Dan Caplis Show - Kristi Burton Brown Hosting - Hour One - 12-29

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Show.

Speaker 2 (00:00):
I'm Christy Burton Brown. Welcome to today's show. I'll be
with you a couple times this week. So excited to
cover some of the last news of twenty twenty five
and then some of the first news of twenty twenty
six as we are on the bridge of yet another
new year. I know my family is really excited about
twenty twenty six being the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary

(00:21):
of America. We're actually, randomly enough talking right after Christmas
about what the fireworks shows on the fourth of July
might look like this year. I don't know if there's
places in Colorado they're going to do something really special,
or we might have to go out of state to
see something like that, but I think certainly a lot
planned by the Trump administration. And then here in Colorado,

(00:42):
it's also our one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of this state.
So a lot to celebrate if you're into history and
our nation if you're a patriotic American, and plenty to
celebrate next year, in addition to all the normal things
that in New Year brings. I know one of the
things I like to do with New Year begins is
write a list of books that I'd like to read

(01:04):
going into the next year. I find that I often
don't stick to the list of books because different ones
catch my attention throughout the year, or I have friends
or family members who recommend good books. But I'm currently
building that list, almost done with it. But if you
have any good books that you read this year that
are essential reading, feel free to let me know during

(01:25):
the show and I'll add them and we'll see if
I actually get to them. But a couple of things
that I think we should really dive into today are
the fraud in Minnesota potentially going beyond just Minnesota, something
that more independent journalists and some US senators are talking
about today on social media, diving into state websites around

(01:49):
the nation to see if they can find some of
the same problems that I guess highlighted this issue in
Minnesota and tipped off independent journalist Nick to discovering a
lot of this. So anyway, I think one of the
benefits to this fraud scheme being exposed in Minnesota is
that a lot of other people are going to feel

(02:11):
empowered and educated on how to go find whether or
not this fraud is happening in other states around the nation.
Very rarely are situations of fraud and corruption, you know,
that are so integrated in the government, isolated to only
one state. Usually it is a symptom of a bigger problem,
and a lot of times, in my view, it goes

(02:32):
to the layers of bureaucracy and administration that is always
embedded into government, whether you're looking at the state or
federal levels, and it's just so easy to height in
those layers if your design is to commit fraud, and
government is in my view, terrible on conducting audits. Like you,
if you're in the business world or the nonprofit world,

(02:54):
you're required to do a whole lot of audits all
the time to prove that you're financially stable, to prove
that no, you know, fraud is going on within your
own internal structure. But the government tends to skate by
without a lot of real audits. Of course, there's the
Government Accountability Office, but sometimes organizations or agencies like that

(03:14):
operate more in name only than actually in effect. And
so I'll be talking quite a bit about the fraud
in Minnesota today, but then also its possible extension to Washington.
Washington is the latest state that independent journalists are looking
at right now, specifically saying that they've been looking at

(03:34):
childcare centers in Washington and a high percentage of them
in the Seattle Tacoma area are also run by Somali immigrants,
similar to the same people who are running these childcare
centers in Minnesota, and when they are finding them online,
they're finding that there's no address associated with the childcare centers.

(03:56):
I think this is one of the problems they started
uncovering in Minnesota that led them to dig deeper and
see is this a real childcare center or is this
something that's propped up as a small business to go
ahead and take federal and state money but not actually
be real. So I'm sure that will continue to be
looked into as as the days go on. New York

(04:18):
also on the list of places to look at, as
someone talking on social media about one hundred and twenty
billion dollars being spent by the State of New York
on medicaid, which is a giant number in and of itself,
but if you break that down per resident, that is
literally six thousand dollars per resident that's being spent by

(04:41):
the State of New York on medicaid. Now that could
be a scenario of similar to Colorado, where the state
has just adopted all these expansive Medicaid and medicare guidelines
where they allow so many extra people to qualify, they go,
you know, well beyond just the poverty lines that are
typic used by a lot of states and just continue

(05:02):
to add people onto the roles of medicaid. And so
it really could be that New York is just extremely
expansive with its medicaid guidelines, or it could be that's
similar to Minnesota. There's also layers of fraud involved in
New York's extreme one hundred and twenty billion dollars being
spent on medicaid. So I, for one, am very glad
that the independent journalists and the people who decided to

(05:25):
take a look into Minnesota have uncovered what's going on there,
because I think it really does provide a pathway for
other independent journalists and investigators and researchers to take the
lid off all these other states and programs and say,
is their fraud buried in all the bureaucratic layers, is

(05:45):
their corruption our taxpayers being taken advantage of? And anytime
those questions are asked, it's a good thing, and I think,
you know, sometimes the answers know this is it could
be it isolated Minnesota, Somalian immigrant in Minnesota problem. That
could totally be the answer, But it also could be
that this is just the tip of the iceberg of

(06:07):
a much bigger problem spread throughout the nation. I think
INDEPENDI journalist, everyone else needs to keep pushing on it.
It needs to continue to be covered so that we
can really be fair to the American taxpayer and see
what's going on. I'm Christy Burton Brown. You're on the
Dan Kapla show. If you have thoughts, questions, concerns you
want to add to the conversation today, You're welcome to

(06:27):
colin anytime three zero three seven one, three eight two
five five, or you can text your thoughts to Dan
at five seven seven three nine and I read them
and respond to them on air as we go through
the show. So when don't we talk about this fraud
in Minnesota. I've mentioned Medicaid already and childcare centers, but
there are multiple areas in the government where this fraud

(06:51):
has been uncovered. I think so far they've said at
least nine billion in fraud in Minnesota. Half a billion
in fraud they believe through the Small Business Administration. Former
Georgia Senator Kelly Leffler is the administrator of the Small
Business Administration for the Trump government right now, and she
said the SBA is continuing to look into what's going

(07:14):
on in Minnesota, and all SBA grants to Minnesota have
been cut off, effective immediately. And while I think that's
the right answer when you're uncovering half a billion dollars
in fraud just in this portion alone, that's also, you know,
a sad state of affairs when you look at all
the legitimate small businesses in the state of Minnesota that
are going to be cut off and punished right now

(07:36):
because of this giant fraud being perpetrated by a particular
segment of the community in Minnesota. So there are always
consequences when people do this, and that is one of
them right now. I'm sure those grants will be renewed
for anyone you know, found to not be committing fraud,
but right now, the federal government has the obligation to
put that on hold and pause it. So we have

(07:57):
the Small Business Administration affected, we have MEDICAIDFEC, we have
autism grants being affected as well. I believe one in
sixteen Somali children was being diagnosed with autism in Minnesota,
which is at least four times the average for the state.
And so they were funneling money like taxpayer or grants

(08:19):
money that comes from tech payer funds to parents, and
then two organizations that were claiming to provide autism help
to these kids who didn't even have autism, but it
was another way to funnel money through. So we have
autism Medicaid, we have meals, we have the Small Business Administration,
and it just continues at childcare centers continues to add

(08:41):
more and more to the list as this fraud continues
to be uncovered. I'm Christy Burton Brown. You're on the
Dan Kapli Show. We're going to take a break. I'll
play you some clips about other people's thoughts on this
Minnesota fraud scheme, how they're searching in, how they're diving
deep into it. Someone even claiming that the Somali c
community in Minnesota is actually being scapegoaded and it's not

(09:02):
a real problem. So we'll dive into all of that
when we come back after this break. You can call
in three oh three seven one three A two five
five or text day at five seven, seven, three nine.
You're back on the Dan Caplis Show. I'm Christy Burton Brown.
Thanks for tuning in, and we're talking about the fraud
scheme in Minnesota and whether or not other independent journalists
like Nick Shirley are uncovering it in additional states like

(09:25):
potentially Washington and New York. A Texter wrote in over
the Break and said during COVID, Colorado had seventy three
million in unemployment fraud, very true, of which less than
one hundred thousand was ever recovered despite Attorney General Wiser's
Blue Ribbon Commission. I think that's one of the most

(09:46):
disturbing pieces. When fraud happens in government systems and in states,
whether it be here in Colorado or in Minnesota, you'll
almost ever get it back. The government is very, very
bad at recovering taxpayer money that it just sent out
there and gives to people who are fraudulently using the system.

(10:06):
You almost ever get back. So that's one of the
reasons that it's really good independent journalists and others are
taking a key look into the fraud scheme, and I
think not only can they expose what's going on in Minnesota.
I think bad actors are going to get arrested. There
might be some people getting deported. But I also think
it's going to expose loopholes in government systems that are
allowing people to fraudulently take advantage of the system. For example,

(10:29):
there's an attorney, her name is Mihik Cook, and she
talks about how fraud can be used through the Medicaid system.
Because she says, basically, and here's what she's talking about.
She's specifically from Ohio, So she's talking about Ohio, and
she says, in Ohio, and there's many states like this,
Pennsylvania and other states too. You can go in and
you can say, my aging parent needs a home health

(10:51):
care and I want to provide it. You can sit
at home without caring for an elderly parent who really
doesn't need it. Make about seventy five to ninety thousand
dollars a year. Now, if you do it for both parents,
that's one hundred and eighty thousand. If you add your
in laws two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. You continue
to add this and you wonder, what are the services
being provider their home health care? Networks say will make

(11:14):
it worth your while, but it really sounds like a
kickback to me, And she continues, we really need to
investigate the Medicaid system and how much it's increased. There
are people who really need critical care that's meant for
our disabled or elderly, and people who really need it
not to just live off our system. So I think
you know that attorney, she has a good analysis of

(11:36):
the issue. Oftentimes, extra what should we say, extra pathways
to money are written into government systems like Medicaid, like childcare,
like autism funding, small business administration, and it becomes so
easy and so broad to get this funding that it
is extremely easy to get in through loopholes, to claim

(11:58):
you need something, to claim you qual for something, and
the government, and this is a problem from the government,
they just hand it over and they don't audit, they
don't investigate, they don't go check up and say, hey,
is this really a real childcare facility? Oh, do your
elderly parents actually have a doctor's note saying that they
need live in care and that you're qualified to provide it?

(12:21):
Or are we just writing checks with taxpayers funding to
people who know how to gain the system and know
how to fill out the applications and no follow up,
no audits, as I said in the last segment, And
this couldn't happen in the business or nonprofit world because
you have so many regulations, irs, audits, other audits. Like
my husband is the CFO at a foundation and they

(12:43):
do financial and cybersecurity audits every single year and they're
hardcore audits, like they're going to catch if anything's going
on there. But the government doesn't do this kind of stuff.
You have a lot of people questioning where in the
world Governor Tim Walls was in Minnesota while all this
was going on. And you know, part of the answer
is campaigning for president or vice president with Kamala Harris.

(13:05):
That's partly where he was instead of managing the affairs
in his own state. But I really think shining a
light deep into the layers of bureaucracy and government agencies
is essential. But we cannot stop it. Just exposing the
fraud that's currently going on and seeing you know, how
many states is it apply to, how many programs does
it apply to? We can't stop it that. We have

(13:26):
to say, Okay, what does this expose inform us about
when it comes to how people are doing this, what
are the loopholes in the system, what's wrong with how
these agencies are being run, what's wrong with the applications,
what's wrong with the follow up, what's wrong with the
lack of audits, and how do we fix that so
these kinds of problems don't just continue to multiply and

(13:47):
happen in the future. You know, if all you do
is crack down on the people currently doing it, but
you don't say this gives us a light into the
system and shows us what we need to reform for
the future, then you know, the next time something like
COVID happens, Colorado's going to have another seventy three million
in unemployment fraud. You know, the next time another group
of people decide they can gain the system, Minnesota's gonna

(14:07):
have another nine billion in collective fraud, and the Small
Business Administration is gonna have another half a billion in
fraud in Minnesota next time they open up. So if
you don't fundamentally restructure what you're doing, you don't solve
it for the future. You just punish the people who
are currently doing it. And while that's justice, so that's essential,
it's not good enough. That's one of the reasons I like,

(14:30):
you know, the Trump administration. Don't agree with absolutely everything
he does, but I do like that he is taking
a business mindset and bringing it into the government and saying,
this is not how you'd run the business world. This
is not like federal government agencies, super slow, bureaucratic layers
in many cases, way too many employees who don't actually
have enough work to do. Let's reform that. Let's make

(14:51):
it work like you have to make it work in
business where you get fired. So I think that's something
that I like about the Trump administration. They have an
opportunity to reform these systems. We'll see if they take it,
but it's certainly being handed to them on a silver
platter by independent journalists. I'm Christy Burton Brown. You're on
the Dan Kapla Show. If you have thoughts or concerns
to share, you can call in any time three zero

(15:14):
three seven one three eight two five five, or you
can also text your thoughts to Dan at five seven,
seven three nine. I'm going to play you this clip.
I mentioned Governor Tim Walls and the whole Minnesota fraud situation,
but this is him just ignoring questions about apologizing to Minnesota.
Of course, apologizing is the least that he should do.

(15:35):
But here's the clip of him completely ignoring the questions.
After Walls, what can you say about the latest on
the Somali fraud that happened under your watch, Govnor have
you been able to apologize yet to the people of
Minnesota for allowing this Somali fraud to continue under your
watcher of the people of Minnesota. Is the time to apologize?
How about the whistleblowers? Then you have allegedly retaliated against

(15:58):
would you like to risk onto the whistleblowers?

Speaker 1 (16:01):
And right now our neighbors are being demonized, Our neighbors
are being terrifized, our neighbors are being to go off
this druti. The antidote to that is is positive actions
to improve lives that go into what they're afying community.
So instead of demonizing Ursol community, where't in to do
wars A welcome orient and welcome us with batters.

Speaker 2 (16:24):
And the last part of that clip was Governor Walls
speaking saying that people who are looking into fraud with
him the Somali community, were demonizing them and terrorizing them.
And clearly he was failing to have his own government
look into what was going on with these accusations of fraud,
and he thought it was easier just to paint it
as another issue of discrimination and diversity and say, oh,

(16:46):
leave this poor community alone. I don't think anyone who's
looking at it is saying, let's go look into this
because they're Somali and people are saying, hey, we've found
that they are committing fraud. And it is a people
group that has come into Minnesota and has collectively decided
to commit fraud against the United States. Like they come
from a different type of country, they come from a

(17:06):
different way of life, they come from a different culture,
and they found a path in Minnesota where the government
didn't provide enough oversight, didn't audit, didn't look into what
they were doing, and they took advantage of the system. Like,
it's not demonizing or terrorizing a group of people to say, oh,
this group of people decided to do this in this area,
let's crack down on it. But you know, much easier

(17:28):
for people like Tim Walls and other liberals just to say, oh,
stop demonizing them. But now the evidence is so big
and so in his face that he can't really get
away from that. That's why the journalists are following after
him saying like, are you going to apologize to the
whistleblowers who you said were demonizing and terrorizing the community.
Are you going to apologize for your role in this?
And I think his role is still being uncovered, like
was he just literally a blind bystander who had no

(17:49):
idea what was going on? Did he purposefully turn away
from it? Like who knows? I think that will continue
to be discovered. I'm Christy Burton Brown. You're on the
Dan Kapela Show. Call in over the break three h
three seven one three eight two five five or text
your thoughts to five seven seven three nine. When we
come back, I want to move on from the Minnesota
fraud crisis and talk about what we might be able

(18:11):
to expect from the Colorado Legislature, who is meeting in
just over two weeks for another full session in twenty
twenty six. Welcome back to the Dan Kaplis Show. I'm
Christy Burton Brown. Thanks for tuning in tonight. Hopefully you
still have some extended holidays left over the next few
days as we walk into the new year. It's been

(18:34):
nice for me my husband's had some extra days off
that he earned and finally got to take at the
end of the year. So you know, of course one
of our kids gets sick during it always has to
happen when you get extra time off. But he played
in a hockey tournament anyway, just missed one of the games.
And you know, I forgot that hockey season. I grew
up with my brother's playing hockey, and as a figure skater,

(18:56):
I forgot that. It was always like over Thanksgiving and
over Christmas, you like do the holiday and then you
rush into the tournaments. But it's been really fun. It's
the first year we've done it with our kids, and
so that's been an interesting and unique extra part of
our Christmas season this year. In the last segment, both segments,
we've been talking about the fraud in Minnesota, in the

(19:17):
small community there in Minneapolis, and then also just how
independent journalists are looking into whether or not this expands
way beyond Minnesota. Is it happening in states like Washington, Ohio,
New York. Obviously we've seen other kinds of fraud here
in Colorado as well, with unemployment claims during the COVID crisis.
So let's see what else gets uncovered, and I think

(19:38):
we should move on, though we'll talk about it some
more because I had more clips to play you later
in the show, especially how some people on the liberal
side just think smaller community is being scapegoaded. It's not
a real problem. I don't know how you can be
that blind to say that something isn't a real problem
in real fraud going on. But let's talk about the
Colorado legislature. They actually come back to work on January fourteenth,

(20:00):
so just over two weeks from now. Starts a legislative
sessions starts a little bit later than we're used to.
We're used to usually starting like the seventh eighth, but
it's because the first day of January is a Thursday,
and they they come back to work on the second
Wednesday of January. So let's just how it falls this year.
But I think it's always interesting to consider what do
you think is going to be the theme of the

(20:22):
next legislative session. If you have thoughts, I'd love to
hear them. You can call in any time three oh
three seven, one, three eight, two five five or texture
thoughts to five seven, seven, three nine. Start it with Dan,
and I guess despite what we think the themes might be.
It's interesting also to consider what do you think the
legislature should focus on. Most of us would probably say

(20:43):
there's laws they should be repealing instead of constantly passing
more and more and more laws, more restrictions, more regulations,
more funding, more of this more that they should probably
repeal some of the over regulation and bad public safety
laws they've passed over the last few year for a
few years. Don't know that we can really hold our
breath to watch them do that, but that's certainly I

(21:06):
think one of the focuses the legislature should have is
cutting back on regulations, cutting back on public safety exceptions
that they've opened wide the door for Colorado to become
the second most dangerous state in the nation. That's according
to US News and World Report. But while I think
for the most part, we're not going to see that
kind of success out of the legislature, and while they
should be cutting programs because they're entering what they call

(21:29):
a budget crisis over at the over at the Capitol,
we're going to see a lot of speeches of them
like complaining and whining about having to cut money and
not having enough money for all these programs, but really
this budget crisis has been caused in large part by
their misspending and misallocation and over commitment to programs they
knew they couldn't fund for years going forward. I actually

(21:52):
went to a town hall of a Democrat state legislator
a couple months ago. I brought my daughter all along.
She's a teenager interested in Paul. So it's like, oh,
let's go see, you know, a town hall from the
other side. And so this legislator he was talking about,
he's like, I'm so mad when the Republicans constantly say
that our budget crisis at the state legislature is a
misspending problem. We have not misspent money. He's I mean,

(22:17):
we might have, you know, allocated too much of it
to programs when we originally created them, but it's not
the same as overspending, So they should stop saying that.
It's like obviously, you know, cutting corners. He just doesn't
want to admit that, yes, over committing funding to programs
that you cannot continue is misspending, but just doesn't want

(22:39):
to be accused of that, Like how dare anyone accuse
them of being financially unsound? But he's actually one of
the Democrats who's more likely to occasionally agree with Republicans
on economic issues. So I was the least surprised to
see that he admitted, Yes, we really did over allocate
funding to programs that we knew wouldn't continue into the future,
and so that is one of our problems that the legislature.

(23:02):
But anyway, you're gonna hear a ton about all of that,
and so of course whenever you hear economic problems and
budget crisis at the legislature, one thing that invites from
the liberal side of the aisle is a lot of
talk about TABOR, the Taxpayer Bill of Rights. What they
specifically love to do is go on the floor and
give very long speeches about how awful and terrible the
Taxpayer Bill of Rights is. A Representative Sean Camacho, who's

(23:23):
a fairly new representative from Denver, sponsored a resolution last
year to push the legislature into a lawsuit over TABOR,
basically assuing that part of the Constitution was unconstitutional. I'm
guessing he hadn't read the former cases where the court
has already said that TABER is in fact constitutional, and
so I really think that's going to go anywhere, and

(23:43):
actually his resolution went nowhere last year, even with the
Democratic control of both chambers. But I wouldn't be surprised
at all to see something like that come back, where
the legislature thinks they know better than the seventy percent
of Coloradans who support the taxpayer Bill of Rights and
want to take Tabor to court again, because of course
they think that if only you could lift at the
revenue limits that's imposed on the legislature by the people

(24:06):
of Colorado, then they could get unending sources of money
coming into the state and fix all their problems, because
that's kind of always the liberal answer to problems is
just throw money at it and magically it will get fixed.
But somehow the money is never enough, and come two
years later they always need more. I'm Christy Burton Brown.
You're on the Dan Kapla show. Call it any time
three zho three seven one three eight two five five

(24:28):
or text your thoughts starting with Dan and text five
seven seven three nine. A couple other issues I think
the legislature will confront, and one of them I hope
successfully is the mental incompetence issue. We've heard a lot
of talk about that. I've talked about it on the
show before. I think Dan's covered it. A lot of
hosts have covered it actually, And this is all the

(24:49):
stories that we're hitting up the news for the last
like three or four months of twenty twenty five, where
violent criminals are doing, like attempted kidnapping against kids, homicides
like one of the women was killed by one of
these people was like drug by a car for a
long period of time until she died. And in these cases,
these people are evaluated by a state evaluator. The evaluator

(25:11):
deems them permanently mentally incompetent without hope of restoration. And
a state law passed in twenty twenty four says that
if someone has that diagnosis, if the evaluator says they
have it, and the judge you know, grants them that diagnosis,
then charges against them must be dismissed. And there's not
an exception for violent crimes like attempted kidnapping of children,

(25:32):
the homicide of this woman, Like the judge in al
Pasal County was pretty outraged that he had to just
let this guy back out on the street, and there
was even conversation that this guy himself had actually said,
oh yeah, I know, if I'm declared mentally incompetent, it
means all of this goes away. Like he's competent enough
to understand that he's declared incompetent, charges go away, but

(25:54):
he's not competent enough to stand trial. He's competent enough
to have and keep a driver's license which allowed him
to drag this woman to her death, but not competent
enough to know what's going on in a courtroom. No
way this stuff makes sense. And so you know, thankfully,
despite people on both sides of the aisle actually voting
for this law in twenty twenty four, many of them,

(26:15):
I think, not perhaps really evaluating every single piece of
it or understanding exactly what would happen versus what they're
being told would happen. I think that some of them
were assured that this would mean individuals like that would
go into civil commitment facilities where they could get treatment
instead of in jails. And I mean, hey, as long
as they're off the streets and not in communities harming people,
I think that's a fine answer. And so I think

(26:36):
a lot of legislators thought that's what would happen, But unfortunately,
what actually happens is you only get put in a
civil commitment facility if you agree to it. If you
don't agree to it, your charges are dismissed and you're
back out on the streets. So now after legislators from
both sides they all voted for this, there's now legislators
on both sides of the aisle who are trying to
fix it in the legislator session, and I've heard that
it may be one of the first bills coming down

(26:58):
in the session, a fix to this mental incompetence issue,
you know, and maybe it won't. Deals fall apart all
the time when they bring in coalitions and try to
get fixes to a law like this, sometimes there's so
many moving parts that it actually gets pushed to the
end of the session. So I don't really know exactly
when we'll see the bill, but this is one of
the I think promised bills that's supposed to come in

(27:19):
a bipartisan fashion, and the governor has indicated he thinks
it should be fixed as well, so we'll definitely. I
think that's one you need to keep your eye on
because it is allowing gravely dangerous individuals into the communities,
which is very dangerous and Thankfully people again on both
sides of the aisle. Even Amy Patten, attorney is not
an attorney general or a district attorney from a Rapo county,

(27:41):
one of the most progressive in the state, has also
spoken out and said, yeah, this needs to be changed,
like this is a problem. These are violent criminals and
we're having to dismiss charges, just miss charges and can't
keep people safe. So that's definitely one of the issues
I think the legislature will hit on. There's a couple more,
one especially about a ballot measure that I think they're
going to push to the ballot that you need to
know about because it can absolute affect your tax dollars.

(28:02):
I'll talk about that when we come back after the break.
You can text your thoughts to five seven seven three nine.
I'm Christy Burton Brown. You're on the Dan Caplis Show.
Welcome back to the Dan Caplis Show. I'm Christy Burton Brown.
We're recovering what to expect from the next legislative session,
which starts in just over two weeks January fourteenth. You'll
see all the politicians back at the Capitol in Denver,

(28:22):
and you know, usually passing hundreds of laws every single year.
In my view, they should focus a lot more on
what to repeal than instead of what to add in
Colorado law, but you know that's not normally what we get.
Everyone wants to have their own signature piece of legislation.
Some of them are actually good, but the majority of
them are not. So we talked about how we probably

(28:43):
can expect one good bipartisan thing out of the legislature
in fixing the mental incompetence law that they passed two
years ago that destroyed the system in many ways, allowing
people to get out on the street, and even that
they're dangerous offenders with a declaration of permanent mental incompetence
with the ability to be restored, then charges have to
be dismissed against them, and again not no exceptions, even

(29:06):
if they are like gravely dangerous to the public. I
do think there's exceptions for first degree murder, but for
a lot of the violent crimes there aren't exceptions. And
unless these people agree to commit themselves to civil commitment facilities,
they are back out on the street, super disturbing, lots
of people upset about it. I do think we can
expect that to be at least mostly fixed by the legislature.

(29:26):
I think you know, the devil's in the details, and
you've got to actually see the bill and read it
to see if it actually is going to fix the problem.
But from news reports and talking to different legislators, I
think they are on the right track to fix this issue,
fix some definitions in statute, fix the civil commitment process,
and hopefully reverse the requirement to dismiss charges if there's

(29:49):
a showing that it's a violent person who is continuing
to be a grave danger to the community. So that's
one piece. Another thing I think you can expect from
the legislature that is not good is potential ballot measure
that you may see on your ballot in twenty twenty six.
As you probably know, there's two pathways to the ballot.
In Colorado were known for our extremely long ballots, lots

(30:10):
of ballot initiatives. The blue book is supposed to explain
it to you, give pros and cons. Sometimes it's good
at that, sometimes not so good. But the majority of
Colorado's actually read their blue books, so it get some
help on understanding all the ballot measures that are out there.
But there's two different pathways. One is referred measures from
the legislature, and one is citizen initiated ballot measures. There

(30:31):
were recently five citizen initiated measures out there collecting signatures.
Two of them were run by the organization I work for,
Advanced Colorado. We have submitted signatures on both of them.
One of them we submitted the day after Christmas actually,
which is changing Colorado's sanctuary state law. I will talk
about that more a little bit later, because I think

(30:52):
it's an interesting, interesting piece of our sanctuary state law
in Colorado lags behind even California and New York, which
are also sanctuary states but have exceptions that Colorado doesn't
even have. So anyway, those two measures are in there
submitted or other. One is cracking down on fentanyl drug dealers.
Extremely popular if people want to see drug dealers in jail,

(31:12):
not on the streets. And it also would provide court
mandated treatment for low level users. Some one's extremely popular,
has a lot of support, and the sanctuary state one fits.
I think this narrow path that can be supported by
a lot of people around the state. At least that's
what is indicated by polling. It's indicated by the signatures
we collected. Three other measures still out there. I believe

(31:33):
they have five weeks left to collect signatures. One of
them would prevent men from competing in women's sports, another
one I believe would ban a transgender surgeries on miners.
And then the other one I'm trying to remember. Oh,
it's human trafficking. It would provide extremely high penalties for
human traffickers. I think life in prison if I'm remembering

(31:53):
the details correctly. So those three are still out there.
If you see them, I think they're mainly being collected
by volunteers. You should definitely sign them if you haven't yet.
A lot of times the measures spearheaded by citizens tend
to be the only conservative things or even moderate things
that you see on your ballot, because those aren't getting

(32:14):
through the legislature. Of what you're going to see instead,
I think from the legislature this year, and we'll see
if they come to agreement on this or not. But
one thing the teachers' union really wants them to put
on the ballot is an increase in revenue. So they
have to go to the people if they want to
keep more of your money than you've already told them
they can keep, according to the taxpayer Bill of Rights,
they have to go ask you for it. So they
refer measure to the ballot that would debruce, which means

(32:37):
like detaber unapply the provisions of the taxpayer Bill of
Rights to money that extra taxes that go to education.
That's what they're trying to do is collect extra taxes
and say, well, it would specifically go to education. They're
going to claim and tell you the education system is
underfunded here in Colorado and say, you know this is
somewhere we all can agree that extra money should go.

(32:59):
So just give us permission into the future to like
just keep spending this money. And when you debruce it
or take tabor restrictions off of it, it means they
don't have to like continue to ask you to keep
spending it year after year unless there's a limitation on
the amount of years. It means they can exceed the
revenue cap, which is like population plus inflation, that's how

(33:22):
much they can typically grow. And so a measure like
this basically says, well, can we go above the cap
for these purposes for education? And so that's what the
teachers Union wants them to put on the ballot. They're
considering putting it on the ballot, I'm sure they'd claim
it would fix some of their budget issues. One thing
they have to contend with, though, is over the last
several decades, typically when voters are asked if they want

(33:45):
to take portions of money outside of tabor and let
the government spend it, voters tend to say no. The
last two examples of that were prop CC and PROPHH.
One of them even proposed by the legislature, and they
said that it would fixed property taxes in the state,
that would lower your property taxes. Voters were really hurt
over property taxes, and they still told the legislature no,

(34:07):
because there's not a lot of trust in the state
government that when they say they're going to spend the
money on something that's really where the money goes. We've
seen time and time again and the government promising, oh,
the marijuana money, it'll all go to education. Well it
sort of seems to evaporate and doesn't really go to
education despite the claims. So I think that's one reason
Colorados tend to reject these kind of ballot measures. And

(34:30):
yet still this is what the legislature's talking about. So
I would watch that through the legislative session and see
if they're going to try and propose, you know, a
measure that asks you for more money for education. And
keep in mind, though, when they tell you they need
more money for education, education just got fully funded by
the legislature. Actually, they finally followed Amendment twenty three. So
education has actually already gotten more money in Colorado and

(34:53):
we are ten percent below the national average when it
comes to how much money goes into classrooms instead of
into administration. So that's what they need to fix, is
the money they're putting into administration and education. I'm Christy
Burton Brown. You're on the Dan Kapela Show. I have
to take a break. You can call in three oh
three seven one, three eight two five five or text
five seven seven, three nine