Is it normal for Colorado GOP party leadership to spend down the money they've raised, rather than hand it over to the incoming administration? Weld County Sheriff Steve Reams asks former state chair Dick Wadhams about this ethical matter.
Weld County district attorney Michael Rourke joins his law and order counterpart to discuss the dire implications of Senate Bill 25-776 designed to offer further sanctuary protections to illegal aliens in Colorado.
Weld County district attorney Michael Rourke joins his law and order counterpart to discuss the dire implications of Senate Bill 25-776 designed to offer further sanctuary protections to illegal aliens in Colorado.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
This is Dan Capless and welcome to today's online podcast
edition of The Dan Caplis Show. Please be sure to
give us a five star rating if you'd be so kind,
and to subscribe, download and listen to the show every
single day on your favorite podcast platform.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Welcome to the Dan Caplis Show. Here on a windy
Monday afternoons from the iHeart Studios. Looking out the window here,
it looks like the weather is changing quickly, so if
you're out there on the roads or heading home, looks
like you may encounter some weather in your drive today.
You're not listening to Dan, though, you're listening to the
fill in, which is Weld, Kenny shri Steve Riams. It's
always an honor to be here in the seat taking
(00:36):
over for Dan. I think he's out a trial again
for the first couple of days of the week this week,
so you'll have me today and a couple other guest
hosts as the week goes on. But I want to
dive right into our topics today, and one of those
is going to be the State Republican Party, the GOP.
We've had a transition of power from the Dave Williams
(00:57):
regime to the Britta Horn legacy, and in that process,
it's been a little clunky from one transition to the other.
And last week, any of you that are involved in
Colorado politics on the Republican side, you probably had an
email from the new chairwoman, Brita Horn, and kind of
referenced taking over the finances of the party and through
(01:19):
some information out there that can kind of be construed
to question the spending of the outgoing regime for the
last month. And I was asked to go on a
radio show over the weekend along with Dick Wadhams. And
during that other radio show we were kind of having
an exchange back and forth, and I thought, well, I'm
going to be covering for Dan, so why don't we
get Dick Wadhams on on Monday afternoon and just kind
(01:41):
of set the stage for where the state of the
Republican Party is. So he's coming on with us right now. Dick,
how are you doing, mister Wadhams, How are you, sir?
Speaker 3 (01:51):
I'm doing great? Sure, How are you doing?
Speaker 4 (01:53):
I'm doing fine? Hey.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
You know, we had a little conversation over the weekend,
but to set the stage for the listeners, you know,
I think anybody that's part of the Republican Party probably
got the email that came out from chairwoman Britta Horn,
and the minute that I got it and there was
three pages of spreadsheet expenditures that kind of drew my attention.
I was like, Oh, that's a lot of money. I
think two hundred and sixty one thousand dollars that was
(02:16):
outgoing from the account in that last month. And I
think you probably looked at it in a similar way.
But I don't want to put words in your mouth.
So what was your initial take at seeing that email
and kind of the information contained.
Speaker 3 (02:30):
Well, it didn't really surprise me, Steve. I assumed that
probably the Williams regime would spend down the money in
the account, as I recall going into April. For going
into March, the party was showing something like two hundred
thousand in the bank, and the last FET report they
(02:52):
filed for the month of March, which was filed on
April twentieth, I showed it spend down to something with
fourth thousand or whatever it was. Didn't surprise me. Okay,
But the only thing I'll tell you what has kind
of really kind of rankled me. The whole few years
Williams chairman was the character assassination that he he and
(03:15):
others leveled against Christy Burton Brown and alleging that she
had done he suggested, not suggesting, very almost accusing her
of of illegal mismanagement of the party. And they never
came forward with any concrete evidence of that, and and
(03:37):
I think they're still doing it. So I don't know.
I mean, Christy Burton Brown is an upstanding person. I
just don't understand why they did that during their two
year period.
Speaker 4 (03:47):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
Interestingly enough, after the interview we did over the weekend,
I got a text from Dave Williams that kind of
it was a statement and it was on behalf of
his outgoing his outgoing group, and it was it was
pinned by Tom Bjorkland, uh the outgoing Treasure and he
basically said, hey, you know, there were some problems that
were inherited from even the Ryan call era that apparently
(04:11):
didn't necessarily get cleaned up under KBB. And then when
Dave Williams took over, you know, they were doing their
best and this is his his take, not mine, they
were doing their best to kind of make sense of
all that and hand over a clean a clean Bill
of goods to the to the now britt A Horn administration.
So we're actually gonna have Tom Bjorklan on in the
(04:31):
second hour of the show, So I'd encourage you to
tune in if you want to hear what he has
to say. But you know, I figured, let's just get
straight to the source and see if we can find
the guy who was actually doing the books. So hopefully
that'll be a little little uh, it'll shine some light
on the whole thing. But Dick, I the reason I
wanted to have you on is you you were the
(04:52):
party chairman for a while. Is it normal to see
this kind of spin down in the last month or
two of one person going out and another person even.
Speaker 3 (05:00):
M That's hard to answer the question whether it's normal, Steve,
when I got elected in two thousand and seven, I
discovered that the party he was in debt by a
serious amount. In fact, it was in debt six hundred
(05:23):
thousand dollars when we time, we got a full accounting,
and it wasn't There wasn't anything illegal going on. The
party just lost control of its spending as it was
trying to help elect Republicans, and that two hundred or
that two thousand and six election cycle. So I started
off the day I got elected. I inherited a six
hundred thousand dollars debt that took me over the course
(05:45):
of the full first two years I was chairman. And
so you know, it's just one of them. Listen, I
ran for the job, I've got it, and I've had
the responsibility for taking care of that debt and we did.
I wouldn't I would say this that uh chair should
(06:06):
try to leave some money in the bank. So that's
the new chair has the ability to have some cushion
going into their their term. I don't know what that
figure is. I mean, you know, but uh sixty four
thousand dollars or whatever, I think I think that was
the figure I saw on that FEC report. That's that's
(06:29):
certainly not chump change. The bottom line is that any
chairman has the responsibility to raise money and they have to.
They have to, and that requires going to big donors
and and raising money from them, and and having a
really solid grass roots fund raising them uh program with
(06:50):
with social media and and mail and and so ultimately
the chair the chair whoever it is, has to dig
in and start start raising money and that's a big response.
That's probably one of the biggest responsibilities of any chairman
sure to do that.
Speaker 4 (07:07):
Well.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
That actually leads to my next question, Dick. So we
have Britta coming in. She I think she's trying to
just say, hey, in the sake of transparency, here's the data,
as I understand it. She put it out there. You know,
I think people are going to read into it what
they want. You know, there was It's easy to see
that Dave Williams was paying himself through his consulting firm
what I would call a salary for the last few months,
(07:29):
which is not anything inappropriate. It's funny how it was documented.
But you know, I think I think she was trying
to just say, clear the errors. Here's where we're at now.
Having said all that, Britta's goal is to get Republicans elected.
Do you think that we are in a place in
this state where Republicans can start to get some win
in their sales and say, Okay, we're turning the page,
(07:51):
we're moving forward. Can Britta go out and help raise money?
And I guess second to that, Dick, do you think
there's the candidates out there to inspire Republicans to donate.
Speaker 3 (08:02):
Well, this is the problem, Steve, is that we have
a dramatically changed electorate from what it was as recently
as ten years ago. And that's largely been driven by
all the new people who moved here. Now that migration
into the state has largely kind of flattened, but it
(08:24):
was it was massive for a while. That's why we
got the eighth congressional district, which you're certainly familiar with,
familiar from Well County. And we essentially eight hundred thousand
people moved here over about a fifteen year period, but
largely the last ten that last ten year period, and
(08:44):
these are the big chunk of them are younger, they're
more liberal, and their social attitudes and unfortunately they are
very they have been very anti Trump, and they greatly
impacted the twenty the twenty sixteen election when Trump lost
to Hillary Clinton by four points, When Trump losts to
(09:05):
Biden in twenty twenty, in twenty twenty by fourteen points,
he lost too, He lost to Hillary by four points
in twenty sixteen, and then in twenty twenty four he
lost to Paris by eleven And the bottom line is
that those victories for Democrats and those presidential elections here
(09:27):
in Colorado were driven by these new voters. So the
question is are they just gone to us forever. I
don't think they are, And I would point to you
to the proposition ahh, property tax proposal that was on
the ballot supported by every Democrat in Colorado in twenty
twenty three, down in Flame by twenty points. So I
(09:50):
think that tells us that a lot of these voters
will vote are more conservative in they're economic out looks,
and so that we have a chance of them in
the future.
Speaker 4 (10:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
You know, by all the pulling out there, the younger
voters on the on the scene, the ones that survived
through the COVID era, if you will, Uh, there's there
tending to vote way more conservative, and those people are
in the voting age now. So hopefully that's where we're
going to get to.
Speaker 3 (10:16):
Yeah, and this legislature, my lord, can can it get
any worse? I mean, every time I think it cannot
get any worse, it does.
Speaker 4 (10:22):
Yeah, don't down.
Speaker 3 (10:25):
Yeah exactly. And you know, it just seems to me
at some point, Steve, we're going to hit a breaking
point in Colorado where people are going to realize, you know,
these people in the legislature are the ones who responsible
for the constant living, for the crime, for the homelessness,
for all the things that are for the fact that
so many people that their education system is broken, and
(10:49):
they've they've been in power, they have been in total
power for so long, and then there could there will
be a breaking point well occur this election cycle. I
don't know, but I do think that Democrats make you
feeling bolden that they can past anything on the part
of us that they want to.
Speaker 2 (11:06):
Well, Dick, I appreciate you coming on at the start
of the show. I know that your time is valuable.
We're going to cut to a break, but thanks for
being on with us, even if you weren't the most
encouraging person out there, but there's still hope. Dick again,
Thanks and you're listening to the Dankplas Show here on
six point thirty Khi. We'll cut the break.
Speaker 5 (11:24):
And now back to the Dan Kaplis Show podcast.
Speaker 6 (11:27):
Also, a bill aimed at enhancing civil rights for Colorado
immigrants heads back to the Senate after the House made
some amendments yesterday afternoon. State Senate sponsors will now have
to decide whether to accept the House changes or convene
a committee to negotiate them. The bill would restrict agents
from going into non public areas in places like hospitals, jails,
and schools. It would also restrict what information local governments
(11:49):
could share with the FEDS, including a person's immigration status.
Speaker 7 (11:54):
Going in depth, the immigration bill could bring more attention
from the White House. The Trump administration already suing Colorado
and Denver over their immigration policies.
Speaker 4 (12:04):
That lawsuit was filed just this past Friday.
Speaker 7 (12:06):
On top of that, President Donald Trump signed an executive
order on Monday directing the US Attorney General and Homeland
Security to identify what they consider to be sanctuary jurisdictions.
Those jurisdictions could then lose federal funding.
Speaker 2 (12:20):
Welcome back to the Dan Kaplis Show. You got well
Kenny Sheriff Steve Riams sitting in the hot seat today.
We led back in with that little news clip because
it's talking about the thing that I think Republicans can
truly win on in this state, and that's still the
topic of a legal immigration and whether or not this
state is in fact a sanctuary state, even though Governor
Poulis repeatedly says this is not a sanctuary state. I
(12:43):
live here, I work here in law enforcement. I've never
known of a state to be more of a sanctuary
state than this. When I first got here in the studio,
sat down with Ryan and we were kind of going
back and forth. And I think the thing that the
Democrats are holding their hat on, especially Jered Poulis, is
there's not one definite definition of what a sanctuary state is.
(13:03):
But it's kind of one of those things. When you
see it, you know what it is. And when you
drive through Colorado, especially if you drive through Denver or Aurora,
especially certain parts of Aurora, you know you're in a
sanctuary state. There's no ifs ands or butts. You know
that we are inviting a certain type of person to
come live here illegally, and they are doing so in
(13:24):
great numbers. So, having said all that, I'd like to
invite all of you to call in text in let
me know your thoughts on what you think makes a
sanctuary state and is Colorado one of those places you
can text in text start your text with Dan to
five seven seven three nine, or you can call in
three O three seven one three eight two fivey five.
I love to interact with the caller, so again that's
(13:46):
three oh three seven, one, three eight, two five five,
And kind of to start things up, Alexa, one of
the crowd favorites out there, she texts in share frames,
there isn't much I respect about the Dems. However, Dems
are like the Italian extended families. They may fight like
haities internally, but externally they present a united front. Colorado
and National Republicans always air their dirty laundry to everyone.
(14:09):
I wish they could be rowing in the same direction
instead of all this internal fighting. So sick of this, Alex,
I couldn't agree more. That's kind of how we started
the show off with. You know, hey, we got to
get past this. And again, I think what Chairwoman Britta
Horn did by kind of saying, all right, this is
the starting point for my tenure, even if it is
a little ways into that process. She's saying, this is
(14:30):
the books I was handed. You guys can make your
own judgment. I'm moving forward from here. At least that's
what I hope the message is. And then how do
we raise money, how do we get people elected? And
most all, most of all, how do we bring this
state back from the brink of pure disaster? I mean again,
when I drive down to the studios each day when
I'm covering for Dan, I get to see things that
(14:52):
I don't see in my typical drives around Weld County.
I mean, you might be surprised by this if you're
a listener out there and haven't been to Weld County.
Speaker 4 (15:00):
We still uphold the rule of law.
Speaker 2 (15:01):
We still don't fit the definition of what a sanctuary
state would be. We've very much pushed back on that,
and so while Denver and Aurora may embrace that label,
Weald County does not. Most of the cities in Weald
County do not, the town's whatever you want to call them,
the municipalities. We still believe in supporting Colorado citizens and
(15:25):
doing so first to protect our state and not doing
so secondarily to protect people who shouldn't even be in
this state. But as we're talking about Senate Bill two
seventy six, you know, the question is will the governor
sign it, will he put his name to it, will
he say this is what I believe in? And some
of the things that have been outlined by different folks
(15:45):
about this bill they're pretty shocking, but one I think
the most shocking part, like We've already passed House Bill
nineteen eleven twenty four in the state of Colorado that
says local law enforcement cannot detain an illegal immigrant past
their release date on behalf of ICE. We can't honor
their quote unquote administrative warrants. That being said, there was
(16:08):
never a provision that we couldn't have ICE come into
the building. You know, if they did have some kind
of legal reason to be there, they wanted to interview someone,
we didn't have to treat them like second class law
enforcement citizens. But Senebill two seventy six goes even farther
than that. It says, not only can you not work
with ICE in any fundamental way, but you can't even
let them in your building. I mean, that's just that's
(16:29):
such a slap in the face to what their mission is.
And it's also a slap in the face to local
law enforcement. We catch a guy, we get him convicted.
Let's say his, he or she's time is up in
the county jail. ICE has every reason to come get
them and send them back to their country. They have
a window of opportunity to do so, they get there
(16:50):
before that person is supposed to be released. I can't
even let them in my jail to do that in
a secured facility so that no one gets hurt. Under
this bill, I have to let that person go out
onto the street and say good luck. Ice, see if
you can catch them. I mean, that's just it's it's
beyond the pale of what is stupid. You know, Denver's
(17:11):
been doing this. On a few of the few occasions
ICE has had to chase guys down, They've gotten people
hurt in the process. That's what this bill is asking
to become the norm for law enforcement. If that's not
a campaign issue for Republicans to stand on, I don't
know what is. Here's another text. It says Sheriff Steve,
if I was going to create a sanctuary state, I
do exactly what the DIMS have done. That's Steven little
(17:33):
Tony's retired l e O. You hit the nail on
the head, Steve. I mean, this is the definition of
a sanctuary state.
Speaker 4 (17:41):
Now.
Speaker 2 (17:41):
I know we've tried to claw back and say no,
this can't happen, but it's here. It's here, folks. I'm
just so frustrated. I'm tired of living in this in
this make believe land of no sanctuary state, but seeing
it slap me in the face every day.
Speaker 4 (17:56):
All Right, we're gonna go to break.
Speaker 2 (17:57):
When we come back, we'll have District Attorney Michael Rourke
from welld County on and he can talk to you
about some of these same issues. You listen to the
Dan Caplis Show here on six point.
Speaker 4 (18:05):
Thirty k how.
Speaker 5 (18:15):
You're listening to the Dan Kaplis Show podcast.
Speaker 2 (18:19):
Welcome back to the Dan Caplis Show with well Kenny
Sheriff Steve Raims sittting in the driver's seat today and
on the phone with us. We've got the district attorney
for my county, Weld County, out of the nineteenth Judicial District,
Michael Rourke. How are you doing this afternoon?
Speaker 8 (18:32):
Hey, Sheriff, Good afternoon, Thanks for having me on.
Speaker 2 (18:34):
Hey, thanks for coming on. You know, we talked a
little bit earlier, I guess last week at the end
of the week about some ideas for the show, and
you know, obviously there's some things that have developed over
the weekend with the FEDS dropping a lawsuit on the
state of Colorado, so we got to start with a
little bit of that, and I know I didn't prep
here for that But what do you think is there
any chance of this federal lawsuit changing the tide here
(18:57):
in Colorado on some of these sanctuary bills.
Speaker 8 (19:00):
And I sure hope so, Sheriff, because like we talked about,
and I know we'll get into a couple of other topics,
but I heard you're talking in the last segment about,
you know, Colorado being a sanctuary state. Not only is
it a sanctuary state, it's become a sanctuary for crime state.
And certainly I think that the threat of this lawsuit,
or the existence of this lawsuit specifically, I hope causes
(19:20):
some reasonable minds to reconsider the policies that has the
state headed in the direction of anti public safety, which
you and I talk about all the time. Yeah, I
sure hope.
Speaker 4 (19:31):
So.
Speaker 8 (19:32):
I don't know if it will actually make a difference
in the long run, but I sure hope it does.
Speaker 2 (19:35):
Well, you know, there's always a way to set precedents,
and I hate to see it have to happen through lawsuits,
But at this point, I don't think there's any way
of changing the tide from what our crazy legislature is doing.
But you know, you hit a huge topic, and that's
that Colorado has become a crime sanctuary. What does your
docket look like in Weld County? Do you have enough
(19:56):
prosecutors to even begin to try to tackle the amount
of crime that the law enforcement contacts in and about
World County.
Speaker 8 (20:07):
But let me give you a statistic that I think
can help answer that question real quickly. On average a
community of our size, you know, World County being roughly
three hundred thousand people on average. Over the last decade
or so, we've tried to a jury somewhere in the
neighborhood of fifty to fifty five felony trials, which is
a significant case load for my prosecutors, for your deputies,
(20:31):
for police officers in the municipalities. So fifty five on
average so far this year, including this week, we are
already at thirty eight felony trials and it's May fifth.
These are felony trials that are homicides, attempted murders, crimes
against children, sexual assaults. These are cases that I think
our public expects to be in trial. And that's five months,
(20:53):
you know, not even five months, four months right into
the year, and or we're you know, already sitting here
at thirty eight.
Speaker 4 (20:59):
You're happy past.
Speaker 8 (21:00):
Your average exactly. Math is not my strong suit, but
I'll work for it. But yeah, it is a massive
problem that we're having right now, and we are all
of us, as you well know, very incredibly busy.
Speaker 4 (21:12):
Yeah, so a.
Speaker 2 (21:13):
Couple of topics. We have bail reform that kind of
landed in our state a couple of legislative sessions ago,
and a lot of people go, little, bail reform, What
can that mean? I mean, you know, we don't want
people being overly punished and held in jail if they shouldn't.
What has bail reform actually done to your job and
my job in a lot of ways? And try to
(21:34):
explain that to the listeners what bail reform actually means?
Speaker 8 (21:37):
Sure, what bail form. The talking points for bail reform is,
we don't want to keep somebody in jail simply because
they can't afford financially to post a bond. Makes sense
on fathe However, what I think that that talking point
seems to ignore is that a judge a magistrate, after
listening to an argument from a prosecutor and from the
(21:58):
other side, is going to set a reasonable amount of
bond based upon a defendant's criminal history. A defendant's prior
failure to appear rate. And what we have seen is
with the systematic reduction of bonds and the increase of
the issue on sub personal recognizance bond, we are seeing
the same repeat offenders over and over and over. Hit
(22:18):
your jail, bond out, go back out onto our streets,
create a new victim, create another crime, hit your jail again.
And it is a massive revolving door. And so despite
arguments from good public safety minded prosecutors to judges, because
of some of the things the legislature has done to us,
we have defendants who are getting back out on the
street pre trial, committing new offenses and having multiple cases
(22:42):
rack up while they are waiting for their first case
go to trial. This is the same effort that we
saw in Oregon. It's the same effort we saw in
New York. And all of a sudden, the State of
New York is rolling back bail reform because they realized
it didn't work. It made us less safe as a community.
Speaker 2 (22:56):
Well, and it's making Colorado less safe, There's no doubt
about it. I can throw a few names out there
of individuals we've had to arrest twelve and thirteen times
before we could ever get them to a trial on
you know, those first couple of cases. And I'm sure
you have names that stick in your brain for the
same thing. So one other thing that you and I
have discussed is the mental competency issues in the state
(23:18):
of Colorado. And I can argue that there's a whole
bunch of things that affect mental competency, but I think
that's being used as a crutch right now. And I
know this is a thing that burns you a hole
in your gut, But talk to the listeners a little
bit about what that mental competency status is doing to
your ability to try criminals.
Speaker 8 (23:37):
Let me back up and give you one little piece
to kind of set the stage. Sure, we have a
massive backlog at the state level in terms of getting
competency or insanity evaluations done and then efforts to restore
defendance to competency.
Speaker 2 (23:51):
You mean the state's not doing its job? Is that
what I just heard you say?
Speaker 8 (23:54):
Shock, It is what you heard me say. Yes, you're correct.
And so therefore, the federal government had, the federal courts
had to step in and put Colorado under a consent decree,
which says that the State of Colorado will be fined
if you don't hit certain benchmarks in order to in
getting restoration proceedings or competency services being done in a
more timely fashion for defendants. In response to that, what
(24:17):
the legislature did is didn't give you more evaluators, didn't
give you more competency restoration services individuals. In fact, they're
cutting back on those individuals. What they did was they
wrote a statute that took effect a couple of years
ago and amended it a couple of times since then,
which says, if you're charged with a certain level of
offense and you're found to be incompetent, your charges are
(24:39):
automatically dismissed. For other somewhat more significant charges, if you
sit in your jail or are on restoration services for
six months or one year and haven't been restored, your
charges are dismissed. So what we're seeing is defendants who
have three, four or five cases being dismissed. They go
back out onto our streets, pull guns on individuals, stab
(25:02):
other people. They come back into your jail, into my courtrooms,
and now we are left with the case being dismissed
again because there's a presumption that once you've been found
and competent, you're going to be found and competent again.
Speaker 2 (25:15):
So it's just an easy pathway for someone to get
basically a get out of jail free card. So all right,
having said all that, what does that look like for
I mean, what is the long term fix for that?
Is there one without changing the law?
Speaker 8 (25:31):
I think that without changing the law that the answer.
And I hate to say this because I am a
good conservative steward of taxpayer dollars, it has to be
funding additional, additional evaluators and treatment providers. Because we are
not going to be able to legislate our way out
of this. We have got to treat the problem where
the problem exists, and that is with individuals with mental
(25:54):
health issues that are causing them to commit these crimes
over and over again, victimizing our communities.
Speaker 2 (25:59):
Board ends up in a and what we none of
us want to be involved in, and that's a police
shooting where suspect is killed or officers get hurt, or
innocent people get hurt. And I think that is that's
on the rise in the state of Colorado, and it
has to be at least in part due to these
same things.
Speaker 8 (26:15):
Absolutely, that's exactly right. And you know as well as
I do. What you just hit on is exactly right.
We have individuals who've been involved in officer involved shootings
because of mental health issues. We charge them because they
have survived that encounter with law enforcement, luckily, and we
charge them. They are found incompetent. We can't restore them
to competency in a timely fashion, and so the charges
(26:36):
are dismissed. Again, this individual that I'm thinking of here
in Greeley is back on our streets, law enforcement having
to deal with that individual again.
Speaker 4 (26:45):
What could possibly go wrong? Well, we said exactly.
Speaker 2 (26:48):
I think in the state of Colorado, we've said time
and time again, if you want to fix the mental
health problem or mental health crisis we have here, you
have to first admit that you have a crisis. But
that's just like the issue with sanctuary st you have
to admit that you've become one in order to get
back off the brink. Michael, I know you're in your
last term as district attorney. You've been there this year.
(27:10):
You're going into your what nineth year? Is that correct?
Speaker 8 (27:13):
Actually I just started year yeah, okay, ten tier, So.
Speaker 2 (27:16):
It seems to me, since we're kind of looking on
the horizon of maybe needing an attorney general candidate. You
know you can't be the district attorney in world forever.
I mean, you're done there. This would be a perfectly
good time for you to announce that candidacy if you
chose to.
Speaker 8 (27:30):
Suff I sure wish we would have talked about this
on radio. You and I have talked about it off
off record, and I am very happy where I'm at
right now. I am very happy serving the wonderful citizens
that you and I get to here in will County.
And I'll figure out what I'm going to do with
it at the end of my term.
Speaker 4 (27:48):
At the end of my term, that's fair enough.
Speaker 2 (27:50):
Well, you know, if you decide you want to break
that news, I'm sure there'll be an opportunity in the
future when I'm filling in for Dan again, and so
we'll just schedule that somewhere down the road.
Speaker 8 (27:59):
But Michael Good, my good friend Steve Reams will be
the first to know.
Speaker 2 (28:03):
Michael, I couldn't ask for a better partner in what
we do in Welld County. You've been a great prosecutor
and I know you'll continue to do that through the
end of your term. Thanks for coming on the show.
Thanks for educating us all a little bit about some
of the hurdles that you're going through. And you know,
if you want to leave us with a parting shot,
what could Colorado do to say, all right, let's turn
the tide. What do you think that one magic.
Speaker 8 (28:22):
Bullet is That one magic bullet is to get back
to thinking, let's take care of and worry about public
safety first, everything else second.
Speaker 2 (28:33):
That makes perfect sense to me. Michael, again, thanks for
coming on. That's the Well County District Attorney, nineteenth District,
nineteenth Judicial District Attorney, Michael Rourke. I'm sure at some
point we'll hear that he's running for attorney general. But
thanks for being on with us. We're going to cut
to a break. You're listening to the Dan Kaplas Show
here on six point thirty k how with Well Kenny Sheriff,
Steve Reams.
Speaker 5 (28:54):
And now back to the Dan Kaplis Show podcast.
Speaker 2 (28:57):
Welcome back to the Dan Kaplas Show with Well Kenny
Sheriff Steve setting in as the substitute today and of
all the songs I thought I'd ever come back to
on a radio show. That's not it, But I actually
liked that song. That's got a little bit of a
throwback there. While we were away at break. Got a
few texts coming in, but I want to remind you
our text number is five seven, seven three nine. Start
your text out with Dan. Send in whatever you want.
(29:20):
I'll do my best to answer it. A lot of
good comments coming in also, you can call in three
oh three seven one three eight two five five. The
question of the day is is Colorado a sanctuary state?
And I'll add this to it. If you think it's
a sanctuary state, what's that thing that trips your trigger
and says yep, we're a sanctuary state. Other than just
you know the fact that police gets on the news
(29:41):
and says no, we are not a sanctuary state when
he looks into the camera and just bold face lies.
But a few of the texts that come in says Steve,
Colorado has a perfectly good, hardly been used prison up
in Hudson that can hold a lot of illegal criminals.
And I'm so glad that this text are sent it in.
This is Dan from northern Colorado. He is absolutely correct,
(30:04):
and believe it or not, the Trump administration is actually
looking at that prison and trying to figure out how
to get that thing reopened so that they can serve
the western part of the United States here, Colorado, Idaho, Nebraska.
And I know this because I happen to have been
the one to plug the ownership group for that prison
(30:24):
in with the Trump administration. And we're doing our best.
I shouldn't say we. I'm not working on it anymore.
I just connected the dots, but trying to get that
thing open so that they do have a place other
than just the facility down in Aurora, which is jam
packed right now. The prison up in Hudson, I believe
holds fourteen hundred people, so definitely could speed up the
process if we can get that thing reopened. Another one here. Yes,
(30:47):
Colorado is a sanctuary state, and I hope the people
who deemed it that and help the illegals get here
get prosecuted. Boy, that's no truer words have been spoken.
And it looks like we got a collar on the line.
We'll give give him just a second to get all
their details out. While we're waiting on that, someone asked, Hey,
do you know the status of the awful HB thirteen twelve.
(31:08):
I just looked it up while we were at break.
It looks like it went to the Senate at nine
point thirty for floor work, whatever that means. So it's
not to the governor's desk yet. I guess there's still
hope that it could die a fiery death, but I
don't think that's a very realistic view at this point.
So we're gonna probably end up getting that thing on
the governor's desk, and I don't think there's any chance
(31:29):
that he doesn't sign it at this point. So who knows.
Do we have our caller ready? Ryan, Yeah, it's all
coming down to Kelly. Oh, Kelly probably got another call
coming here. You're very popular. She's failing us, failing us
f minus.
Speaker 4 (31:44):
That's the great she gets you.
Speaker 2 (31:45):
She's probably too busy having a conversation with the caller.
Didn't didn't get the caller on the line. That's okay,
keep going with the text, right, Yeah, we'll do that,
it says sheriff. What needs to happen is for this
new bill, Trump needs to pull all federal funds and
let the state raise even more taxes so the Dems
will leave him. We can vote this come out you know,
that's actually pretty strategic. So we take away all the
(32:06):
federal funds. The Dems taxes to death. They tax themselves
out of control, and then they have to leave.
Speaker 4 (32:12):
I love it.
Speaker 2 (32:12):
That's pretty painful in the process though. On So we
got Paul from Colorado Springs. Paul, what do you have
to say to us?
Speaker 9 (32:21):
Well, I like to say I was born and raised
in dem Colorado, around twenty years ago. I moved to
Las Vegas, Nevada, relocated back two years ago. And I
gotta tell you, I am discussing with the state. Yeah, okay,
kevinar he's a joke, And I'll tell you why he's
over here passing these guns laws. They're so worried about
(32:42):
the gun laws, but they can't even protect their own
state border. You're letting all these people in and you're
worried about a gun law, but all these illegals that
are coming in. And my other thing is you can't
go and help the police, say iyes, okay, I understand
that I don't agree with it, but why can't I
break the law, go hide in the church in a school.
Speaker 4 (33:03):
Well, so, you know, absolutely no sense, that's a that's
a great question.
Speaker 2 (33:07):
We've got kind of a cast system set up where
if you're an illegal, it's almost like you get more
provisions from the law than if you're a regular US citizen.
I mean, it makes no sense. In your time away
when you were in Nevada and then coming back, why
the heck did you come back?
Speaker 9 (33:24):
Well, my mother's eighty seven years old. Okay, that's fair, laceship,
and my son stayed here, you know, living in Nevada,
and they all agree with men. And you know this
is going to really get you. I'm a registered Democrat.
I've been a Democrat my whole life, forty some years.
You know, since you get out of high school, you
register and you're sign up for the military. But it's
(33:46):
just amazing how people here just don't see it. And
you know, one other thing is Colorado is so high
on affordable living, affordable housing.
Speaker 4 (33:55):
Yeah, where do you find it?
Speaker 9 (33:57):
Well, not only where you're correct, but my thing is,
why don't you help people where they can afford the house?
Speaker 2 (34:03):
Well, you mean, get rid of some of the fees
and taxes that they're killing us with in this state. Yeah,
I can't imagine why that would be a good policy.
Speaker 9 (34:09):
But Paul belieb Well had one of the best mayors
Oscar Goodman. If this if this mayor here wants to
learn some go talk to the good ones in Las Vegas.
She'll show you how to straighten it out.
Speaker 2 (34:20):
Fair enough, fair enough, Paul, thanks for calling in. I'm
sorry you moved back to a state that kind of
left its left its mind at the door. But uh,
welcome back to Colorado. Nonetheless, and thanks for calling in.
Speaker 6 (34:32):
Thank you.
Speaker 9 (34:32):
We're gonna change it.
Speaker 2 (34:33):
You bet all right. We're going to cut the brake
when we come back. We'll have plenty of time to
get to your text and your calls. Keep them coming
in again. That's five seven seven three nine. Start your
text with Dan or three O three seven one three
eight two five five call in. Let's let's have a conversation.
Let's see where we can get this thing going. You're
listening to Steve Reims covering for Dan kaplis here on
six thirty k how we'll be back right after this
(34:55):
break
This is Dan Capless and welcome to today's online podcast
edition of The Dan Caplis Show. Please be sure to
give us a five star rating if you'd be so kind,
and to subscribe, download and listen to the show every
single day on your favorite podcast platform.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Welcome to the Dan Caplis Show. Here on a windy
Monday afternoons from the iHeart Studios. Looking out the window here,
it looks like the weather is changing quickly, so if
you're out there on the roads or heading home, looks
like you may encounter some weather in your drive today.
You're not listening to Dan, though, you're listening to the
fill in, which is Weld, Kenny shri Steve Riams. It's
always an honor to be here in the seat taking
(00:36):
over for Dan. I think he's out a trial again
for the first couple of days of the week this week,
so you'll have me today and a couple other guest
hosts as the week goes on. But I want to
dive right into our topics today, and one of those
is going to be the State Republican Party, the GOP.
We've had a transition of power from the Dave Williams
(00:57):
regime to the Britta Horn legacy, and in that process,
it's been a little clunky from one transition to the other.
And last week, any of you that are involved in
Colorado politics on the Republican side, you probably had an
email from the new chairwoman, Brita Horn, and kind of
referenced taking over the finances of the party and through
(01:19):
some information out there that can kind of be construed
to question the spending of the outgoing regime for the
last month. And I was asked to go on a
radio show over the weekend along with Dick Wadhams. And
during that other radio show we were kind of having
an exchange back and forth, and I thought, well, I'm
going to be covering for Dan, so why don't we
get Dick Wadhams on on Monday afternoon and just kind
(01:41):
of set the stage for where the state of the
Republican Party is. So he's coming on with us right now. Dick,
how are you doing, mister Wadhams, How are you, sir?
Speaker 3 (01:51):
I'm doing great? Sure, How are you doing?
Speaker 4 (01:53):
I'm doing fine? Hey.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
You know, we had a little conversation over the weekend,
but to set the stage for the listeners, you know,
I think anybody that's part of the Republican Party probably
got the email that came out from chairwoman Britta Horn,
and the minute that I got it and there was
three pages of spreadsheet expenditures that kind of drew my attention.
I was like, Oh, that's a lot of money. I
think two hundred and sixty one thousand dollars that was
(02:16):
outgoing from the account in that last month. And I
think you probably looked at it in a similar way.
But I don't want to put words in your mouth.
So what was your initial take at seeing that email
and kind of the information contained.
Speaker 3 (02:30):
Well, it didn't really surprise me, Steve. I assumed that
probably the Williams regime would spend down the money in
the account, as I recall going into April. For going
into March, the party was showing something like two hundred
thousand in the bank, and the last FET report they
(02:52):
filed for the month of March, which was filed on
April twentieth, I showed it spend down to something with
fourth thousand or whatever it was. Didn't surprise me. Okay,
But the only thing I'll tell you what has kind
of really kind of rankled me. The whole few years
Williams chairman was the character assassination that he he and
(03:15):
others leveled against Christy Burton Brown and alleging that she
had done he suggested, not suggesting, very almost accusing her
of of illegal mismanagement of the party. And they never
came forward with any concrete evidence of that, and and
(03:37):
I think they're still doing it. So I don't know.
I mean, Christy Burton Brown is an upstanding person. I
just don't understand why they did that during their two
year period.
Speaker 4 (03:47):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
Interestingly enough, after the interview we did over the weekend,
I got a text from Dave Williams that kind of
it was a statement and it was on behalf of
his outgoing his outgoing group, and it was it was
pinned by Tom Bjorkland, uh the outgoing Treasure and he
basically said, hey, you know, there were some problems that
were inherited from even the Ryan call era that apparently
(04:11):
didn't necessarily get cleaned up under KBB. And then when
Dave Williams took over, you know, they were doing their
best and this is his his take, not mine, they
were doing their best to kind of make sense of
all that and hand over a clean a clean Bill
of goods to the to the now britt A Horn administration.
So we're actually gonna have Tom Bjorklan on in the
(04:31):
second hour of the show, So I'd encourage you to
tune in if you want to hear what he has
to say. But you know, I figured, let's just get
straight to the source and see if we can find
the guy who was actually doing the books. So hopefully
that'll be a little little uh, it'll shine some light
on the whole thing. But Dick, I the reason I
wanted to have you on is you you were the
(04:52):
party chairman for a while. Is it normal to see
this kind of spin down in the last month or
two of one person going out and another person even.
Speaker 3 (05:00):
M That's hard to answer the question whether it's normal, Steve,
when I got elected in two thousand and seven, I
discovered that the party he was in debt by a
serious amount. In fact, it was in debt six hundred
(05:23):
thousand dollars when we time, we got a full accounting,
and it wasn't There wasn't anything illegal going on. The
party just lost control of its spending as it was
trying to help elect Republicans, and that two hundred or
that two thousand and six election cycle. So I started
off the day I got elected. I inherited a six
hundred thousand dollars debt that took me over the course
(05:45):
of the full first two years I was chairman. And
so you know, it's just one of them. Listen, I
ran for the job, I've got it, and I've had
the responsibility for taking care of that debt and we did.
I wouldn't I would say this that uh chair should
(06:06):
try to leave some money in the bank. So that's
the new chair has the ability to have some cushion
going into their their term. I don't know what that
figure is. I mean, you know, but uh sixty four
thousand dollars or whatever, I think I think that was
the figure I saw on that FEC report. That's that's
(06:29):
certainly not chump change. The bottom line is that any
chairman has the responsibility to raise money and they have to.
They have to, and that requires going to big donors
and and raising money from them, and and having a
really solid grass roots fund raising them uh program with
(06:50):
with social media and and mail and and so ultimately
the chair the chair whoever it is, has to dig
in and start start raising money and that's a big response.
That's probably one of the biggest responsibilities of any chairman
sure to do that.
Speaker 4 (07:07):
Well.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
That actually leads to my next question, Dick. So we
have Britta coming in. She I think she's trying to
just say, hey, in the sake of transparency, here's the data,
as I understand it. She put it out there. You know,
I think people are going to read into it what
they want. You know, there was It's easy to see
that Dave Williams was paying himself through his consulting firm
what I would call a salary for the last few months,
(07:29):
which is not anything inappropriate. It's funny how it was documented.
But you know, I think I think she was trying
to just say, clear the errors. Here's where we're at now.
Having said all that, Britta's goal is to get Republicans elected.
Do you think that we are in a place in
this state where Republicans can start to get some win
in their sales and say, Okay, we're turning the page,
(07:51):
we're moving forward. Can Britta go out and help raise money?
And I guess second to that, Dick, do you think
there's the candidates out there to inspire Republicans to donate.
Speaker 3 (08:02):
Well, this is the problem, Steve, is that we have
a dramatically changed electorate from what it was as recently
as ten years ago. And that's largely been driven by
all the new people who moved here. Now that migration
into the state has largely kind of flattened, but it
(08:24):
was it was massive for a while. That's why we
got the eighth congressional district, which you're certainly familiar with,
familiar from Well County. And we essentially eight hundred thousand
people moved here over about a fifteen year period, but
largely the last ten that last ten year period, and
(08:44):
these are the big chunk of them are younger, they're
more liberal, and their social attitudes and unfortunately they are
very they have been very anti Trump, and they greatly
impacted the twenty the twenty sixteen election when Trump lost
to Hillary Clinton by four points, When Trump losts to
(09:05):
Biden in twenty twenty, in twenty twenty by fourteen points,
he lost too, He lost to Hillary by four points
in twenty sixteen, and then in twenty twenty four he
lost to Paris by eleven And the bottom line is
that those victories for Democrats and those presidential elections here
(09:27):
in Colorado were driven by these new voters. So the
question is are they just gone to us forever. I
don't think they are, And I would point to you
to the proposition ahh, property tax proposal that was on
the ballot supported by every Democrat in Colorado in twenty
twenty three, down in Flame by twenty points. So I
(09:50):
think that tells us that a lot of these voters
will vote are more conservative in they're economic out looks,
and so that we have a chance of them in
the future.
Speaker 4 (10:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
You know, by all the pulling out there, the younger
voters on the on the scene, the ones that survived
through the COVID era, if you will, Uh, there's there
tending to vote way more conservative, and those people are
in the voting age now. So hopefully that's where we're
going to get to.
Speaker 3 (10:16):
Yeah, and this legislature, my lord, can can it get
any worse? I mean, every time I think it cannot
get any worse, it does.
Speaker 4 (10:22):
Yeah, don't down.
Speaker 3 (10:25):
Yeah exactly. And you know, it just seems to me
at some point, Steve, we're going to hit a breaking
point in Colorado where people are going to realize, you know,
these people in the legislature are the ones who responsible
for the constant living, for the crime, for the homelessness,
for all the things that are for the fact that
so many people that their education system is broken, and
(10:49):
they've they've been in power, they have been in total
power for so long, and then there could there will
be a breaking point well occur this election cycle. I
don't know, but I do think that Democrats make you
feeling bolden that they can past anything on the part
of us that they want to.
Speaker 2 (11:06):
Well, Dick, I appreciate you coming on at the start
of the show. I know that your time is valuable.
We're going to cut to a break, but thanks for
being on with us, even if you weren't the most
encouraging person out there, but there's still hope. Dick again,
Thanks and you're listening to the Dankplas Show here on
six point thirty Khi. We'll cut the break.
Speaker 5 (11:24):
And now back to the Dan Kaplis Show podcast.
Speaker 6 (11:27):
Also, a bill aimed at enhancing civil rights for Colorado
immigrants heads back to the Senate after the House made
some amendments yesterday afternoon. State Senate sponsors will now have
to decide whether to accept the House changes or convene
a committee to negotiate them. The bill would restrict agents
from going into non public areas in places like hospitals, jails,
and schools. It would also restrict what information local governments
(11:49):
could share with the FEDS, including a person's immigration status.
Speaker 7 (11:54):
Going in depth, the immigration bill could bring more attention
from the White House. The Trump administration already suing Colorado
and Denver over their immigration policies.
Speaker 4 (12:04):
That lawsuit was filed just this past Friday.
Speaker 7 (12:06):
On top of that, President Donald Trump signed an executive
order on Monday directing the US Attorney General and Homeland
Security to identify what they consider to be sanctuary jurisdictions.
Those jurisdictions could then lose federal funding.
Speaker 2 (12:20):
Welcome back to the Dan Kaplis Show. You got well
Kenny Sheriff Steve Riams sitting in the hot seat today.
We led back in with that little news clip because
it's talking about the thing that I think Republicans can
truly win on in this state, and that's still the
topic of a legal immigration and whether or not this
state is in fact a sanctuary state, even though Governor
Poulis repeatedly says this is not a sanctuary state. I
(12:43):
live here, I work here in law enforcement. I've never
known of a state to be more of a sanctuary
state than this. When I first got here in the studio,
sat down with Ryan and we were kind of going
back and forth. And I think the thing that the
Democrats are holding their hat on, especially Jered Poulis, is
there's not one definite definition of what a sanctuary state is.
(13:03):
But it's kind of one of those things. When you
see it, you know what it is. And when you
drive through Colorado, especially if you drive through Denver or Aurora,
especially certain parts of Aurora, you know you're in a
sanctuary state. There's no ifs ands or butts. You know
that we are inviting a certain type of person to
come live here illegally, and they are doing so in
(13:24):
great numbers. So, having said all that, I'd like to
invite all of you to call in text in let
me know your thoughts on what you think makes a
sanctuary state and is Colorado one of those places you
can text in text start your text with Dan to
five seven seven three nine, or you can call in
three O three seven one three eight two fivey five.
I love to interact with the caller, so again that's
(13:46):
three oh three seven, one, three eight, two five five,
And kind of to start things up, Alexa, one of
the crowd favorites out there, she texts in share frames,
there isn't much I respect about the Dems. However, Dems
are like the Italian extended families. They may fight like
haities internally, but externally they present a united front. Colorado
and National Republicans always air their dirty laundry to everyone.
(14:09):
I wish they could be rowing in the same direction
instead of all this internal fighting. So sick of this, Alex,
I couldn't agree more. That's kind of how we started
the show off with. You know, hey, we got to
get past this. And again, I think what Chairwoman Britta
Horn did by kind of saying, all right, this is
the starting point for my tenure, even if it is
a little ways into that process. She's saying, this is
(14:30):
the books I was handed. You guys can make your
own judgment. I'm moving forward from here. At least that's
what I hope the message is. And then how do
we raise money, how do we get people elected? And
most all, most of all, how do we bring this
state back from the brink of pure disaster? I mean again,
when I drive down to the studios each day when
I'm covering for Dan, I get to see things that
(14:52):
I don't see in my typical drives around Weld County.
I mean, you might be surprised by this if you're
a listener out there and haven't been to Weld County.
Speaker 4 (15:00):
We still uphold the rule of law.
Speaker 2 (15:01):
We still don't fit the definition of what a sanctuary
state would be. We've very much pushed back on that,
and so while Denver and Aurora may embrace that label,
Weald County does not. Most of the cities in Weald
County do not, the town's whatever you want to call them,
the municipalities. We still believe in supporting Colorado citizens and
(15:25):
doing so first to protect our state and not doing
so secondarily to protect people who shouldn't even be in
this state. But as we're talking about Senate Bill two
seventy six, you know, the question is will the governor
sign it, will he put his name to it, will
he say this is what I believe in? And some
of the things that have been outlined by different folks
(15:45):
about this bill they're pretty shocking, but one I think
the most shocking part, like We've already passed House Bill
nineteen eleven twenty four in the state of Colorado that
says local law enforcement cannot detain an illegal immigrant past
their release date on behalf of ICE. We can't honor
their quote unquote administrative warrants. That being said, there was
(16:08):
never a provision that we couldn't have ICE come into
the building. You know, if they did have some kind
of legal reason to be there, they wanted to interview someone,
we didn't have to treat them like second class law
enforcement citizens. But Senebill two seventy six goes even farther
than that. It says, not only can you not work
with ICE in any fundamental way, but you can't even
let them in your building. I mean, that's just that's
(16:29):
such a slap in the face to what their mission is.
And it's also a slap in the face to local
law enforcement. We catch a guy, we get him convicted.
Let's say his, he or she's time is up in
the county jail. ICE has every reason to come get
them and send them back to their country. They have
a window of opportunity to do so, they get there
(16:50):
before that person is supposed to be released. I can't
even let them in my jail to do that in
a secured facility so that no one gets hurt. Under
this bill, I have to let that person go out
onto the street and say good luck. Ice, see if
you can catch them. I mean, that's just it's it's
beyond the pale of what is stupid. You know, Denver's
(17:11):
been doing this. On a few of the few occasions
ICE has had to chase guys down, They've gotten people
hurt in the process. That's what this bill is asking
to become the norm for law enforcement. If that's not
a campaign issue for Republicans to stand on, I don't
know what is. Here's another text. It says Sheriff Steve,
if I was going to create a sanctuary state, I
do exactly what the DIMS have done. That's Steven little
(17:33):
Tony's retired l e O. You hit the nail on
the head, Steve. I mean, this is the definition of
a sanctuary state.
Speaker 4 (17:41):
Now.
Speaker 2 (17:41):
I know we've tried to claw back and say no,
this can't happen, but it's here. It's here, folks. I'm
just so frustrated. I'm tired of living in this in
this make believe land of no sanctuary state, but seeing
it slap me in the face every day.
Speaker 4 (17:56):
All Right, we're gonna go to break.
Speaker 2 (17:57):
When we come back, we'll have District Attorney Michael Rourke
from welld County on and he can talk to you
about some of these same issues. You listen to the
Dan Caplis Show here on six point.
Speaker 4 (18:05):
Thirty k how.
Speaker 5 (18:15):
You're listening to the Dan Kaplis Show podcast.
Speaker 2 (18:19):
Welcome back to the Dan Caplis Show with well Kenny
Sheriff Steve Raims sittting in the driver's seat today and
on the phone with us. We've got the district attorney
for my county, Weld County, out of the nineteenth Judicial District,
Michael Rourke. How are you doing this afternoon?
Speaker 8 (18:32):
Hey, Sheriff, Good afternoon, Thanks for having me on.
Speaker 2 (18:34):
Hey, thanks for coming on. You know, we talked a
little bit earlier, I guess last week at the end
of the week about some ideas for the show, and
you know, obviously there's some things that have developed over
the weekend with the FEDS dropping a lawsuit on the
state of Colorado, so we got to start with a
little bit of that, and I know I didn't prep
here for that But what do you think is there
any chance of this federal lawsuit changing the tide here
(18:57):
in Colorado on some of these sanctuary bills.
Speaker 8 (19:00):
And I sure hope so, Sheriff, because like we talked about,
and I know we'll get into a couple of other topics,
but I heard you're talking in the last segment about,
you know, Colorado being a sanctuary state. Not only is
it a sanctuary state, it's become a sanctuary for crime state.
And certainly I think that the threat of this lawsuit,
or the existence of this lawsuit specifically, I hope causes
(19:20):
some reasonable minds to reconsider the policies that has the
state headed in the direction of anti public safety, which
you and I talk about all the time. Yeah, I
sure hope.
Speaker 4 (19:31):
So.
Speaker 8 (19:32):
I don't know if it will actually make a difference
in the long run, but I sure hope it does.
Speaker 2 (19:35):
Well, you know, there's always a way to set precedents,
and I hate to see it have to happen through lawsuits,
But at this point, I don't think there's any way
of changing the tide from what our crazy legislature is doing.
But you know, you hit a huge topic, and that's
that Colorado has become a crime sanctuary. What does your
docket look like in Weld County? Do you have enough
(19:56):
prosecutors to even begin to try to tackle the amount
of crime that the law enforcement contacts in and about
World County.
Speaker 8 (20:07):
But let me give you a statistic that I think
can help answer that question real quickly. On average a
community of our size, you know, World County being roughly
three hundred thousand people on average. Over the last decade
or so, we've tried to a jury somewhere in the
neighborhood of fifty to fifty five felony trials, which is
a significant case load for my prosecutors, for your deputies,
(20:31):
for police officers in the municipalities. So fifty five on
average so far this year, including this week, we are
already at thirty eight felony trials and it's May fifth.
These are felony trials that are homicides, attempted murders, crimes
against children, sexual assaults. These are cases that I think
our public expects to be in trial. And that's five months,
(20:53):
you know, not even five months, four months right into
the year, and or we're you know, already sitting here
at thirty eight.
Speaker 4 (20:59):
You're happy past.
Speaker 8 (21:00):
Your average exactly. Math is not my strong suit, but
I'll work for it. But yeah, it is a massive
problem that we're having right now, and we are all
of us, as you well know, very incredibly busy.
Speaker 4 (21:12):
Yeah, so a.
Speaker 2 (21:13):
Couple of topics. We have bail reform that kind of
landed in our state a couple of legislative sessions ago,
and a lot of people go, little, bail reform, What
can that mean? I mean, you know, we don't want
people being overly punished and held in jail if they shouldn't.
What has bail reform actually done to your job and
my job in a lot of ways? And try to
(21:34):
explain that to the listeners what bail reform actually means?
Speaker 8 (21:37):
Sure, what bail form. The talking points for bail reform is,
we don't want to keep somebody in jail simply because
they can't afford financially to post a bond. Makes sense
on fathe However, what I think that that talking point
seems to ignore is that a judge a magistrate, after
listening to an argument from a prosecutor and from the
(21:58):
other side, is going to set a reasonable amount of
bond based upon a defendant's criminal history. A defendant's prior
failure to appear rate. And what we have seen is
with the systematic reduction of bonds and the increase of
the issue on sub personal recognizance bond, we are seeing
the same repeat offenders over and over and over. Hit
(22:18):
your jail, bond out, go back out onto our streets,
create a new victim, create another crime, hit your jail again.
And it is a massive revolving door. And so despite
arguments from good public safety minded prosecutors to judges, because
of some of the things the legislature has done to us,
we have defendants who are getting back out on the
street pre trial, committing new offenses and having multiple cases
(22:42):
rack up while they are waiting for their first case
go to trial. This is the same effort that we
saw in Oregon. It's the same effort we saw in
New York. And all of a sudden, the State of
New York is rolling back bail reform because they realized
it didn't work. It made us less safe as a community.
Speaker 2 (22:56):
Well, and it's making Colorado less safe, There's no doubt
about it. I can throw a few names out there
of individuals we've had to arrest twelve and thirteen times
before we could ever get them to a trial on
you know, those first couple of cases. And I'm sure
you have names that stick in your brain for the
same thing. So one other thing that you and I
have discussed is the mental competency issues in the state
(23:18):
of Colorado. And I can argue that there's a whole
bunch of things that affect mental competency, but I think
that's being used as a crutch right now. And I
know this is a thing that burns you a hole
in your gut, But talk to the listeners a little
bit about what that mental competency status is doing to
your ability to try criminals.
Speaker 8 (23:37):
Let me back up and give you one little piece
to kind of set the stage. Sure, we have a
massive backlog at the state level in terms of getting
competency or insanity evaluations done and then efforts to restore
defendance to competency.
Speaker 2 (23:51):
You mean the state's not doing its job? Is that
what I just heard you say?
Speaker 8 (23:54):
Shock, It is what you heard me say. Yes, you're correct.
And so therefore, the federal government had, the federal courts
had to step in and put Colorado under a consent decree,
which says that the State of Colorado will be fined
if you don't hit certain benchmarks in order to in
getting restoration proceedings or competency services being done in a
more timely fashion for defendants. In response to that, what
(24:17):
the legislature did is didn't give you more evaluators, didn't
give you more competency restoration services individuals. In fact, they're
cutting back on those individuals. What they did was they
wrote a statute that took effect a couple of years
ago and amended it a couple of times since then,
which says, if you're charged with a certain level of
offense and you're found to be incompetent, your charges are
(24:39):
automatically dismissed. For other somewhat more significant charges, if you
sit in your jail or are on restoration services for
six months or one year and haven't been restored, your
charges are dismissed. So what we're seeing is defendants who
have three, four or five cases being dismissed. They go
back out onto our streets, pull guns on individuals, stab
(25:02):
other people. They come back into your jail, into my courtrooms,
and now we are left with the case being dismissed
again because there's a presumption that once you've been found
and competent, you're going to be found and competent again.
Speaker 2 (25:15):
So it's just an easy pathway for someone to get
basically a get out of jail free card. So all right,
having said all that, what does that look like for
I mean, what is the long term fix for that?
Is there one without changing the law?
Speaker 8 (25:31):
I think that without changing the law that the answer.
And I hate to say this because I am a
good conservative steward of taxpayer dollars, it has to be
funding additional, additional evaluators and treatment providers. Because we are
not going to be able to legislate our way out
of this. We have got to treat the problem where
the problem exists, and that is with individuals with mental
(25:54):
health issues that are causing them to commit these crimes
over and over again, victimizing our communities.
Speaker 2 (25:59):
Board ends up in a and what we none of
us want to be involved in, and that's a police
shooting where suspect is killed or officers get hurt, or
innocent people get hurt. And I think that is that's
on the rise in the state of Colorado, and it
has to be at least in part due to these
same things.
Speaker 8 (26:15):
Absolutely, that's exactly right. And you know as well as
I do. What you just hit on is exactly right.
We have individuals who've been involved in officer involved shootings
because of mental health issues. We charge them because they
have survived that encounter with law enforcement, luckily, and we
charge them. They are found incompetent. We can't restore them
to competency in a timely fashion, and so the charges
(26:36):
are dismissed. Again, this individual that I'm thinking of here
in Greeley is back on our streets, law enforcement having
to deal with that individual again.
Speaker 4 (26:45):
What could possibly go wrong? Well, we said exactly.
Speaker 2 (26:48):
I think in the state of Colorado, we've said time
and time again, if you want to fix the mental
health problem or mental health crisis we have here, you
have to first admit that you have a crisis. But
that's just like the issue with sanctuary st you have
to admit that you've become one in order to get
back off the brink. Michael, I know you're in your
last term as district attorney. You've been there this year.
(27:10):
You're going into your what nineth year? Is that correct?
Speaker 8 (27:13):
Actually I just started year yeah, okay, ten tier, So.
Speaker 2 (27:16):
It seems to me, since we're kind of looking on
the horizon of maybe needing an attorney general candidate. You
know you can't be the district attorney in world forever.
I mean, you're done there. This would be a perfectly
good time for you to announce that candidacy if you
chose to.
Speaker 8 (27:30):
Suff I sure wish we would have talked about this
on radio. You and I have talked about it off
off record, and I am very happy where I'm at
right now. I am very happy serving the wonderful citizens
that you and I get to here in will County.
And I'll figure out what I'm going to do with
it at the end of my term.
Speaker 4 (27:48):
At the end of my term, that's fair enough.
Speaker 2 (27:50):
Well, you know, if you decide you want to break
that news, I'm sure there'll be an opportunity in the
future when I'm filling in for Dan again, and so
we'll just schedule that somewhere down the road.
Speaker 8 (27:59):
But Michael Good, my good friend Steve Reams will be
the first to know.
Speaker 2 (28:03):
Michael, I couldn't ask for a better partner in what
we do in Welld County. You've been a great prosecutor
and I know you'll continue to do that through the
end of your term. Thanks for coming on the show.
Thanks for educating us all a little bit about some
of the hurdles that you're going through. And you know,
if you want to leave us with a parting shot,
what could Colorado do to say, all right, let's turn
the tide. What do you think that one magic.
Speaker 8 (28:22):
Bullet is That one magic bullet is to get back
to thinking, let's take care of and worry about public
safety first, everything else second.
Speaker 2 (28:33):
That makes perfect sense to me. Michael, again, thanks for
coming on. That's the Well County District Attorney, nineteenth District,
nineteenth Judicial District Attorney, Michael Rourke. I'm sure at some
point we'll hear that he's running for attorney general. But
thanks for being on with us. We're going to cut
to a break. You're listening to the Dan Kaplas Show
here on six point thirty k how with Well Kenny Sheriff,
Steve Reams.
Speaker 5 (28:54):
And now back to the Dan Kaplis Show podcast.
Speaker 2 (28:57):
Welcome back to the Dan Kaplas Show with Well Kenny
Sheriff Steve setting in as the substitute today and of
all the songs I thought I'd ever come back to
on a radio show. That's not it, But I actually
liked that song. That's got a little bit of a
throwback there. While we were away at break. Got a
few texts coming in, but I want to remind you
our text number is five seven, seven three nine. Start
your text out with Dan. Send in whatever you want.
(29:20):
I'll do my best to answer it. A lot of
good comments coming in also, you can call in three
oh three seven one three eight two five five. The
question of the day is is Colorado a sanctuary state?
And I'll add this to it. If you think it's
a sanctuary state, what's that thing that trips your trigger
and says yep, we're a sanctuary state. Other than just
you know the fact that police gets on the news
(29:41):
and says no, we are not a sanctuary state when
he looks into the camera and just bold face lies.
But a few of the texts that come in says Steve,
Colorado has a perfectly good, hardly been used prison up
in Hudson that can hold a lot of illegal criminals.
And I'm so glad that this text are sent it in.
This is Dan from northern Colorado. He is absolutely correct,
(30:04):
and believe it or not, the Trump administration is actually
looking at that prison and trying to figure out how
to get that thing reopened so that they can serve
the western part of the United States here, Colorado, Idaho, Nebraska.
And I know this because I happen to have been
the one to plug the ownership group for that prison
(30:24):
in with the Trump administration. And we're doing our best.
I shouldn't say we. I'm not working on it anymore.
I just connected the dots, but trying to get that
thing open so that they do have a place other
than just the facility down in Aurora, which is jam
packed right now. The prison up in Hudson, I believe
holds fourteen hundred people, so definitely could speed up the
process if we can get that thing reopened. Another one here. Yes,
(30:47):
Colorado is a sanctuary state, and I hope the people
who deemed it that and help the illegals get here
get prosecuted. Boy, that's no truer words have been spoken.
And it looks like we got a collar on the line.
We'll give give him just a second to get all
their details out. While we're waiting on that, someone asked, Hey,
do you know the status of the awful HB thirteen twelve.
(31:08):
I just looked it up while we were at break.
It looks like it went to the Senate at nine
point thirty for floor work, whatever that means. So it's
not to the governor's desk yet. I guess there's still
hope that it could die a fiery death, but I
don't think that's a very realistic view at this point.
So we're gonna probably end up getting that thing on
the governor's desk, and I don't think there's any chance
(31:29):
that he doesn't sign it at this point. So who knows.
Do we have our caller ready? Ryan, Yeah, it's all
coming down to Kelly. Oh, Kelly probably got another call
coming here. You're very popular. She's failing us, failing us
f minus.
Speaker 4 (31:44):
That's the great she gets you.
Speaker 2 (31:45):
She's probably too busy having a conversation with the caller.
Didn't didn't get the caller on the line. That's okay,
keep going with the text, right, Yeah, we'll do that,
it says sheriff. What needs to happen is for this
new bill, Trump needs to pull all federal funds and
let the state raise even more taxes so the Dems
will leave him. We can vote this come out you know,
that's actually pretty strategic. So we take away all the
(32:06):
federal funds. The Dems taxes to death. They tax themselves
out of control, and then they have to leave.
Speaker 4 (32:12):
I love it.
Speaker 2 (32:12):
That's pretty painful in the process though. On So we
got Paul from Colorado Springs. Paul, what do you have
to say to us?
Speaker 9 (32:21):
Well, I like to say I was born and raised
in dem Colorado, around twenty years ago. I moved to
Las Vegas, Nevada, relocated back two years ago. And I
gotta tell you, I am discussing with the state. Yeah, okay,
kevinar he's a joke, And I'll tell you why he's
over here passing these guns laws. They're so worried about
(32:42):
the gun laws, but they can't even protect their own
state border. You're letting all these people in and you're
worried about a gun law, but all these illegals that
are coming in. And my other thing is you can't
go and help the police, say iyes, okay, I understand
that I don't agree with it, but why can't I
break the law, go hide in the church in a school.
Speaker 4 (33:03):
Well, so, you know, absolutely no sense, that's a that's
a great question.
Speaker 2 (33:07):
We've got kind of a cast system set up where
if you're an illegal, it's almost like you get more
provisions from the law than if you're a regular US citizen.
I mean, it makes no sense. In your time away
when you were in Nevada and then coming back, why
the heck did you come back?
Speaker 9 (33:24):
Well, my mother's eighty seven years old. Okay, that's fair, laceship,
and my son stayed here, you know, living in Nevada,
and they all agree with men. And you know this
is going to really get you. I'm a registered Democrat.
I've been a Democrat my whole life, forty some years.
You know, since you get out of high school, you
register and you're sign up for the military. But it's
(33:46):
just amazing how people here just don't see it. And
you know, one other thing is Colorado is so high
on affordable living, affordable housing.
Speaker 4 (33:55):
Yeah, where do you find it?
Speaker 9 (33:57):
Well, not only where you're correct, but my thing is,
why don't you help people where they can afford the house?
Speaker 2 (34:03):
Well, you mean, get rid of some of the fees
and taxes that they're killing us with in this state. Yeah,
I can't imagine why that would be a good policy.
Speaker 9 (34:09):
But Paul belieb Well had one of the best mayors
Oscar Goodman. If this if this mayor here wants to
learn some go talk to the good ones in Las Vegas.
She'll show you how to straighten it out.
Speaker 2 (34:20):
Fair enough, fair enough, Paul, thanks for calling in. I'm
sorry you moved back to a state that kind of
left its left its mind at the door. But uh,
welcome back to Colorado. Nonetheless, and thanks for calling in.
Speaker 6 (34:32):
Thank you.
Speaker 9 (34:32):
We're gonna change it.
Speaker 2 (34:33):
You bet all right. We're going to cut the brake
when we come back. We'll have plenty of time to
get to your text and your calls. Keep them coming
in again. That's five seven seven three nine. Start your
text with Dan or three O three seven one three
eight two five five call in. Let's let's have a conversation.
Let's see where we can get this thing going. You're
listening to Steve Reims covering for Dan kaplis here on
six thirty k how we'll be back right after this
(34:55):
break
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