Colorado's future is on the ball and the next governor will make critical decisions on housing and affordability.

Honestly, I barely make ends meet.

It is tough between all of bills, but I want to stay here.

Education and child care.

My only option was either my mother watched them or just me not pursuing my career.

The environment and the economy.

What if it gets to the point where where we can't read wells?

What if the water levels are so low that that we don't have any water?

Period?

That's scary.

Colorado women are in the room tonight to hear the four candidates for governor make their case.

The same stage, the same questions.

Women decide the Colorado Governors Forum.

Welcome and good evening.

I'm Amanda Mountain, President and CEO of Rocky Mountain Public Media.

Thank you so much for joining us from across Colorado.

Rocky Mountain PBS has a mission to strengthen the civic fabric of Colorado, and we do that together in events like this.

I want to thank our partners at the Women's Foundation of Colorado and the Colorado Women's Chamber of Commerce.

Our collective commitment to the advancement of women across our state is unwavering.

Hello, and thanks for tuning in today.

My name is Simone Morrison and I am the CEO of the Colorado Women's Chamber of Commerce.

The Women's Chamber and our network of allies have spent more than three decades advocating for the women who power this state.

We help them advance as leaders and business owners build connections, and we advocate on their behalf for policies that support work that works for all.

Colorado's next governor will inherit an economy where women are not a margin note.

They are the engine.

This forum is about making sure our candidates understand what it takes to keep that engine running.

We hope you enjoy the conversation, and it helps you decide who is most equipped to lead our state.

Thank you.

I'm Renee Ferrufino, President and CEO of the Women's Foundation of Colorado, the state's only community foundation advancing gender, racial, and economic equity for Colorado women.

We know this when women thrive.

Colorado rises.

So we went straight to the source.

We polled more than 700 Colorado women.

And what they told us is urgent.

Nearly two thirds say they have fewer rights in opportunities than men.

And eight and ten say the cost of living is outpacing their income, and more than half feel they don't have the power or freedom to get ahead financially.

Tonight's questions come directly from their voices.

We're here alongside Rocky Mountain PBS and the Colorado Women's Chamber of Commerce, because women deserve to be at the center of every policy decision, not an afterthought.

We're inviting the next governor of Colorado to make that commitment tonight.

Good evening, and welcome to Women Decide, the Colorado Governors Forum.

I'm Gabriela Resto-Montero, Senior Journalism Director here at Rocky Mountain PBS, and I will be moderating our conversation tonight.

I'd like to welcome Colorado state Attorney General Phil Weiser, State Representative Scott Bottoms, Senator Michael Bennet, and State Senator Barb Kirkmeyer for joining us tonight and participating in this conversation.

Thank you all for being here tonight.

Victor Marx was also invited but declined to participate.

A note for those of you watching; beyond their introductions, we won't be referring to the candidates using their elected or educational titles during the forum.

Here's our format for tonight's conversation.

As public media, we see our role tonight as extending the access our journalists have to decision makers such as yourselves to the public we all serve.

For that reason, many of the questions we have for you have been submitted by our viewers and vetted by our team.

Some of them will be asked on camera.

Other questions are informed by a new poll produced by the Women's Foundation of Colorado.

They asked women across the state about their top concerns heading into this election.

There were clear outstanding issues that were top of mind and will be diving into those.

Each candidate will be asked the same question and will get 60s seconds to respond.

On select topics, I'll ask each candidate a yes or no question, several of which came directly from you, our audience.

As we developed this forum, certain issues kept coming up that we felt deserved a clear, direct answer.

Each candidate will respond yes or no and will have up to 30s to provide context.

We determine the order of candidate responses in a random drawing ahead of the forum, starting with Mr.

Weiser.

We will rotate the order for each question.

We will wrap with candidates making their closing statement their pitch to you on why they should be the next governor of Colorado.

And I'm here to keep us talking about what Coloradans have told us they care about, and to make sure we don't stray too far from that.

Are we ready?

Let's go.

I want to start with some context from the poll.

63% of Colorado women today say that they have fewer rights and opportunities than men.

Most Colorado women can't keep up with rising costs.

84 percent said cost of living is rising faster than their income.

Here are the biggest challenges Colorado women say they are facing right now.

The top three are economic inequality and the pay gap, political and rights based concerns, and childcare access and affordability.

And with that, it seemed fitting that we start our first block with questions on the economy, housing and affordability.

We start with Colorado voters approved paid family and medical leave insurance program provides job protected, paid time away from work to address your own or a loved one's health needs.

If you are elected governor, how will you protect successful programs like family, while also ensuring that other programs that support working families are adequately funded and accessible throughout the state?

And we begin tonight with Mr.

Weiser.

The FAMLI program is a good example of how we were able to go to the voters and make the case for what I believe is basic infrastructure for our economy that we need everyone to know.

If you or a loved one have a sickness or you have a baby, we need to make sure you can stay part of the workforce and don't have to worry about leaving the workforce.

I actually believe that child care point you mentioned is an essential area for us to make sure we're making a similar commitment.

Childcare access in Colorado is sky high.

It's hard to find.

We need to do better.

I want to make sure we're following the lead of Iowa.

They've created a child Care Solutions fund working at the state level with local levels, with other partners to make sure we're building more capacity.

And let's make sure that we're looking to make sure that child care workers are paid fairly and a living wage, and that if they're barriers that we as a state have, that we address them.

Thank you, Mr.

Weiser.

We're going to move on to Mr.

Bottoms.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Great question.

One of the interesting things that I found about specifically childcare within this broader context is that even down to giving birth, we've been taking funds away from rural Colorado.

We've been taking funds away from natal units.

And some women now have to.

If you live in Springfield, Colorado, you're going to have to drive about 4 to 5 hours for basic health care, for giving birth, child care, those kind of things.

We can we can continue to say, well, let's give them a little bit of time off, let's give them a little bit of money and those kind of things.

But if they can't even give birth near where their their home is, this is a major, major problem.

I fought this in the House.

The Democrats continue to fight against basic parental care and basic child care and basic natal care throughout the state of Colorado.

And so we're going to keep fighting for the women, for the children.

They they need this, there's no doubt about it.

Thank you, Mr.

Bottoms.

We move on to Mr.

Bennett.

Can you hear me now?

I can hear you now.

Yes.

Thank you.

Thank you so much for having me.

It's wonderful to be with my colleagues here today.

I, as a former school superintendent, when I went to DC, led the fight for the child, the enhanced child tax credit, which cut childhood poverty in America in half.

That unfortunately has gone away at the national level.

But in Maryland and in Minnesota and in Colorado, we're continuing to pursue those kind of policies.

Family leave, in my mind, is a piece of that.

But make no mistake, we have a cost of living crisis in Colorado.

We're the third most expensive state in America, and it's women that are bearing the cost of that.

It's women who are having to give up an entire decade or more of their career to pay to, to be at home, to, to administer, to give their kids childcare, because nobody can afford childcare in Colorado.

It's women who are spending their working lives fighting with insurance companies to get health care.

We need to turn the page, think outside the lines and do much better.

If we're going to address the cost of living crisis that women are bearing in Colorado.

Thank you, Mr.

Bennett and Ms.

Kirkmeyer.

We wrap it up with you.

Thank you.

I think we all understand that childcare is the greatest barrier to individuals being able to go to work, especially women.

So in during my career, both as a county commissioner and even as a state senator, I have gone in and fought for to ensure that the CCAP program, the program for child care for low income families, that it remains in place and that it's strong.

We've had to go back in through the Joint Budget Committee and stabilize that program.

At one point, we were serving only 10 or 11% of the individuals of the children who could be served with the CCAP program.

We're now down to about 5 or 6% really working to make sure that we use the funds that we get from the federal government in a effective way, so that we are providing the resources necessary for moms and dads to be able to have child care for their child in a place where they can trust and and they feel safe that their child is in a safe location.

The the other thing too, is within our universal preschool program, this was a program that has just been mismanaged from the get go.

Our universal preschool program, the preschool program, when it ended in 2022, we were serving about 29,000 kids just in the public school system, and it cost us 160, $176 million.

Now we're to a point where we more than we haven't doubled the number of children, but we more than doubled the amount of money going to it.

We need to revamp that program and make sure that we're getting universal preschool and childcare available for parents and moms.

Thank you for that.

I give you a little bit more time because of my problems.

That's okay.

It's fine.

It's not a problem.

I was going to let you finish your thought.

Thank you so much.

With that, we're going to move on to our second question tonight.

Colorado is a leading state when it comes to women small business owners.

In fact, the poll found that more than half of Colorado women are interested in starting or growing their own businesses as long as the necessary money, resources and support are available.

What specific actions will you take in your first year to expand access to affordable capital for small businesses, especially women owned firms?

And how will you measure whether the money is actually reaching them?

And Mr.

Bottoms, we start with you.

Yeah.

Thank you.

This is I've been working with a small business administration, with the Trump administration.

And they have they been working very diligently to try to help this.

They've been giving me lots of ideas, lots of stuff that goes along with this.

But here's where we are in Colorado, our Democratic-led House and Senate going up into the governor's office, has put us in such a bind where the six most regulated state in the United States.

This stops businesses.

Think how many more women run businesses we could have if we didn't have the regulation and the property taxes.

Until we get rid of those two th until we deregulate everything and till we get rid of property tax, we're going to continue to stifle new businesses for men and women.

This is businesses across the board.

We've lost almost 40% of all of our businesses since 2000.

This has to stop.

And this is at the hands of the Democrats.

So I'm just going to deregulate, deregulate every single thing that we can, get the Democrat control out of this, and let the people let the women start the businesses and run their businesses.

All right.

Well, I'm going to kick it over to you, Senator Bennett, to answer this question.

Thank.

Thank you very much.

I think the state could do a much better job pushing down the funding for local businesses and women owned businesses.

I think that those are decisions that don't have to be made at the state level.

I think that they can be made at the local level with existing financial institutions that already support women owned businesses and minority owned businesses, and we need to do a better job of supporting both and and we need to make sure that we're monitoring it, as you suggest, to make sure we're doing well.

When I was superintendent in Denver, we had a program in place that I think it did a very good job to make sure that we had that kind of diversification with people doing business with the Denver Public Schools.

And then second, I think we have made it hard for small businesses in Colorado to operate, including women owned businesses.

When you see 25% of the restaurants closed in Denver and 25% of the restaurants closing in Boulder, those are family owned businesses, often immigrant owned businesses that are now being replaced by firms from out of state that can afford the expensive, fixed costs of complying with regulations that maybe we should have thought through a little bit better.

This is a critically important moment for Colorado, I think, when it comes to the future of our small businesses.

Thank you, Mr.

Bennett.

We now move on to Ms.

Kirkmeyer.

Thank you.

So as a county commissioner, I was able to work with the Small Business Development Council here in the state of Colorado to strengthen that.

It's a great place to go for startup businesses.

They help you work through your business plans, they help you develop a developed a plan and help you work through and create.

What is your mission and vision for your business?

So I would strongly urge folks to use that service that's out there already.

But as governor, I would strengthen that.

We need to have stronger partnerships not only with local governments, but also but also existing businesses that are successful that are willing to help mentor new startup companies, young entrepreneurs who really want to go out there and create their own, create their own world, create their own job.

I for one, I owned a small business.

My sister and I started up a flower shop in Fort Collins, and we got that information from the bank, quite frankly, and it would have been great to have a small business development center that was telling us, here's where you go to get your permits.

Here's what you need to do.

You need to put together a five year plan.

So I would strengthen that.

And then I think the other issue is is already kind of mentioned.

I did pass bills that lowered property taxes.

I think that's important.

We are the sixth most regulated state in the nation.

We've got to claw back some of these regulations.

And then quite frankly, we also my time is up.

Do we need to.

Sorry I keep going.

That minute goes by quick I'll get it out.

Sorry.

Thank you so much.

And, Mr.

Weiser, you're rounding us out.

Thank you.

Our economy is stronger, and it's fairer when everyone women, people of color, immigrants have opportunities to build businesses.

Over the last 25 years, this has been an ambition and a commitment that I've led in numerous contexts, helping to chair Governor Ritter's Innovation Council, founding Startup Colorado, founding a Bridge Entrepreneurs network that's had a particular focus on supporting women entrepreneurs.

Larisa Herta, CEO of Telecom, has been a great partner in that work.

We got a lot of work to do.

When I'm governor, this is going to be a several front effort.

First, making sure that we're doing all we can, encouraging, mentoring.

Often women and people of color are the ones who aren't getting mentoring.

They don't have access to that.

Know how we need to lean in.

I'll talk more about that as this program goes on.

Also, on access to capital.

We got to make sure that the programs at OEDIT are also economic development are working for everyone.

I'm going to make sure we set up a Business Navigator program to provide the types of guidance that would have been valuable to Barb when she was building her business.

And finally, I want to make sure that we have a constant dialog getting feedback.

So we do better, right?

Thank you so much, Mr.

Weiser.

Actually, the next question speaks to what several of you brought up, and that is that the family affordability tax credit, when combined with the Earned Income Tax Credit and child Tax credit, reduced Colorado childhood poverty by nearly 40%.

But Colorado can't continue the credit because of federal funding cuts and TABOR.

As governor, how will you use tax policy as a tool to ensure families across our state can cover their basic expenses and thrive?

And Mr.

Bennet, we will start with you.

Thanks.

As I mentioned that very much.

As I mentioned, for many years, I've led the national fight in the fight that led to Colorado's child tax credit, not just to get to enhance it, but to make it paid out on a monthly basis so families could have the benefit of using it when they had to pay their electric bills, or when they had to pay for food, or when they had to pay for their kids schools to go back to school.

And it's and it's become a really important part of American tax policy.

And it is in Colorado.

And I believe that we should be enhancing it, not cutting it back.

I think that we should also have a more progressive tax code in Colorado than the one that we do.

And I think we need to reform TABOR.

This is this is part of the constitutional constraint that has bedeviled Colorado for 40 years.

And I believe very strongly that somebody who's worked in education for a long time, that our kids and teachers no longer should be fighting with one hand tied behind their back.

They're back.

We should be thinking about the next 25 years, not the last 40 years.

And that's that's a reform effort that I will lead as governor of Colorado.

Thank you, Mr.

Bennett.

That's the minute I'm going to kick it over to Ms.

Kirkmeyer.

Thank you.

The the individuals and the legislators who created the family affordability tax rate purposely put in a trigger to ensure that if we did not have a TABOR surplus, in other words, an additional amount of money out there that we had to we didn't have a TABOR surplus, that it should be triggered and that we wouldn't go into the debt, into debt and use general fund money to give the refund to individuals.

So I am not for increasing taxes.

I am not for increasing or changing or reforming TABOR.

TABOR has been in place, thank goodness, It keeps a cap on government.

It limits government and it keeps us from not being overtaxed so greatly.

We really need to ensure that we aren't giving tax breaks or tax refunds to individuals, at the expense of about 60% of the people who live in our state, 60 to 70% of the people who live in our state that are barely making it, making ends meet, who can't afford any more tax increases.

Thank you very much.

You actually had extra time only by a couple of seconds.

I know only a couple of seconds.

We'll get it next time.

Thank you so much.

And now we move to Mr.

Weiser.

It is essential for our future that we improve and reform TABOR.

For quite some time, 15 or so years, Colorado had what was known as the BS factor.

It is BS, but it stands for budget stabilization, which means we hollowed out our educational opportunity for our kids.

We are going to have to put in real work to change TABOR, because a lot of times there have been efforts that have been top down twice in the last seven years that haven't worked.

I've got a plan to do so following my leadership from the grassroots.

When I worked to take on the Kroger Albertsons merger, we did 19 town halls across Colorado.

That's what I want to do about TABOR civic assemblies, talking about the value of more progressive income tax, helping us be able to make critical investments, helping do something about this hard cap that prevents us from in critical investments from cradle.

When someone was born, childcare talked about before up to career.

That is a smart investment in our future.

I will lead it as our next governor.

Thank you.

And we round it out with Mr.

Bottoms.

Thank you.

Yeah.

Thank you.

This is this is one of the most foundational issues going on in the state of Colorado right now.

People of Colorado listen to this very carefully.

You just had two Democrats explain to you how they're going to take away the thing that has kept you getting refunds and has kept you from being overtaxed and has kept our state from going bankrupt over and over and over.

We're still $1.5 million billion billion with a B dollars in debt.

And yet they still want to take TABOR from you.

I know over 60% of the state of Colorado wants TABOR to stay in place and even tightened up, and they want that refund.

People of Colorado do not let them take your TABOR away and vote against 135.

That's going to raise the TABOR tack and mostly go to education.

These are these are shell games.

These are smoke screens.

They just want your money.

We've got to fight for TABOR.

That's your money.

Do not let this continue.

The slide that we've seen for the last decade.

Thank you, Mr.

Bottoms.

We are now going to have two questions from the community.

And here is the first one from Sarah.

Hi, I'm Sarah Alarcon, and one question I would ask the next governor is what is your plan to make it more accessible for first time homebuyers to buy their first home in Denver?

Mr.

Bottoms, we start with you.

Yes, a great question.

I would love to see, not just in Denver, but I would love to see first time homebuyers buy houses all over the state of Colorado.

The way that we have to do this is we have to deregulate.

We've added up to $35,000 for every single home being built right now.

And the only thing that we did was ad red tape.

Regulations and red tape.

And now the Democrats in the House came and said that that counties can't even have their own planning and building code and zones and everything.

The state is going to override that, guys, as long as we keep doing this.

You're not going to be able to buy houses.

We have to get the red tape and the regulation.

Now, basically, you've got to get the hands of the government and who's been running the government for years and years now?

The Democrats.

Get their hands out and let's have less reform and cut the property taxes.

And you can actually afford a home.

Get all the red tape out of there and it will stop hindering you.

Right now, the state has hindered you over and over and over to be able to buy the home.

It's not local municipalities, and it's not the cost of housing that is being driven up by state legislation.

All right.

On that note, we move over to Mr.

Bennett.

I think that housing costs are the number one issue based in Colorado, and I suggest that this state should be the first state in America where no working person has to spend more than 30% of their income on housing, whether it's rental housing or housing that they own.

We're a long way from that right now.

When I was superintendent in Denver, I did faculty meetings every day and met teachers almost only who lived in Denver.

They didn't live anywhere else.

Now, no teachers can afford to live in Denver.

No teachers can afford to live in the Roaring Fork Valley unless they win the housing lottery.

That is ridiculous.

It's reflecting the golden age that we're living in, and we've got to build starter homes.

We've got to build condominiums.

We have to build cheaper housing for the people, for our young people, and for working people in Denver and across the state.

And I proposed a plan to make sure that we cut the red tape that we need to cut.

But we also align incentives in a way that can support first time homebuyers to be able to have the opportunity to have what Susan and I have had, which is to fulfill the American dream.

Our kids are being shut out of Colorado.

Thank you, Mr.

Bennett.

We move now to Ms.

Kirkmeyer.

Thank you.

Great question.

I actually carried a bill this year that allowed for going through CHFA, allowed first responders, emergency first responders to have the ability to use the program through CHFA, which is not necessarily a government program.

It is a special purpose authority to use that program so that they could get a interest free second home mortgage so they could make their down payment to, again, being creative, looking for ways to do it.

But here's the thing.

Over the course of the last eight sessions, eight years, we've had one party control that has just led to more regulations, more taxes, and less affordability.

If we want to get more affordable homes in this and more attainable homes in this state, we've got to get the government out of it.

They've got to cut.

We've got to cut regulations.

We've got to look at, for example, we put in energy code in place.

We had a public utilities commission who thought it was a great idea to ban natural gas and not think how much that was going to cost us as ratepayers.

And that increase, we have had less affordability under Democrat one party control.

We've got to get rid of regulations and I've already cut property taxes and we'll continue working on that.

Thank you, Ms.

Kirkmeyer.

And lastly, Mr.

Weiser.

Sarah, the question you ask is so important.

Right now in Denver and many communities, if you're a law enforcement officer, you're a firefighter.

You can't afford to live in the community where you're working, which means that community is also less safe.

It means that you're not getting those individuals coaching Little League.

We need to do better.

Let me tell you about my plan to do better.

It starts with creating the right incentives.

Right now, if you have a permitting theme in Denver, almost anywhere in Colorado, it's the same permitting fee for that starter home, and for a mega mansion.

That's ridiculous.

We want to encourage the starter homes.

We should make those permitting fees as low as possible.

We should make the permitting times as quick as possible.

We should lean in with innovation like modular homes, which can be 20% cheaper, 30% quicker.

And for those law enforcement officers, teachers, nurses, others, we should have down payment assistance.

And I've got a plan to make sure we do that.

And there are other creative ways that chaff has been looking at bringing home fun.

We got to explore all that and more.

Thank you so much.

We next have a question from Patience.

Hi, my name is Patience Kabwasa and I am a community leader in Colorado Springs who works in the food access space.

And so what I want to know from our future governor is the the one big beautiful bill has already eliminated SNAP eligibility for thousands of Coloradans, including many non-citizens who lived and worked here for years.

In the community organization in which I worked, we saw in one year a demand increase of about 148%, and we're not seeing that slow down.

So I want to know what specific actions you will take as governor to fill those gaps that federal food policy is now creating.

And how will you make sure that communities like Southeast Colorado Springs, which don't always make the headlines, aren't left behind?

Mr.

Bottoms, this is your district and you're up first.

It is my district.

Thank you for the question.

One of the things that we have to do, and this is this is part of what President Trump was leaning into.

I don't know how effectively it worked, but at least this was the plan was to actually look at SNAP, look at the benefits.

Look who's getting these benefits.

There are a lot of people that desperately need these benefits, and we're pushing them out in favor of people that are illegally and that do not get access to these benefits.

And so we're pushing people that have had these benefits that have depended upon them for a long time.

Over to the side.

And just saying, from now on, you're not important because we have a new demographic that we're going to give these benefit to, and you're no longer it.

Guys, we have got to reform this.

We've got to go through every one of these rolls and look at who is getting the benefits, who needs the benefits, and who is actually cheating the system and not it's not in the best interest of SNAP or any of these other benefits for these people.

We got to stop stealing from people in Colorado.

Up next is Mr.

Bennett.

Thank you.

I really appreciate this question, and I think Scott's answers show how different the perspective is from the Trump supporters in this race.

What they've supported is the set of policies cutting taxes for the richest people in America, while cutting benefits like snap, cutting benefits like the child tax credit that in Medicaid in particular, which is going to really hurt Colorado.

That is what Donald Trump has done.

That is what we have to fight.

It is true in El Paso County tonight that there is a there is a food bank there that stays open once a week for teachers because the teachers in El Paso County need to go to a food bank to feed their own children.

That is a reflection of the Gilded Age that we're living in.

And I think, Patience, the only way we're going to be able to solve that is by having an economy that's supporting high wages for working people.

It is dramatically reducing the cost of a middle class life, of housing, of childcare, of health care.

And right now in Colorado, we are a long way from being there.

I believe we can lead the entire nation out of this Gilded Age.

Thank you, Mr.

Bennet.

Ms.

Kirkmeyer Thank you.

So here's the thing with regard to eligibility for SNAP, it actually was not impacted.

The eligibility was not benefits were not lessened because of anything that happened in the big beautiful bill.

What did come out of that is that it basically the federal government said, look, states, you need to run an efficient program and make sure that you have your error rate down and make sure that you are making determinations in a timely manner for those individuals who get to have insurance, who get to have SNAP benefits.

So the benefits themselves were not eliminated.

Eligibility was not eliminated.

In fact, the federal government is pushing to make sure that we get a lesser error rate and that we get more people determined in a more timely manner to make sure that people do have SNAP benefits.

And as a member of the Joint Budget Committee, I did make sure that SNAP benefits are something that is a priority within our budget and that we do hold down that federal match and that we are providing those services and those benefits to the individuals who deserve them in our state.

Thank you, Mr.

Weiser.

Patience, your leadership and the work of Food to Power is so important on so many levels.

And the way this Trump administration has been heartless and lawless and harmful in how they've administered SNAP is a textbook example of why the public is turning against this administration.

I recognize that Senator Bennett has supported he voted for Brooke Rollins, the agriculture secretary.

He stands by that vote.

I've had this sue her four times, including twice about SNAP, once was during the government shutdown.

And at that time, Colorado found a way to basically put some state money to help people have food so people can go hungry.

600,000 Coloradans.

I won that lawsuit against the secretary.

I brought a second lawsuit against secretary who tried to take away SNAP benefits as part of the Trump administration's efforts to bully Colorado.

I'm going to stand up for SNAP in all the ways we can creatively and leaning into food education for kids who deserve healthy food.

We need to get outside more.

And who's exposure to programs keep the power.

It's transformative.

This is a crucial issue I've shown.

I'm willing to fight for SNAP and stand up against this administration.

Thank you.

We have now finished that block of questions, and we're now going to turn to questions on health care and child care more specifically.

So we begin with Colorado.

Families are paying some of the highest child care costs in the country.

Several of you have alluded to that often rival rent or mortgage payments.

Women, especially single mothers and women of color, are disproportionately impacted when childcare is unaffordable or unavailable if elected.

How would you address child care, affordability and access as part of Colorado's broader cost of living crisis?

And Mr.

Weiser, we begin with you.

I talked about this point earlier.

Let me give a little more context.

So I talked about creating the Childcare Solutions Fund at the state level that leans in and works with local governments.

And one of the big benefits that I bring that's very unique is that I've done this work already in addressing the opioid crisis.

I led at the state level, working with local governments to catalyze action, creating a program that's been praised by John Oliver, who calls it the gold standard.

Johns Hopkins School of Public Health called it the best in the nation.

He need leadership on this issue to catalyze and to drive more capacity.

There's not enough childcare capacity right now, so we have this terrible supply and demand problem that people are going without access to childcare.

They're having to find all sorts of shortcuts.

Asking family members, having their kids watch TV's childcare.

It is shortsighted for our society.

My leadership, my plans to have a Childcare Solutions Fund will address this critical need and in going to the public to improve and change TABOR.

We're going to invest from cradle.

Thank you.

We now move on to Mr.

Bottoms.

Yes.

This comes back to all the problems that we're seeing right now in child care.

And when you incorporate that with any medical costs and insurance, those are all tied together.

We have got ourselves into a very deep hole in Colorado.

Why?

It's not the Republicans fault.

It has been the Democrat policies.

Year after year after reveal your compounded and stacked on top of each other.

So when you have Democrats saying I can fix the problem I created, be very careful.

We need to reform this.

We need to make sure that these parents are getting access to this child care, but also to the to the medical help that they need, and also making sure that families have cheaper insurance in the process of this.

The Democrats have actually run inference companies out of the state of Colorado.

Two insurance companies have left because they cannot continue to go under the burdensome regulations and control.

We've got to put the parents back in the driver's seat, take the government out, take the insurance companies and put them in the rear seat, but mostly get the government out.

And that has been Democrat control for a decade plus.

Thank you, Mr.

Bottoms.

Mr.

Bennett.

Thank you.

This is one of the places where, again, we're falling down and we're not living up to our potential.

We when families are having to spend $20,000 a year on child care, which is common in Colorado, that's more than a college education in this state.

And it means that kids can't get off to a good start.

And moms usually are the ones that pay the price because they're not able to go to work and make and have a full and have a full career without that interruption.

And we have to make childcare more affordable and more available.

And at the same time, we have to pay the people that are actually working in these childcare centers a living wage.

I've seen examples all over the state of innovative places in rural and urban Colorado that are able to do it.

We have to figure out how to scale those up.

We have to figure out how to make it less expensive for people to pay for the capital of a small of a, of a, of a child care center, so that it becomes more affordable to run.

And this has to be one of our top priorities.

Ultimately, we may have to invest the way New Mexico has to have a true universal system of child care.

Thank you, Mr.

Bennet.

And finally, Ms.

Kirkmeyer.

Well, I would agree with Senator Bennett or Mr.

Bennett on one thing that the it has been falling down and the Democrats have been in charge, and they're the ones that have created this problem and even made it worse, not only at the federal level, but right here at our home state of Colorado.

They have put in programs that have been mismanaged.

They're ineffective.

They can't get their act together.

We have gone from an early childhood program that we used to work, you know, 7 or 8 years ago.

That does not work.

Now.

That is in crisis mode, and we're trying to figure out how to fund it because the governor keeps coming in, in his budget request, underfunding these things, how underfunded child care programs in the state of Colorado.

That will not be in my administration.

I'm very clear on that.

We understand that.

I understand that child care is a barrier to work, and we've got to have child care for parents so that they have someplace where they can take their child and feel safe there.

There's child feel safe there, and they feel safe having their child there.

But the Democrats caused this problem.

They never make the priority.

And then all of a sudden, oh my God, we got to throw more money at it.

That's not the answer.

More efficient government following rules and understanding how the programs work would be a great idea and a great place to start.

And I know how to do it.

Thank you very much.

We're moving on.

According to the Women's Foundation, 1 in 9 Colorado women say they are concerned about becoming a victim of domestic violence or abuse.

And in rural communities, that number rises to nearly 1 in 5.

What is your plan to provide support to domestic abuse and sexual assault victims across the state, and to support groups in Colorado that have been underfunded through recent changes in the federal government?

Ms.

Kirkmeyer, you're up first.

Thank you.

Great question.

So a couple of years ago, we passed a law in the state or passed a ballot initiative in the state to require it and that the state fund, close to $350 million of general fund money towards local law enforcement.

I marshaled that law through to make sure that we have law enforcement in place to ensure that they can be recruited, retained and trained.

Got that through.

So again, working with law enforcement, working with the district Attorney's to ensure that we do have laws in place.

I actually also passed a law on the rape shield law so that it shouldn't matter what you where you wear your hair or how you dress, but that you're good and that you can't use that against a woman in a court of law.

So I think there are a lot of things that we can continue to work on, but I will work with law enforcement to ensure and our district attorney's to ensure that we have appropriate laws in place that will protect folks, and that we make sure that we have the funding in place for those victims of domestic violence.

Thank you, Mr.

Weiser.

You're up next.

This question is a great example of how my experience at the state level so well translates to governor, and how we have a great chance to keep Senator Bennett in Washington with 17 years experience working on things like the child tax credit.

As attorney general, this has been a top priority to make sure we are protecting victims of domestic violence.

In my office, we have a Domestic Violence Fatality Review Board.

Every year we review what are the causes?

How did we lose people?

A couple of years ago, one of the people we lost was a friend of mine.

There are lessons there, starting with how we prevent situations from getting escalated.

I worked on a bill this year to have lethality assessments so that when law enforcement shows up, they can see what's likely to happen and act before tragedy strikes.

Second, that means removing firearms from people who are a real risk.

I actually was involved in a case at the Supreme Court protecting a federal law in our Colorado law, so we could remove firearms from batteries.

There's so much work to do on this.

I'm committed to keeping it going.

Thank you, Mr.

Weiser.

Mr.

Bottoms.

Thank you.

This is a cultural problem in the state of Colorado.

Right now.

We have such an anti-police mentality from our state offices, including the attorney general's office.

We have an anti protecting the people.

We have an anti locking up people.

And we have a pro protecting the criminal concept right now.

One of the things that we did, and we brought plenty of people forward to, to testify about this is when they were trying to add more time to the time frame to get a firearm, that a woman knows that she has a problem.

She knows she's either having domestic violence issues, she being stalked, or something else.

She goes down to get a firearm to protect herself because the police won't stop the stalker and all the different things that are involved.

She has to wait three days.

We know people that have been attacked and raped because that law has been in place.

We have an anti citizen policy and a pro crime policy.

Until we start putting people in jail for these things and seriously doing it, we are putting women at risk more and more every single day.

This must stop.

And as governor, I'll stop this.

Thank you, Mr.

Bottoms.

Mr.

Bennett.

Well, first of all, I want to say I agree with Phil.

I think he's done a great job on this as attorney general.

And we've got to do more.

And the working with the having our communities and law enforcement trust each other is an important part of this.

And being able to expand things like the STAR program across Colorado and, and, and I've worked on it to try to spend across the country to make sure that we're provisioning mental health resources and domestic violence resources when those are the appropriate resources rather than law enforcement itself.

I think those programs have worked incredibly well in Colorado, and I'd like to see us do more of that.

I think we also need to be much more focused on our kids mental health and on the wellness of our families, and we've not done a good job of that in Colorado, which is why I think it's so important for us to treat physical health and mental health with the same level of importance.

Thank you so much.

We're moving on to our next question.

I really appreciate those thoughtful responses.

Colorado voters overwhelmingly approved a constitutional amendment guaranteeing the right to abortion.

How would your administration approach reproductive rights in the state?

And, Mr.

Bennett, we begin with you.

Well, I will I believe that we have become a beacon in the nation for reproductive rights.

It is a it is a civil rights tragedy that Donald Trump took away a woman's right to choose and then was reelected president.

It's almost hard to believe that in the modern era, somebody who could take away a profound civil rights could be elected president, but that's what's happened.

I think one of the reasons that's happened is because of the economic challenges that we're facing.

But in the meantime, we need Colorado to continue to be that beacon.

We need to be a place that women from other states can come to get that health care that they need continue to have access to abortion in Colorado.

We need to make sure that our state provides the protection that people need when a privacy, as well as access to abortion and other health care services.

I am really, really proud of the way Colorado has stood up here and and will continue to stand up the way our state.

Ms.

Kirkmeyer, you're up next.

Thank you.

So you're right.

In 2024, we are boiled embroiled into our Constitution, the right to an abortion.

And we made one of the most liberal abortion laws in the nation constitutional.

So as elected officials, we are charged to uphold, protect and defend the Constitution.

And I feel very strongly about following the will of the voters.

I don't like it.

I did not vote for it.

But I will follow the will of the voters and I will uphold our Constitution.

But that doesn't mean that I won't go out and talk about the need to make sure that we have good health care throughout the state.

We have 25 counties in our state that have maternal health care deserts.

That is because of one party control, not President Trump, not because of TABOR, one party control for the last eight years, who has had a crisis of priorities and has not funded Medicaid appropriately to for reimbursements to providers.

So I will work on that side of it to make sure that there is access to maternal health care in the state of Colorado.

Thank you, Ms.

Kirkmeyer.

Mr.

Weiser.

Well, I look forward to a debate that will happen this fall.

And here's the following topic; Is abortion care, healthcare?

Answer: Absolutely.

If you're a woman with a dangerous pregnancy and your life is threatened, I don't want you to worry that you're not going to ever get the access to the health care you need.

That problem.

It's not hypothetical.

It's happening in Texas right now.

Doctors are worried about can they provide life saving, necessary health care because of that state's strict abortion laws?

I am proud of Colorado's law.

I am proud of that amendment.

I fought for it.

I have stood up for it in court.

I have told city councils they've got to follow it.

And when this lawless, bullying federal government is trying to get mifepristone off of the market and they've been playing games with it, I've stood up and we've gone to the Supreme Court protecting access to that critical medication.

We need a governor who fights and leads for our values.

I've proven that.

I will do that.

Thank you so much, Mr.

Weiser.

And lastly, we have Mr.

Bottoms.

I would say this probably separates me from the others quite starkly.

40% of the people that voted for amendment 79 said they would not have if they knew the state was going to finance it, if taxpayers were going to finance it, they were they were hoodwinked there.

I think there were some people being naive, but I don't agree that abortion is health care.

These are our little babies.

I don't understand a people group that kills their own children.

And when somebody say, do you believe in choice?

Yes, I believe in choice.

I believe that women have the right to say no to the vaccine, but that wasn't important at the time.

That's when we took women's rights away to choose, but to choose for that other human inside of them that has completely different DNA.

It's a completely different human.

No, I don't believe that women have the right to kill that baby.

It's not called health care.

That's a moniker we put on it to make ourselves feel good.

It's death care, and it's very dangerous for a society.

It's dangerous for our state.

And while I can't change that as governor because of amendment 79, I can definitely affect the funding and I will work hard at that.

Thank you.

The Women Foundation polling site specific barriers Colorado women are facing when it comes to health care.

The survey found that 1 in 3 Colorado women feel misunderstood or unheard by a medical provider.

1 in 4 avoided care altogether because they feared they wouldn't be taken seriously, and about 1 in 8 reported being treated unfairly by a provider.

For black women and women in the LGBTQ+ community, that number rises to roughly 1 in 5.

So the question is this spring, the House passed a bill to improve black maternal health equity.

How would your administration ensure that this policy becomes real accessible care for Colorado women?

And we begin with you, Mr.

Bottoms.

Yeah.

I don't think you have to pick one people group out within women.

All women are are being pushed against with this.

Women are not being treated fair in most arenas when it comes to this.

Even in something simple in our society, like going get in your car fixed, they mistreat women there, they mistreat women with health care, there's no doubt about that.

And there is a cultural mindset that says women are somehow lesser or inferior or something else.

I don't believe that even as a pastor, over the years, I've hired women pastors, which goes against much of ministry ranks.

I just think women are created exactly equal with men.

Not the same.

We're very different, but we're created the same, I mean, equal.

And so I think this has to be pushed.

We have to stand up for the rights of women.

Even things like title nine has been just trampled on lately.

We don't actually care about women when we're trampling on title nine.

When do we come back and actually care about women and put them in the forefront of our society?

Thank you, Mr.

Bottoms.

We're going to move on to Mr.

Bennett.

Thank you.

These health care inequities add up to a world where we have a six year shorter lifespan than our other industrialized countries around the world, and the lifespan for black people in Colorado or in this country is 12 years shorter than countries around the world.

And that is a direct reflection of the inequities that exist in our health care system.

This is one of the reasons why I proposed in this, in this race, that we have a true public option in our system so people don't have to buy private insurance that discriminates against them, takes their money and doesn't give them a decent trade in return.

And it's why we have to, notwithstanding the cuts that Mr.

Bottoms' president has inflicted on Colorado.

Stand up medicaid in a way that we're focused on the needs of our patients and their doctors, and not on venture capital firms and not on insurance companies, which is what's happening today.

Thank you, Mr.

Bennett.

We move on to Ms.

Kirkmeyer.

Thank you.

We have a public option.

It's called Medicaid.

And we also have Medicare.

And we also have reinsurance programs.

So we have those programs that are in place.

It is this administration and Democrat one party control.

Over the course of the last eight years that have made it nearly impossible for hospitals to operate in the state of Colorado, we have overregulated them and continue to put more burden on hospitals and more regulation.

We also, at the same time, have not kept up even with inflation.

When we fund Medicaid, that is a state level crisis of priorities that has been set by this administration and the Democrats that are in control in both the House and the Senate here in the state of Colorado.

So as a member of the Joint Budget Committee, I have fought to ensure that we try and keep up our rates, that we keep up with inflation as best as we possibly can within Medicaid, because when you have maternal health care deserts.

In other words, people, hospitals have had to close the maternal health care because we aren't reimbursing them enough.

That ends up being a maternal health care desert for every woman in that county.

I will continue to fight for Medicaid reimbursements.

Thank you, Mr.

Weiser.

I think the question was about health equity and the impact that can happen when we lack it.

I want to say one of the painful parts of the Trump era is how so many people have been either cowed or bullied or just say, I'm going to pick my spots.

And they walk away from standing on the side of equity, or believing that diversity is a positive value and that inclusivity is something we should shoot for.

I've never, never walked away from those values when it comes to health equity, it's a fact.

We know that black and brown women are more likely to die in childbirth than white women are.

That's when this administration tried to cut research funding in the area.

I went to court and we won a victory, and the judge and the ruling said this effort to cut health equity research was the most racist thing he'd ever seen.

I'm going to call strong lead strong around how we ask the question.

Let's get rid of these inequities.

Let's create learning opportunities so that we're saving lives.

That's something everyone should get behind.

Thank you very much.

Colorado is one of the fastest aging states in the nation, with 12% of residents over 65 receiving health coverage through Medicaid.

Now that federal funding cuts have reduced services for many older adults, family caregivers are feeling the strain.

In the poll, 69% of Colorado women said they're faring worse than men when it comes to unpaid work, including caring for kids and other family members.

As governor, how will you support older adults and those who care for them?

And Mr.

Weiser, you go first.

Older adults often get overlooked.

That won't happen when I'm governor.

And you know that because as attorney general, I've made this a priority.

Older adults are vulnerable to scams and abuse, and I've led initiatives like the AARP Elder Watch, one that we're proactively seeking to support or older adults.

And as governor, I'm going to have the benefit of a first lady who's a geriatrician.

My wife, Doctor Heidi Wald, has made this her life's work.

She's committed to working on how we can have an initiative as a state to making sure that we're looking after taking care of older Coloradans.

There's a lot of opportunities there.

How we help people age in place, how we make sure we've got the right type of care, how we make sure that older Coloradans aren't disconnected, but instead they're part of the broader community.

People are checking in on them.

We have a connection crisis in America.

It affects older Coloradans.

One of my core commitments as governor is to address the connection crisis for young adults.

Thank you very much, Mr.

Bottoms.

You're up next.

Yeah, I've dealt with this a lot over the last 6 or 7 years.

My my mother passed away in 2020.

Locked away in a room in a rehab center.

And the.

We were being forced not to be able to come see her in the last few minutes, a few days of her life.

I just said, I'm coming in.

You can arrest me.

Whatever.

This was policy that was directly from our governor's office.

My father just passed away this last December, and I've walked through health care.

I've walked through memory care.

I've walked through assisted living, all of this stuff, my father, that some people do well with it.

Some people have not.

The problem is, is we have no recourse to be able to accomplish this.

When we cast our our elder people to the curb and say, you're not the priority, we're not going to be arresting people or investigating this.

This is going to continue to happen.

We need major, major reform when it comes to the elder people.

All of the different facilities, the monies I fought for, for people to for the elder community to get their dental care again, which has been taken away from them for next year.

When do we actually put emphasis on the life of humans?

Even when they're old?

We're not doing that.

We need to get that and kind of reform that.

Thank you, Mr.

Bottoms.

Mr.

Bennett.

Thank you very much for that question.

We have to protect Medicare.

We have to protect Social Security from this administration.

We need a governor who will fight with other governors across the country to make sure we do that, so that we buy time for the Trump administration to, to to finally be defeated and move on so that we can begin to build the progressive country that we have to build, and we need to make sure that we support our caregivers.

In Colorado, we talked about, I mentioned how how poor the pay is for people that are working with our children.

The same is true for children that are for people that are working with our seniors in Colorado.

We've got to, as a state, commit to paying people a living wage.

And then I also believe that we've got to make sure that we are connected to senior citizens in this state.

Now, this is a moment where we owe many of us.

And I think since COVID, we've retreated into our own spheres in some ways.

And we've got to remember there's a whole world out there we can make a contribution to show up and read to seniors.

We can show up and read to kids, include people in our community that I think is an important thing that each of us could do.

Thank you, Mr.

Bennett.

Ms.

Kirkmeyer, you have the last word.

Thank you.

And I do agree with that last portion of the statement from Mr.

Bennett.

I actually have a friend and neighbor of mine who is 96 years, age 96 years of age, and I am one of her caregivers.

I don't give as much care as some of the other folks that we hire, but I also help her with her finances and go over and see her once a week.

And I think that's extremely important that everyone do that.

But here's the thing with regard to older adults and being able to age in place, one of the first things we can do is protect the Homestead Exemption Act, the Senior Homestead Exemption Act, and I have done that through a couple of bills that were passed to protect that and ensure that they that they get that Homestead Exemption Act and that they can live in their homes and stay in their homes for as long as they possibly can.

Also, sitting on the Joint Budget Committee fought extremely hard to ensure that we increase, first of all, the dental care and then fought against the decrease to the dental care for the elderly and for children and for pregnant women, by the way.

So we need to ensure that we have Medicaid reimbursements in place that actually fund reimbursements for providers so that they can stay in business in this state.

Thank you very much.

Colorado has seen an increase in residence and out of state patients seeking gender affirming health care.

As governor, how would you approach the state's role in funding and regulating that care, and how would you navigate conflicts between state policy and federal guidance?

And, Ms.

Kirkmeyer, you're up first.

Well, quite frankly, if we are looking at using Medicaid dollars, we have to follow federal guidance.

And so we can try and work through that.

We can try and get waivers.

That isn't something that I would necessarily do, but we have to follow that guidance.

So gender affirming health care in our state, if it's going through the Medicaid proposals again, it looks that we have to look at what we're doing in this state.

We have issues within our budget.

We have a crisis of priorities.

Medicaid has grown by leaps and bounds.

We need to make some cuts in Medicaid.

It has to happen someplace in our state.

Even though we have increased Medicaid in our state, funding for Medicaid in our state, we have to look at eligibility benefits and then how how much we're reimbursing the providers.

So I will look at all three of those things to make sure that we are providing for health care, especially through Medicaid in our state, and that we are following the federal guidance otherwise from us.

Thank you very much.

Mr.

Weiser.

You're up next.

If they're going to try to take money from Colorado to bully us so that the LGBTQ community and particularly transgender individuals, can't have access to health care that they need, shame on that administration and shame on anyone who is going to be cowed by that.

When you're talking about people's lives, it's Pride Month right now.

People should be able to live and let live as their best authentic self.

And this administration has rising demonization, rising hate based on who someone is.

In Colorado, it's state law that you have a right to access gender affirming care.

And this administration's efforts to harm transgender people is something else I've had to go to court on multiple times.

It's very important that the LGBTQ community knows our governor isn't going to allow the type of bullying, hating and picking on them, and that their ability to health care that can be life saving will be protected, enabled.

And one thing that's really important to note here is this administration even tried to cut the suicide hotline for LGBTQ youth.

That type of hating and harm cannot be tolerated.

Thank you, Mr.

Wiser.

We move on to Mr.

Bottoms.

Yes.

This is actually one of the biggest things that we can do across when it comes to cutting and doing some different things to save our budget.

Remember when 1.5 billion in the hole, but we're not allowed to touch abortion funding, transgender funding, illegal immigrant abortion funding, illegal immigrant programs plans?

We continue to do it.

Most people in Colorado don't realize that we are a destination state for abortion.

Anybody in the United States can come to Colorado and you, the taxpayer, are going to pay for that.

Anybody in the United States can come to Colorado for a transgender surgery and you, the taxpayer, are going to pay for that.

Now we have groups that cover all Colorado.

That is, anybody in the world can now come to Colorado and taxpayers are going to fund those abortions.

When does this stop?

At the same time, we're taking money away, $15 million away from deaf and blind community.

We we took much money away from intellectual disabilities.

We're taking money from seniors.

We're taking money from mental health.

We're taking money from veterans.

But don't dare touch the transgender surgeries.

Guys, we are upside down in our state right now.

when it comes to the budget.

We must fix this.

We must do it now I'm the governor to do that.

And, Mr.

Bennet.

Thank you.

This is another place where where Donald Trump is just a screaming civil rights violation, where he's trying to drag us backwards in time, in ways that divides the American people, in ways that makes us less healthy and makes us turn on each other.

And I am very proud of the leadership of Jared Polis in this, in this instance in Colorado.

And I think that he is shining beacon in Colorado, in Colorado that we need to continue to do.

And I believe that the transgender care is not something that should be decided by Donald Trump.

I think that is something that should be decided by families and by the individuals that are making these difficult decisions for themselves.

And I think we would all be better off if we had a little bit more of a libertarian spirit about this and allowed people to take care of their own health care the way I just described.

Thank you, Mr.

Bennet.

We will close this block with a question from our community member, Kari.

My name is Kari Eckert.

The question I have for the next governor of Colorado is, how do we turn our state into a state where we can be preventative rather than reactive, and how we treat mental health crisis of our young people?

And, Mr.

Bennet, you are up first.

Thank you very much.

When I was the superintendent in Denver, we never had a meeting about the epidemic of mental health among our kids because we didn't have one.

In 15 years later, we do because of social media, because of COVID, because of the economic strains that families are facing.

And I would say also the political conflict that they're having to see in their daily lives.

The first sentence of my health care policy of this governor's campaign says that we should treat mental health and physical health the same, and that should be true for our kids as well.

There are many kids across our state that need access to mental health providers who simply don't have it in their communities, in urban Colorado or rural Colorado.

That is shocking and it is outrageous, and it is not something that anybody in any other industrialized country in the world tolerates.

Finally, I'll say that as governor, I've said that I would work to ban social media and phones from schools.

Our kids are spending three months a year on these devices.

That is not helping their mental health.

And I don't think we should be letting Mark Zuckerberg's algorithms into these school buildings.

Thank you, Mr.

Bennet.

Ms.

Kirkmeyer, you're up next.

Thank you.

About four years ago, we created what was called the Big New Health Administration in this state.

And basically we were trying to combine programs instead of silencing them in all different departments.

It has been a colossal failure.

We have wasted over $1 billion, and we have nothing really, truly to show for it when it comes to mental health in our state or making any improvements in mental health in our state, I carried a bill that would have it would have been to embrace a system of care, one that they do, a program that they do and set up in new Jersey and in Ohio and in Illinois.

And we were going following after successes in these other states that have created this system of care with wraparound services.

This administration, Democrats thought it was a great idea to weaponize the fiscal note and kill the bill.

And so essentially, I would go back to that.

How do we develop those wraparound services, create a system of care and make sure that it works?

But what we have in place right now is not working.

And we need to we need to fix it.

Thank you very much, Ms.

Kirkmeyer,.

Mr.

Weiser.

Our kids are not okay.

They deserve better.

As a parent of two kids who are still young.

Their mental health is everything.

If we can keep our kids mentally healthy, they can thrive.

But if they're not, if they're distracted, if they're lonely, if they're depressed at their future is compromised.

As attorney general, I've made this a crucial cause.

That's why I'm suing Meta this August.

Because of the way these smartphones have algorithms harming kids, keeping them up all hours of the day and night, notifications and alerts, giving them dangerous content.

We've got important work to do.

I've been putting to work the money we got by taking on JUUL to build school community partnerships.

As governor, I've got a robust commitment to how I'll deal with this.

You can look at an ad called "Future."

It's a video.

You'll see it on our YouTube page, Phil for Colorado or PhilForColorado.com What I say it's three things.

Scale up youth mental health services.

Scale up a mentoring program, so every kid's got mentoring access.

and provide hopeful paths for their future.

Thank you very much.

Last we have Mr.

Bottoms.

Yeah, this is pretty interesting because all the Democrats in the House and the Senate have been doing is cutting mental health, cutting programs, cutting specifically from rural communities.

And I think one of the biggest issues we have in the state is actually mental illness.

This has been backed up by two recent Supreme Court rulings that give me credibility here, that we.

I've been a pastor for for 35 years.

I've counseled with people that cut their arms, cut their legs.

They've been doing this.

And when they come into the office, we try to get the mental health, stop them from cutting themselves, stop them from mental illness that everybody used to recognize was mental illness.

Now we take it to another level and we cut genitals off.

But we call that mental health.

We're putting money to this.

We're enabling this.

We're destroying people in the process.

We're destroying an entire generation, and suicide rates are through the roof.

The more we reinforce these very unhealthy mental issues, we've got to stop this.

And the Supreme Court agrees with me on this.

And as governor, I'm going to put the money back into mental health.

Thank you.

We move on to the next question.

Voters will consider a ballot initiative that would raise the current TABOR cap and require the state to spend revenue on public education.

That's come up already in this forum.

Do you support the ballot initiative?

Give us a yes or no and you'll have up to 60s to explain.

Mr.

Bottoms, we begin with you.

Yes or no?

No, I do not support Senate Bill 135.

This was this says that we're going to raise the TABOR cap.

Again taxpayers, please.

Listen, I know you love TABOR, but the Democrats don't care.

They're taking your money.

That's the only reason for this bout initiative.

The bill actually says most of the money is going to go to education.

Most.

Well, who decides what most is and where in education we are putting it.

Right now, 76% of all money is going to education goes into broadening out the administration.

We spend.

Colorado has spent more on education.

We are on the top ten in the states, in the United States for spending more on education every year, except that we're sliding in education when it comes to competency.

This is not going to go to education.

Teachers are not going to get raises.

Students are not going to get help.

It's going to go to wherever they want to, as usual, probably to fix the budget that is broken.

And then on top of that, your TABOR... That's time.

Mr.

Bottoms... I'm going to stop you just so that we can get through the other to the others for the 60s.

Mr.

Bennett, you're up next.

Yes or no?

Do you support the measure?

Yes, I absolutely support the measure.

We're dramatically underfunding education in Colorado today.

Colorado only has 160 school days a year, compared to 180 on average for the rest of the country.

Are the kids deserve better and our teachers can barely afford to put food on the table as it is.

So yes, I support it.

Thank you, Ms.

Kirkmeyer.

Yes or no?

Do you support the ballot initiative?

No, I do not support it.

It's just nothing more than the fleecing of taxpayers and the gaslighting, saying that the money is going to go towards education.

There will be a portion that goes towards.

But the whole premise on this was, is that it's going to increase teacher pay.

There's no mandate.

There's nothing in the proposed ballot initiative that would require that it goes towards teacher pay.

So I think it's just a huge gaslighting affair here that we're doing just to increase taxes, to try and fix a spending issue that we have in this state with the Democrats.

And oh, by the way, the budget stabilization factor was eliminated by Republicans, not by the Democrats.

I mean, they had to vote for it, and they eventually did so.

But it was amendments that were put forward by myself and another Republican senator.

And over the course of the last four years, I have been able to find, because I put education as a priority, as required under our Constitution, $1.3 billion, annually, towards education without raising taxes.

This is not the issue.

With regard to that.

We need more taxes.

It's really a crisis of priorities that we have in this state.

The budget stabilization factor was something that the Democrats helped put into place to ensure that we balanced the budget on the backs of students.

That's time, Ms.

Kirkmeyer.

Thank you so much.

And, Mr.

Weiser, yes or no, do you support the ballot initiative?

I support it, I believe in the investments in, as I said, from cradle to career.

We're under investing.

So first, a couple of fact checks on my Republican colleagues here.

Most studies I've seen, we are in the bottom 20% title the last ten states or so in how we fund education.

We are a wealthy state, but we're not adequately funding from cradle to career.

We're going to pay a price for that.

It's like you're eating your own seat and it doesn't make sense.

As for this budget stabilization factor, both Senator Kirkmeyer and I agree that it's it's happened for 15 years.

We hollowed out education.

That's why school student to teacher ratios are so problematic.

That's why we don't have enough mental health resources in schools.

Here's the thing, though.

It was done by Republicans and Democrats, it was fixed by Republicans and Democrats.

The problem isn't who started it, who fixed it.

It's that it happened.

We've hollowed out education.

We need to do better.

Our kids deserve better.

Thank you all for that question.

We're going to move on nationally.

Disabled workers are employed at roughly half the rate of non-disabled workers.

For disabled women, especially, that gap compounds with existing wage inequality.

Colorado's Medicaid by in for working adults with disabilities allows more than 30,000 Coloradans to remain in the workforce.

If federal legislation eliminates or defund this program, will you commit to preserving it with state dollars?

Yes or no, and you can take up to 30s to explain.

Ms.

Kirkmeyer, you're up first.

I won't commit to doing it with state dollars only.

I have not heard that the federal government is going to eliminate the program.

I think if they're eligible for Medicaid, that we should make sure that they do get the services and have the resources that they need.

But we have had close to a 12% increase in Medicaid over the course of just in the last year, and we can't afford to keep doing that.

So we're going to have to look at eligibility benefits that are offered and how we are reimbursing our providers.

So I will look at it all.

It doesn't mean that we won't fund it.

I just can't commit to it because I know what the budget situation is.

Thank you, Mr.

Weiser.

Yes, we need to make sure that the most vulnerable among us is not being put to an untenable situation left out in the cold, literally, maybe in some cases, but also very figuratively.

Here's how we make it work.

We're collaborative problem solvers in Colorado.

We can figure this out.

There are lots of different solutions, lots of strategies.

When I've met with the disabilities community, they've said, please invite us in.

We know how to do this more cost effectively.

When I'm governor, we will.

Mr.

Bottoms.

Yes, I think that we can help with this, but I also agree we can't do this all from state funds.

The disability community that was just brought up is a great example.

We've cut we've cut, cut, cut from the disability community.

These are that have cut from them.

Why do we keep doing this.

And in the other space say well we're going to backfill.

We're going to help, we're going to do all of this kind of thing.

Somewhere along the line, we have to stop with the rhetoric and actually fix the problems that have been caused by the Democrats in this state.

Thank you.

And Mr.

Bennet.

Yes.

Yes, absolutely.

We have to take care of the most vulnerable people in our society.

I also believe that we have that this conversation reminds me how painful it is.

Is the citizen in Colorado to watch the annual budget fights that are happening?

We have not had a ten year plan for our budget to invest in education, to deal with our health care costs.

When I'm governor, that's one of the things I hope to be able to do.

So we can actually start investing in the things that will make the biggest difference for our kids and for our grandkids.

Thank you very much.

And just to follow up, as governor, what specific policies would you pursue to close that gap and ensure disabled women can participate fully in Colorado's economy?

Mr.

Bennett.

I'm sorry, I didn't... I apologize, I didn't hear your question.

That's all right.

I went pretty quickly.

As governor, what specific policies would you pursue to close the gap, the employment gap, and ensure that disabled women can participate fully in Colorado?

Thank you very much.

Well, one is to make sure that the funding is there, as we just discussed.

But I would go more broadly than that.

I think it's very important for us to reform our system of education so that everybody, including people that are disabled, have the benefit of credentialing that allows them to be able to be in the workforce and earning a living wage.

Even from the time that they're graduating from high school.

We have not done a good job of that in Colorado.

And I think if we could have a more inclusive occlusion education policy, we would do a better job getting people prepared for the workforce.

Thank you very much, Ms.

Kirkmeyer, Could you repeat the question again?

Yes, yes, I was follow up to the previous question as governor, what specific policies would you pursue to close the employment gab among disabled women and ensure that they can participate fully in Colorado's economy?

Sure.

And again, I think it goes back to making sure that there is post-secondary education and workforce training that is available using the programs that we do already have in place, our workforce programs and even our higher education, which include community colleges, colleges and credentialing.

I would make sure that those are all still available, and I have fought to ensure that we keep the funding in place for those programs to ensure that.

Thank you so much, Mr.

Weiser.

I can repeat the question as well.

You don't have to repeat it again.

I am committed to leading by listening.

That's what all the people of Colorado deserve.

That's why I've made such a priority in this campaign, to engage with the range of communities who are asking, Will you invite me to the table to the disabilities community?

You are at the table.

We're going to work on this together.

We're going to start with this question literally from kindergarten, as we start to recognize differences in how people learn and make sure that our education system is set up to give everybody a maximum success possible to develop critical skills, knowledge, and to be able to thrive.

We're giving up on people too quickly.

We're not supporting them often enough.

In my workforce, we have an employee resource group with people with disabilities and allies asking, how do we make critical accommodations so that everyone has a chance to be included in the workforce?

Because too often their restrictions or limitations that people may not be aware of.

We need to do better.

Thank you.

And finally, Mr.

Bottoms, I've worked with the disability community for decades now.

As a pastor.

It's part of what we have.

We have a deaf community in our church.

I have interacted with the deaf and blind school quite a bit here.

I really have a big passion for the disabled community.

You think it's difficult as a woman to have equal pay in a in a regular setting?

Wait until they have a disability.

This this puts them, marginalizes them so horribly.

But here again, here again, this is where we come down to the same people that are saying we're going to help fund the disability community.

We're going to we're going to listen to the disability community with these are the people that are taking money away from the disability community right now.

Major, major chunks have been taken away from an intellectual disabilities deaf and blind committee all over the state.

Programs have been shut down, facilities have been shut down.

One of the things we ought to do is stop attacking the disability community.

We've got to put the funds back there and then then these all through these different programs within the universities and community colleges will be reinstituted.

Thank you very much.

Recent federal actions have rolled back or weakened certain worker protections, diversity and inclusion initiatives, and equal employment opportunity enforcement.

If elected governor of Colorado, what specific steps would you take to protect workers rights, advance equal opportunity in the workplace, and ensure that Colorado remains a state where all workers can thrive?

Mr.

Bottoms, we begin with you.

Yeah, I am not a big fan of DEI diversity, equity, inclusion.

In fact, I don't like equity.

Equity says we're going to pull other people back so you can all end up at the finish line.

I'm at the same.

I'm a strong advocate for equality.

I believe that we need to give everybody the possible.

The chance is possible to be able to get into the workforce, do whatever they can.

But when you're telling other workers, you don't get to get this, you don't get the raises, you don't get the promotions because of equity.

Now we have a problem.

And so, I... major corporations are now going away from DEI.

They realized how destructive it has been, how how dangerous it has been to put people in positions that they have not earned that spot and don't have the qualifications to it.

Let's go back to equality.

Let's give people the opportunity from who they are to be able to excel in any arena that they want to.

And let's take the glass ceiling off.

But don't put a lower glass ceiling called equity and hurt people's lives in the process.

Mr.

Bennet, you're up next.

I think that this misunderstands, again, the the damage the Trump administration is doing to civil rights gains that we've made over many, many years.

And states like Colorado are going to have to step into the breach.

We have to step in the breach from a legal perspective, like Phil has done as attorney general, we're going to have to step into the breach to make sure that people have the kind of access to the contracting.

Programs that I described at the very beginning of this conversation.

We're going to have to address the inequities, that profound inequities that exist in our education system as well.

And I and I think we are going to have to make sure we look out for each other as Coloradans at this moment.

One community we haven't talked about at all tonight is the immigrant community in Colorado.

The community of immigrants in this state that are driving this state's economy in so many ways, are under attack from this administration.

We need to make sure we're doing everything we do to protect them as well.

Thank you, Ms.

Kirkmeyer.

With regard to worker protections, one of the things that I did as a state legislator was pass a bill to ban nondisclosure agreements, agreements that were effectively muzzling state workers and not allowing them to say when there was unfair working conditions that they felt or when they felt they were being discriminated against, or if they saw fraud or mismanagement if they reported it, whistleblower type things.

So worked with within the legislation.

It was a bipartisan bill, because basically all of our bills, when we're in the minority, have to be bipartisan.

And we were able to ensure that workers are protected in that way, that their voice is protected, that they have the right to speak up, and they don't have to be subject to a non-disclosure agreement.

We ban that both at the state and local level as well.

Thank you very much.

And lastly, Mr.

Weiser.

I've called this administration lawless and bullying and the way they've approached diversity initiatives, advancing equity and building a more inclusive society is a clear indication of exactly what I'm saying, including I mentioned, the agricultural secretary who's tried to take away school lunches as part of this effort.

It's wrong.

I believe, in the progress of America.

With Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who I worked for, said, the story of America is a story of a more inclusive we the people.

It was the case not too long ago that women weren't able to actually own property in many states.

They were not able to be on a jury.

They were not able to be an executor in the will.

We have been making progress, but we're not at a society where everyone's got equal opportunity.

Recent survey said when you asked white men, do you have access to mentoring the workforce?

90% said yes.

You asked black women, 50% said yes.

In my office, my three top folks under me are all women.

One is a black woman.

We've developed employee resource groups, were committed to mentoring equal access.

I'll continue to provide that leadership as governor.

Thank you, Mr.

Weiser.

We're moving on now to the environment, water and public land.

And we have a question here from Ann-Marie.

During the 1990s, Colorado's major reservoirs hovered near full capacity.

Currently, our system is now regularly depleted.

Scientists point to a warming atmosphere and evaporating snowpack, rather than just a lack of precipitation.

Given the pressing concerns around water and land in our state.

How will your administration modernize our water conservation and storage strategies to protect local municipalities, agricultural communities, and downstream states?

And we begin with Mr.

Weiser.

In the Cap.

No, no, I got it.

In the Capitol is a poem that says, "In Colorado, is a land where life is inscribed in water."

The decisions we make about water will determine what type of future we have.

Will we allow by and dry programs like one to take water from the San Luis Valley to the Front Range, making investors a quick buck, but dooming a community?

I said, "hell no."

How was the first official to stop that effort?

We need to do water the right way.

That is, more conservation efforts I've been calling for, and as governor, I will champion the way we need to invest in water infrastructure, covering up ditches with solar panels, building better infrastructure like the Mabel Ditch Project that manages water smartly.

We need to reuse water a lot more again and again.

We shouldn't be using fresh potable water on golf course, for example.

And yes, we need to manage storage smartly and adaptively.

We can do this work together.

I've got extensive work on this.

You can learn more at philforcolorado.com Thank you, Mr.

Bottoms.

You're up next.

You know the 1922 compact that includes seven states.

This is down in the Arkansas River Valley, includes a little bit up into the San Luis Valley.

That 1922 compact was designed during a year that we had a lot of extra water, that we had about 17 million acre foot on average.

Now we're averaging about 12 million acre feet for quite a few decades.

So that was already messed up in the beginning.

But what I found out was that we're actually selling 33% more water than the compact demands downstream, and that's not the state of Colorado that is individuals.

As governor, I would like to develop legal action against and lawsuits against the people that have been selling our water downstream.

I know this is going to be a big fight because it's the norm, but we got to stop doing that.

Same thing is happening up in the Julesburg area, right?

Right now near Nebraska.

We've been selling too much water.

If we can build our reservoirs, build the stations and stop selling that water downstream, keep it in Colorado.

Then we will have water for all these things that we're trying to do.

Thank you so much, Mr.

Bennett.

There is no state in America.

More on the on on the on the front line of climate change than Colorado.

You see it every single day everywhere.

I travel in Colorado.

And now we unfortunately have elected a climate denier, president of the United States, who's energy policy is Sarah Palin's drill, baby drill.

We're not going to get any help from the federal government.

Colorado is going to have to set an example for the rest of the country in terms of climate and in terms of how we manage our water.

It's why I proposed a capital invest program.

The only person in this race to say we should have an economy wide metric for the setting of of emissions limits in our state.

I also believe we're going to, as a state, have to come together and figure out how to do voluntary conservation and invest in infrastructure to make sure that we preserve the water that we have.

We also have to make sure that we stand up for the upper basin and negotiation we're having right now in the Colorado River, and understand that we're in a 1200 year drought that we've got to find a way to address.

Thank you, Mr.

Bennett.

And lastly, we have Ms.

Kirkmeyer.

Thank you.

Great question.

So thank you very much for that there.

As governor, I will be at the forefront in any of these issues where we're talking about water, whether it's our compact or how how we are storing water in the state of Colorado.

I think the governor has to be intimately involved in that.

So, first of all, water water rights are protected right under the Constitution.

So I'm not sure how anyone is going to stop the by and dry issues without interfering in a constitutional right and not creating a takings issue in the state of Colorado.

We have been basically allowing more than a million acre feet going out down through river that we could have been storing.

And over the course of the last 20 years, where we have been trying to in this state to build more water storage projects, whether it was the the Northern Integrated Supply Project or increasing Glade Reservoir, we have hit roadblock after roadblock from environmental groups with both, you know, with environmental groups that won't allow us to increase our storage.

So we will have a plan in place to work to increase storage so that we can make it through these drought years.

Thank you very much.

Let's talk about leadership in Colorado's future.

On immigration, Governor Jared Polis has signed several laws to prevent the state and local government from collaborating with immigration authorities.

Yet he's also appealing a federal judges order preventing him from complying with the federal immigration subpoena.

What would you do differently or the same as Polis on the issue of immigration?

And Ms.

Kirkmeyer, we begin with you.

Yes, we are in a situation where we are a sanctuary state, and we have state law that is in conflict with federal law.

And I don't understand why our attorney general doesn't go and try and resolve that issue.

But he hasn't done that yet.

But he's thought of a whole bunch of other lawsuits to go do.

But we do have state conflict with federal with federal law, and we need to get that cleaned up.

The law that penalized law enforcement from working together, I would have never voted for.

I didn't vote for it, and I would have never signed into law.

I would have vetoed that law as it came through, because, again, we're penalizing law enforcement.

And now it's even more than that.

We're we're penalizing law enforcement, emergency first responders.

It could be teachers, it could be bus drivers.

It could be all sorts of folks that we would be penalizing for them to work with law enforcement.

Law enforcement has to have a path to work together from the local level, from city, county to state to federal.

And we have made sure that that can happen.

It's an issue, and I would deal with it by basically, if I have to take it to court myself as governor to see if we can't resolve the conflict between state and federal law.

Mr.

Weiser, you can answer what you've said.

I'm happy to share with Senator Kirkmeyer how our US Constitution works.

Here's how it works.

We have state sovereign authority.

The federal government cannot tell us how we use our law enforcement, their quote unquote, conflict with federal law argument.

It's not a conflict.

It's their view that our law enforcement resources should be doing their work.

The federal government is wrong.

That's why I beat that same claim twice in court.

As governor, I will protect our state sovereignty.

I will not hesitate to stand up to an administration whose approach to immigration is illegal.

Even threatening due process of law is unfair and confounds common sense.

I'm going to make sure our immigrant communities knows they're protected.

And that does mean if to law enforcement that we need doing law enforcement, not immigration enforcement, engages in immigration enforcement, they should be held to account.

They shouldn't do it.

I want immigrant communities to know when you call for law enforcement, that's what you're going to get, not threaten your family safety.

Thank you, Mr.

Bottoms.

Yeah, I totally disagree with that.

Our federal law does give the ICE agents the ability to come into Colorado and to arrest people, and for the mayor of Denver to say that the Denver Police Department is going to be in direct conflict with ICE.

That is dangerous.

That is unethical, that is illegal.

We must stop that.

But here's the thing.

When you're starting the argument from the point of view that the people have come in the state and the country illegally, but that's okay.

Well, then the entire argument is flawed.

Right now, when I'm governor, we're going to eradicate the Venezuelan cartel in Colorado.

We're going to get rid of them.

Our there is no such thing as sanctuary state and sanctuary city.

That is verbiage.

That is illegal verbiage.

And as governor, I will make sure that we uphold federal Constitution, state constitution and any stupid laws that come in that says that people can break the law at will and attack people and set up a whole compound in Aurora to hurt people.

We're not going to let that under my administration.

That's horrible.

Thank you, Mr.

Bottoms and Mr.

Bennet.

Donald Trump's attack on immigrants is undermining our democracy and undermining the rule of law.

My mom was born in Warsaw, Poland, in 1938.

She was separated from her parents for three years, told they had been killed.

Fortunately, they weren't.

And they they they were the only unit of my family that survived.

And they immigrated to the United States of America, where they made an enormous contribution in their own small way, I guess, as small business owners in this country.

And that's the perspective from which I see this is somebody who's also fought to make sure that our immigrant children had access to in-state tuition.

And as a member of the Gang of Eight who negotiated the last decent immigration bill in the Senate, as governor, I will do all I can to make sure Donald Trump can send federal agents into our state wearing masks, can't pound down doors or knock on doors without warrants, can't separate children from their parents in our as is happening in our state.

These values are not consistent with who we are as Americans, and I will fight against Donald Trump's immigration policy as governor of Colorado.

Thank you very much.

We are here now at our last question before our final comment.

So thank you all for your participation and for for your thoughtful answers this evening.

Let's get right to it.

Women make up half the state's population and vote in larger proportions than men.

Yet Colorado has never had a woman governor or a woman in the U.S.

Senate.

What role will women play in your administration?

And for Mr.

Bennett, will you appoint a woman to replace you if you are elected?

And, we'll begin with Mr.

Bennet Thank you for that question.

I think we're long overdue.

A woman governor and a woman senator, and I have not made any decision about who I would appoint.

But but, but I think I will certainly reflect on our history.

And I think it's a very appropriate question.

Thank you, Ms.

Kirkmeyer.

Well, I would agree.

We're long overdue for a woman governor (laughter) [Bennet] Named Barb.

[Reso-Montero] That one was a setup.

Sorry.

So, greatly appreciated.

But yes.

And you know, I have always looked to promote women, you know, women into office and into department heads and into work, work jobs and things, even as a county commissioner.

So yes, I will.

I think it's important that we do have women that are represented, women that are in key leadership positions.

And obviously I think it would be greatly important and it is long overdue.

It's time for a woman to be governor of the state of Colorado.

It's been 150 years.

So I would also say this as well.

There is only been one county commissioner that has gone on to be elected as a governor, and that was Benjamin Eaton from Weld County.

So again, I just think it's time.

It's time for a woman governor, and it's time for another county commissioner to be governor of the state of Colorado.

Thank you very much, Mr.

Weiser.

I do have a clear record here.

I mentioned it before, my chief deputy, my associate chief deputy, my solicitor general, my top three lieutenants or aides partners, they're all women.

We have eight divisions in our department.

Five out of eight are led by women.

I also will say something else, which I experience.

One of those top three individuals is I'm aware that often women are less aggressive in promoting themselves than men are.

And I, being aware of that, have gone to some extra efforts to encourage women to apply for jobs, to mentor and promote women, and to advance their careers.

That's something I've been doing.

We are the beneficiary of that in our office.

The incredible talent we have.

It's critical that state government benefit from that, and it's critical that we work on this access to mentoring.

Too often, people who are not being mentored don't have opportunities.

Been working on that.

As attorney general.

I'll work on that as governor, and I'll make sure to point a lot of women and people of color to education, where it is also remained a challenge.

Thank you very much.

And Mr.

Bottoms.

Yeah, I strongly agree with women in leadership.

I'm very egalitarian.

This may not seem a big deal to people outside ministry ranks or being a pastor, but it is very difficult for a woman to be able to be a pastor of a church or to be hired into ministry positions.

I've done this for years and years.

To me, this is... I don't understand it.

I thought that was a thought.

That was a conversation we left behind decades ago.

But we're still having it.

Why women have to fight harder to be in those positions.

I have no problem with the woman governor.

As soon as I'm finished.

I think the idea is great for Barb Kirkmeyer to be governor after I'm done.

So the the idea that women can't be governor.

What it's it's a it's a silly conversation.

Why don't we just treat people equally and then hire them upon what, What amazing things that is them.

And stop having the the the men and women discussion.

I'm very much about women in leadership.

Thank you so much.

Thanks to all of you.

That wraps up our questions for the evening.

But before we go, each candidate will now have 60s for a closing statement.

And we begin with Mr.

Weiser.

Thank you so much for the wonderful moderation and for this great opportunity for voters to get to know us a little bit better.

Speaking about strong women, I am the child and grandchild of Holocaust survivors.

My mom was born in a Nazi concentration camp.

My grandmother was an amazing woman.

They came to the United States of America, and I got to have the benefit of believing in what this country can and must be about freedom and opportunity for all and my family.

The difference between my mom being born in that camp and me working for Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the Supreme Court, serving President Barack Obama's advisor in the white House, serving as your attorney general and your next governor.

It's one generation.

I love this country, I love Colorado.

My whole life has been about public service.

How can I make a positive impact?

Colorado is facing real challenges.

We talked about it.

We need a governor with the right values, the right experience, the proven track record to serve effectively at this time.

It'd be an honor to have that opportunity.

I'd welcome your support.

Thank you very much, Mr.

Weiser.

Mr.

Bottoms.

Yes.

Thank you.

Thank you also for the evening.

I think this is good that we will be able to get to discuss these things.

As for the last ten years, Colorado has become more and more broken every year.

We are the third most expensive state to live in, fifth most expensive housing, sixth most regulated, second in crime, first in car thefts, first in bank robberies.

We are third in violent crimes.

We are six in property crimes.

Our roads are horrible.

There's potholes everywhere.

We're we're breaking apart at the seams.

And yet we continue to look to the same leadership that has put these things in place.

That is not President Trump's fault, that all this stuff has been happening for ten years.

It is not his fault.

Stop blaming Trump and let's start fixing things.

And here's the biggest thing with me I will root out corruption.

We've got so much corruption in the state of Colorado brokenness, fraud, waste and abuse.

I'm working with Vice President Trump's Vice President Vance's fraud team right now, and we will fix these problems when I'm governor.

Thank you, Mr.

Bottoms.

Mr.

Bennett, your closing statement.

Thank you.

And thank you so much for hosting this.

And thank you to my, my colleagues or partners for being on the call with all of us tonight.

I think a lot about how I got to Colorado.

I followed my wife, Susan, who's a public interest environmental lawyer.

She went to work for the Sierra Club Legal Defense Fund, defending our public lands.

I'm proud to protected 700,000 acres of public lands, myself and the work that I've done in Colorado.

But as I travel our state, I realized that the American dream that Susan and I have pursued in Colorado is not available to families all over our state.

We are the third most expensive state in America.

It is impossible for our children and grandchildren to to to live here.

They cannot afford housing, our families cannot afford childcare or health care.

And this is a cost of living crisis.

And the brunt of that burden is borne by women all over the state of Colorado.

We have to fix these challenges.

I wish we had another hour tonight, which we don't.

But I'm the only candidate in this race that has said we should have a public option for health care, that nobody in Colorado should spend more than 30% of their income on housing, that we should deal with climate by having a statewide emissions cap.

These are the kind of bold choices we need to make, I think, to get out of the mess that we're in.

And I agree that we need new leadership, and that's why I'm running for governor.

Thank you very much, Ms.

Kirkmeyer.

You get the last word.

Thank you very much.

Well, pretty obvious I am.

I'm a mom and I'm a grandmother, and I'm a fourth generation Coloradoan and who grew up in a state, come from a very modest background.

I grew up in a state where we had opportunity to to grow an opportunity to own a home and start a business.

My sister and I started a business.

I have two daughters.

The reason I got into running for public office and running for county commissioner is because I had a Democrat county commissioner who told me, he told me that you know what?

You don't matter down there in the south part of the county.

And I thought, that's that's just wrong.

We all matter.

So I know how frustrated you are.

I know how it feels to be in your shoes.

And I appreciate the questions that we received tonight.

I can feel your frustration.

We have had one party control for the last eight years, and they have made a mess out of our state.

I am the only candidate in this race that is actually qualified, that is governed, that is cut taxes, that is looked out for the elderly, that is fought to protect children, that is basically backed our blue to make sure that we have safe communities and have safe communities in our state.

I will continue that fight.

I am qualified to be your governor.

I want to be your governor.

I'm asking you for your vote.

I understand your frustration and together we'll make a better place here in Colorado.

Thank you so much.

That wraps up tonight's forum.

Thank you to our candidates for participating.

They are, once again Colorado state Senator Barbara Kirkmeyer, state representative Scott Bottoms, state Attorney General Phil Weiser, and Colorado Senator Michael Bennet.

The Colorado primary is Tuesday, June 30th.

We'd like to thank the Women's Foundation of Colorado and the Colorado Women's Chamber of Commerce for their partnership and their work supporting women across the state.

Lastly, and most importantly, thanks to you, our readers, viewers, listeners, and Coloradans who are here tonight.

Our aim is always to provide the highest quality information for us all, to make decisions that align with our values, and we hope we've accomplished that here tonight.

You can follow our ongoing coverage as well, and find the full video and transcript of our forum at npr.org.

Thanks for tuning in from all of us here at the Public Media Center.

Good night.