051024 Barbara Kirkmeyer

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Boy, you had a lot ofthe seven hundred bills poured over. It
was it was a It was aflood, wasn't it. It was just
a NonStop it was a flood.It was grueling it. I don't know
why they allowed so many bills tocome through and just don't get it.
The House just kept introducing bill afterbill after bill. I mean on our

(00:20):
last day, maybe second to lastday of session, when we're trying to
finish up seconds on bills, wehad three full pages, three full pages.
These are bills that are just likelisted off with a small summary.
Three full pages of bills that weneeded to get through on second reading in
our chamber that came over from thehouse. It was outrageous. Wow.

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I've been asking everybody. I've talkedto you about this. I think there's
if you asked everybody, Hey,the legislature is getting in the session.
You're you're a citizen of Colorado.What are your top three priorities? And
I would think you have, youknow, transportation, education, lower the
cost of living, make it affordableto maybe buy a house to live here.
Are there some real kitchen table ormorning commute issues things you should think
about and your drive into the office. It was hard to find a headline

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that dealt with any of those kitchentable issues. Everything seemed to be about
liquor stores and wine displays and whetherwe should register our goldfish in hamster as
a pet. I mean, werethe kitchen table issues at all a priority
down there? Oh? Absolutely theywere. And I would start off by
saying two of the most important billsthat passed they did pass late in the

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session. And you know, quitefrankly, I know we're going to get
some criticism because, for example,the property tax relief bill, because we
did it end up doing it inthe last three days. Quite frankly,
as Republicans, we were in thesuper minority in the House, and we
are one vote away, one senatoraway from being in a super minority in
the Senate. So the fact thatwe were able to get for sure one

(01:53):
point three billion dollars in property taxrelief next year is important. We also
were able to cut through on anincome tax relief bill, and it was
late in the session as well.But that's the only way, being in
the minority, that we can actuallywait. I mean, it's to our
advantage, quite frankly, maybe notto the public's advantage. You know that
they don't get to common as much. But it is to our advantage as

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being in the minority, that allthese big bills wait to the end,
because that is the only opportunity whenthey have to negotiate, when we are
on the clock and the Dems haveto negotiate with us, that we're able
to get the kind of things passedor killed that we were able to do
this year. So for example,relief, I get it. An affordability,

(02:36):
man, I get it. Myproperty taxes went up last year too.
I'm not so fond of paying somuch in an income tax. So
this year we were able to deliverand again within the very end of the
session, property tax relief. SendateBill two thirty three. And I've taken
some criticism, taken some praise forjumping on to send it Buil too thirty
three. But this is one ofthose bills where man I am always I

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mean, you know, me,as a well county commissioner, led my
cake. I need to zero debt, reduce the mill levy, which reduced
property taxes, and so Senate Billtwo thirty three it does that. It
gives property tax relief, but itdoesn't cripple the state's budget and put in
jeopardy funding for education. We don'thave to trade off property tax relief for
balancing the budget on the back ofstudents. We don't have to do that.

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And so this is a measured approach. Could we have gone farther,
sure, but it would have beenhard on the budget. And I'm not
saying, don't twist my arm onthe budget, because you should as citizens,
you should be twisting my arm onthe budget. And I'm twisting my
arm. Yeah, I just can'thave you break it off because there are
some things in state government that weshould be funding. But again, it
was a fight for property tax reliefand I will continue the fight for additional,

(03:43):
more property tax relief every opportunity toget. The other thing was a
bill that came from our minority leaderin the Senate, Paul Lundeen, Senator
Lundin, he's from El Paso County. He got a Senate Bill two twenty
eight passed and we haven't heard toomuch about it because it just kind of
went through and he was able towork that through. But it is four
hundred and fifty million dollars of incometax relief in other words, your income

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tax percentage is going down. Andfolks, it doesn't look like when you
look at you think point one fivethat's a big relief. Point one five
equals you know, on your incometax percentage equals four hundred and fifty million
dollars back to taxpayers back too.And I shouldn't even say back to taxpayers
that you don't even have to payins and it represents one of the largest

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tax cuts in Colorado history. Huge. Another thing we did this year is
we paid off what's called the budgetstabilization or negative factor in education. So
you know, this might sound alittle weird for Republicans to say, hey,
we need a fully fund education andwe're paying this off and we've got
to make sure they're funding for education. It's constitutional issues. The Constitution requires

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us to fund education, fully fundeducation, and back in two thousand and
five, there was an amendment thatwas put in our constitution, another constitutional
measure, that said we have tofund it and then increase it by inflation
every year. The Democrats haven't beendoing that for the last fourteen fifteen years
until this year, and that's becauseRepublicans force them into adhering to and abiding

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by the Constitution and fully funding educationas required under the Education and I get
that done in the budget. SoI'm extremely proud about that. And then
here's another bill that's extremely important toNorthern Colorado. It's a bill that I
was able to carry and pass.It's two hundred and forty seven million dollars
of putting of cops, which isessentially debts bonds. You know, we're

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taken out a loan so that wecan build a school of medicine over at
UNC and then also increase and buildonto the veterinary medicine school at CSU.
Both of these projects are huge forthe economy. They're huge for our communities.
They will bring millions of dollars ofimpact of economics boom into our communities.

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Whether that's really for Collins all ofNorthern Colorado. Those are extremely important
bills. And then I know I'mgoing to keep going until you tell me
to stop. Well, let memake sure I know who they're listening to.
It's Barbara Kirkmeyer. She's a stateSenator from Sena District twenty three and
she represents many of you in NorthernColorado's a state senator. She's talking about
the post mortem from the recent GeneralAssembly. They had one hundred and twenty

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days. Barbara, I'll tell youif all the guests I've had from the
Republicans, you seem much more optimistic. A lot of them felt kind of
beat down, like, yeah,we didn't get a lot of the you
know, we just kind of hadto tolerate what we put up with,
and those Democrats didn't let up.You seem kind of charged up and optimistic.
I finally just kind of intriguing.Everybody else seems kind of beat down.

(06:39):
You're fully energized. I am,because again, if I said,
and I can appreciate where my colleaguesare coming from, Republican colleagues are coming
from, because it feels that way. It's one hundred and twenty day sessions,
and quite frankly to me, weboil it all down to about the
last ten days. And you know, so you know, during that time,

(07:00):
that's when we as being in theminority, we get to actually negotiate,
we get to actually work to killthings. And we did, I
mean on that last night, wellI shouldn't say last night on Monday,
which is you know, when we'reon a three day cloth now, I
mean things. You've got to getthings out of one chamber. The first
chamber was by three days out ofthe end of session or your bills dying.

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So by filibustering, by doing everythingwe can do, we made bad
bills better so that they're livable.I mean, you know the governor,
I heard him talking about his Transitoriented Communities bills, and that was his
bill and it did pass. Butwhen it was originally introduced, it basically
took away transportation funding that local governments, cities and counties used for safety on

(07:48):
their roadways, to add capacity tothe roadways. It's their transportation money.
It basically eliminated that in the billto begin with. If local governments didn't
do with the state government told themto do, we would have taken away
their transportation money. We got thatout of the bill. That's good news.
That is good news. So yeah, I am kind of psychs because

(08:09):
being of the minority, I thinkwe did a darn good job. And
here's here's what I mean. Iknow you touched about the kitchen table issues,
and I agree with you. I'mnot walking and knocking and talking to
people at the doors. And itis tax relief and public safety were the
number two issues that kept coming upat the door time and time again,
and so on safety issues, wewere had the Senator Gardner and he took

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the lead on this. He's anattorney, but he's also state Senator Republican
at al Pasa County. He passedthis bill. It's called first Degree Murder
Bill and Jury Selection Statute. Thisbill enhances public safety by denying bell to
individuals who are charged with first degreemurder. And proof is evidence and the
presumption is great. So if you'rea member of last Spring last year we

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Republicans, Republicans, we sent outof press release and said, hey,
they passed a bill that basically saidanybody on first degree murder can get bell
and get out and be out walkingaround. So Senator Gardner was able to
turn that around with this bill.Then there's another one, Senator Pelton.
Byron Pelton, you know, heserves part of Well County in northern Colorado.

(09:18):
He had a bill that strengthened theenforcement of human trafficking. And you
know, and this is why Iam kind of charged. There was a
similar bill that started in the House. It got killed in its first committee.
Senator Pelton was able to marshal thisthrough. And yes we had some
Democrats. He had Democrats on someDemocrats on his side, and it worked
and he was able to strengthen statuteof limitations on human trafficking charges and increase

(09:43):
the punishment. I mean, thiskind of stuff wasn't passing two three years
ago or even last year. Andthen I had a bill about protection of
victims of sexual offenses. Again,this one just protected survivors of sexual assault
and basically said, you know what, just because you her hairstyle was a
certain way or you wore certain clothes, doesn't mean that you should have been
raped. I mean, that's thething. And so it gave protection to

(10:07):
survivors of sexual assaults. Those areall things that increase public safety. They
may sounds fall to some people,but to me, these are huge and
to people who are survivors of thisof these things, it's huge to them,
and it's a huge increase for publicsafety when you think about over the
course of the last three four yearswhere we have had, you know,

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like Representative Herod out of Denver continuallyattacked law enforcement, and she had a
bill up this year that did that. It died. It died on the
House side, and they're a superminority, so we were able to move
these measures forward and get them passed. I think it's huge. I just
did Bob Kirkmeyer, my guess she'sfrom Citta District twenty three, wrapping up

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the legislative session this week. Theydid and Senator Kirkmeyer talking about kind of
the post mortem a very interesting optimisticview compared to some of the postmortems of
people feeling bea down which we canappreciate the optimism. It's wonderful. One
of the bills that I never figuredout why this doesn't ever get through and
it just died. And this isone where I think they said they ran
out of time and we don't havetime for it. It's the construction defects

(11:11):
laws. It makes affordable housing andentry level home purchases very difficult. Why
is it that for six seven yearswe haven't touched at construction defect laws?
And where's the powers that be thatdon't want to have affordable home purchases,
entry level purchases available? Is therea reason that get stuck every year?
Trial lawyers, that's the short answer. The trial lawyers. They don't want

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construction defect reform going through that wouldaffect their bottom line, you know.
And then and to be fair though, there is some you know, folks,
there has to be some protections putin place for homeowners if after construction
things get messed up and you've gotto have you know, the liability needs
to be on the people who builtyour home kind of thing, right or

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condo or town homes or those typesof things. So there needs to be
a balance. But this really gotskewed and went all the way to one
side because of trial lawyers. Imean, they fund a lot of people
down into capital, mostly Democrats,I think almost all Democrats, you know,
and they fund them and they're verypowerful in this area. And that's
what happens, you know. Iknow, again this wash well, and

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it was a pretty much a fullyDemocrat bill because they got to try and
get it through the Democrats. BecauseRepublicans we support, you know, construction
defect reform. We support you know, making sure that insurance companies, that
construction companies can get insurance. Thattype of thing, you know, we
don't support. You know, we'rea homeowner again, doesn't have the ability

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to get their home fixed when itis someone else's fault when it is the
people who built the homes or thetownhomes are construct you know, or constructed
the condos. When they have donesomething wrong, you should be able to
go back on them. But itshouldn't be ongoing in forever kind of stuff.
So there are issues there. AndI'll tell you another bill that I
had and it wasn't construction defects butreform. It was what I called It

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was the Dredge and Field Bill orstream and wetline protection. I started a
bill in the Senate. There wasa bill started by the speaker in the
House. They were competing bills.We go through. She's getting hers passed
through the House. They thought Ididn't have a chance of getting it through
the Senate. I had to workthat bill extremely hard. I had,
and it's important to Colorado water.Congress supported my bill and quiet faically helped

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write the bill and they were therewith me. But it was extremely important
for agriculture in Well County in northernColorado that we get this right. The
Supreme Court US Supreme Court changed thelaw last year and it was called the
Sacket decision, and it basically saidthat there, you know, the federal
government the Corps of Army, theCorps of Engineers would no longer be doing

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for what's called a four L fourfor me in Colorado, now there wasn't
anybody and I you know, andI'm with them. We need to protect
our streams and our wetlands. Wateris an extremely important resource to Colorado.
But as we're going through this,we needed to make sure that the Department
of Public Health and Environment doesn't getto go wild and basically make it so

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dang hard to get any kind ofpermit that it stops all development and growth
in the state of Colorado, butmore importantly from my neck of the woods,
from Well County, that it doesn'tharm agriculture. That is our second
largest economy in the state of Colorado, and we've got to be able to
make sure that agriculture gets the resourcesthat they need and that they aren't overburdened

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with tax regulations, with regulation,right. So what happened in that was
the Speaker's bill gets through the House. Obviously she's the Speaker, and my
bill is going through the Senate,and when herveil comes over to our chamber,
I was able to work with SenatorRoberts, who's from Frisco. He's

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a Democrat. We looked at bothour bills. We sat down, and
I'm telling you it was pretty tensenegotiation just between us and you know,
both sides for about ten hours andthey were doing we did probably ten hours
worth of extreme intense negotiation. Butboth sides were going back and forth for
about a three day period. Andwhat ended up was is I allowed my
bill to essentially die on the calendar, and I got on Senator Roberts bill.

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But it was a bill again thatmade sure that we exempted out agriculture
appropriately, that we exempted out certainthings that were appropriate, so we weren't
regularly Barb Kirkmeyer, I'm running outa time. Happy Mother's day too,
you. I wanted to talk aboutthat, but we run short on time.
Here A happy Mother's day, BarbKirkmeyer, State Senator, Senate District
twenty three. We're out a time. Boom, the clock goes off.

(15:48):
Everybody stand by Lakey on the radio. Thanks Barbara Kirkmeyer, get some rest.
I'll be back. Laky six hundredK col