preventing businesses from being able to employ more people and do more in this state.

Each one of those regulations, though, has a constituency, has members of the legislature that support it being able to come up with a majority of people that I guess understand economics and can work with Phil Weiser to be able to do good things for this state.

The fewer that there are of Republicans, the less likely it is of being able to achieve a pro-business, pro-business majority.

So we will see.

We will see what happens in in a couple of weeks.

I want to add one other thing here.

And this goes to Chris's point about the business climate.

The folks who have been backing changes to the Labor Peace Act, it's been vetoed twice by the governor.

I could see this being the number one target of Democrats.

If they gain the supermajority, they will be able to overturn a wiser veto.

And one unorthodox thought is perhaps the end of Tabor, maybe the beginning of the Republican Party's rebirth.

The fact that people can vote for Democrats and low taxes may have been one of the elements that helped contribute to the demise of the party.

Okay, well, the first campaign finance complaint in Colorado involving an AI generated political video is now set for a hearing with the state's election office.

It has to do with proposition N n on our ballots, which would allow Colorado to keep tax revenue that would otherwise be refunded to all of us under the taxpayer Bill of rights.

Tabor and that money would help better fund public education.

The AI video opposing the measure depicts Democratic State Senator Kathy Kipp as a grocery store cashier who refuses to give a customer their change, pockets it, and says the money will go toward educating kids.

Where's my change?

Our new policy allows us to keep customer change to help educate children.

That's my money.

Does this kind of video violate Colorado's AI disclosure law, as Kipp says?

Or is this political satire, as argued by the Independence Institute which created the video?

Tyrone, as our attorney, start us off.

Well, I think the danger behind these deepfakes and AI videos is very real.

This is not the case.

You know this.

He picked the wrong test case.

And I agree with the Independence Institute.

I agree with my colleague David Lane, who's taking on the case that this is parody, this is satire, and that is one of the greatest and most robust protections for freedom of speech, if you're using it as a satire.

The one sort of thing that I would point out about how I think this is being brought forth, though, is the state's sort of argument that the core and the crux of this ad, really and satire generally is humor.

Right.

And that is sort of kind of the driving force.

I would disagree, and I would actually point all the way back to a 1988 decision in hustler, which was an 8 to 0 back then, only at eight justices that really said that.

Look, political cartoons, satire, parodies.

It is a weapon of attack, of scorn and ridicule, right?

It is advocacy, right?

It is one of the most potent forms of advocacy, whether you're seeing it on The Daily Show or Charlie Hebdo or, you know, the the funnies, like those appear like in the opinion section, right?

So I think, you know, they're going to get it right.

But I want to make sure that the grounds under which they get it right protect these sorts of speech under the appropriate areas, which is, yeah, this is one of the most effective ways to sort of call someone to the mat politically.

And it should be protected.

Okay.

And of course, you don't need AI to make fun of people.

People have been making parody ads for decades and using lookalikes.

In a lot of cases.

You also have like, oh, I was remembering the Pena ads when he reran and they had him surrounded by bodyguards and you could barely see him, which was a very effective ad, and he barely won in 87.

But parody is great.

And if you look at the Independence Institute ad against Coco, that is one of the funniest things I've seen in a long time.

It's just unfortunate that A makes it so easy.

That's one of the problems.

But the bigger problem is that their ads all over the place lying when they don't even use AI or a parody there.

I mean, it just you want to take a shower after you turn on cable, sometimes with the ads that are on now.

Kristen I think it's hilarious.

I think the Austin Powers one is even funnier if.

Yeah.

And that's also a deep fake if you will.

And for prop N. N and it's so funny.

But yeah, it's clearly this is clearly parody.

I can understand the consternation by the politician feeling that her face and visage and name has been used in this way.

I would find it very disturbing to look at a screen and see a vision of myself doing something that I had never done, but by complaining about it, she now has given they already had ads that they have purchased.

She's now given them more visibility by complaining because now there's a news story out on channel four.

We're now talking about it here.

I'm hoping everyone's going going home and, you know, googling the ads and watching them because they are quite funny and quite effective.

But it would have been better for her, for her to to probably not say anything and let it go, because they now have actually gotten a bigger, bigger bang for their buck and have gotten a lot more attention than they had that they'd ever paid for.

What do you think, Miriam?

Well, I do a story on that.

This week when I saw the hearing was was coming up, and it's after the election is over with.

Naturally.

I think the real issue here, maybe how the law was written in 2024.

They, they did a carve out for satire and parody in the law.

So that's what the Independence Institute leapt on and said, this is satire, this is parody.

Except there's nothing in the ad that says, this is satire, this is parody.

There's no disclaimer that says who paid for it.

Although the Independence Institute logo is at the very is the last thing that you see before, before the whole thing is over with.

And it would not surprise me in the slightest that the legislature went back and said, let's, let's tweak this just a tiny little bit, and satire and Perry are okay, as long as you're really clear that that's what it is.

I think for all of us, we all know who Kathy Kip is.

We all know who the Independents Institute is.

I suspect that there are an awful lot of people who have no idea that that isn't the real Kathy, Kip and and to to Christie's point, you know what?

I want to have a parody of something that that I didn't do or say.

Yeah, I I'd be bothered by it too.

So I think maybe it's the impetus now may go back to the legislature to say, let's tweak this one just a little bit, okay.

All right.

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

We'll start on a low points and on a high note.

And Patty, we'll start with you.

Speaking of parity, I went to the last Colorado Colorado Rockies game of the season.

They've been pretending to be a ball team for way too long, but it is a great ballpark.

We just deserve a real team there as we head into the last games of the fall.

Wouldn't it be nice?

I'm going to say Shame on Trump.

And I know I could say that every week pretty much.

But to undermine Ukraine, as he has done in the last week, is is sickening.

And to do so in a way that benefits Putin even more.

Okay.

Congratulations to President Trump's new press secretary, whose first press conference has been widely panned.

And she finished out the day saying that she'd gotten admitted to the bar through taking a bar exam in China.

China doesn't allow Americans to take their bar exams.

It's only open to Chinese people.

She's made other claims that she has been of counsel for various nonprofits and other groups.

But as popular.

Popular.

Blog, he checked every state in the country and D.C.

she's not been admitted to the bar in any state, so she now has a complaint filed against her in California for falsely representing herself as an attorney.

Oh, okay.

Well, yeah.

My is the DOJ lawsuit against Denver that was filed, I think October 9th about the band for Ice officers or any officer wearing face coverings and masks.

You know, I've I'm a big advocate for transparency and law enforcement, integrity and law enforcement.

I believe that, you know, badges should be present.

Body cameras should be on names should be their faces should not be covered.

And so the fact that we're going to be in court on this, and I think just given some of the federal president, you know, potentially losing on this issue is my low of the week, okay.

All right.

Something good.

Patty history Colorado made a good move by changing the name of history Colorado Center back to the Colorado History Museum.

No matter what you call it, go there over the weekend to see moments that matter.

This great show that closes on Sunday celebrating the 150th anniversary of Colorado.

Okay.

All right.

I'm going to give a shout out to George Sparks.

He's the president of the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, and he's going to retire in a couple of a couple of months.

His successor has been picked.

And, I just he's just terrific.

His successors, Kirk Johnson, who used to pick.

Yes.

He was here in Denver years ago.

Yeah, we used to come Kirk the dinosaur guy, and now he's going to be the head honcho.

Yeah.

Congratulations to the Native American tribes who have been bickering for years about a Sand Creek memorial at the state capitol.

They finally had their kumbaya moment.

We have they're going to have three statues.

One of Chief Black Kettle, who survived the Sand Creek massacre, another one of his wife, who was going to be holding a baby to represent the children and mothers who were killed in Sand Creek.

And the third of.

And I'm.

Thank you.

The chief who was actually killed in the Sand Creek massacre.

This has been a contentious issue going back well before the Civil War statue was taken down at during the in 2020.

But they finally have come to an agreement.

There is going to be a Sand Creek Memorial on the state capitol grounds.

Okay.

Well, this one's a bit of a low, but I think when you reflect on this person's life, it's a high.

Amazing jurist, amazing human being.

Justice Melissa Hart, who passed this month, the first person I ever met in Colorado.

I remember getting off the plane from California, going to see law school, and there she was.

Dean Hart at the time was sitting at my my table just like a wonderful human being for anyone who's known her, a brilliant, brilliant justice.

She will be missed.

But I'm sure her light has shined on plenty of folks.

And that's why she's my high.

That's great.

Well, my high of the week is a heartfelt wish for a long time.

Denver news anchor Chris Prent, who has stepped away from the desk this week at the CW Two's Daybreak show to focus on his health.

Since sharing his bladder cancer diagnosis, Chris really has gone above and beyond and spreading awareness about the disease and providing a platform for other people to chime in about what they're going through, what their loved ones are going through, and he's going to use all of that in his next chapter.

So we are sending you the most positive vibes, Chris, as you start this, this next round of your life, whatever brings, we are behind you 100%.

You already made such a huge impact in the Colorado community, and we just know that you will continue to do so.

So we're cheering for you, Chris.

All right, insiders, thank you for joining us this week.

Thank you for watching at home or following along with our podcast.

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

Definitely this weekend go through that ballot.

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