05-12-25 *INTERVIEW* Post-Session Wrap-Up with State Senator Paul Lundeen

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
My good friend Paul Lundin.

Speaker 2 (00:01):
He and I are both graduates of the leadership program
at the Rockies. He is the minority leader in the
Colorado State Senate. He is the leader of the Republicans
in the Colorado State Senate and just an all around
good guy. And we are gonna talk. We're going to
do a little recap of the legislative session. I did
have Rose Buglici on last week, so we're going to
get the Senate side of the story.

Speaker 1 (00:22):
Now.

Speaker 2 (00:22):
I am going to try to get some Democrat member
of the legislature to join.

Speaker 1 (00:26):
Me to give their perspective as well.

Speaker 2 (00:27):
Jeff Bridges hasn't responded to my texts yet, but I
will keep trying with him, and then I do expect
to have the governor.

Speaker 1 (00:33):
In a week or two to talk about his perspective.

Speaker 2 (00:36):
Paul, is you and I were talking off the air
and something I'd like to take up your offer as
to how to start the conversation. Let's have just a
brief introductory conversation about the difference in political philosophy between
you and your Republicans and the Democrats who are pretty
much in charge right now.

Speaker 1 (00:54):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (00:54):
Absolutely, Ross, It's great to be with you, and it's challenging,
and it's important that the people of Colorado that there
are two very different philosophies of governance, there are two
very different philosophies of life at large. In the political
conversation here in Colorado today and the people who are
in charge, it's a three D trifecta. The governor is

(01:15):
a Democrat, the House is controlled by Democrats, and the
Senate's controlled by Democrats. Those folks think that in order
to be safe, in order to be secure, in order
to have a good life, it has to flow through
the fingertips of government. And the other side, the Republicans,
are simply saying, you know what, let's let people be free.
Let's let them make their own choices. And it, in

(01:38):
my opinion, that's how you get the vibrancy that has
made America exceptional, has made Colorado exceptional. The idea that
you can be free, you can be free to succeed,
you can be free to fail, but you're free. The
reality is the government and the Democrats who are in
control of the government doesn't see it that way. And
you can take three bills. Let's just run three bills

(01:59):
real quickly. There are great examples Senate Bill three, which
was a bill that started out as a gun van. Well,
it's still a gun van unless you're willing to submit
your Second Amendment right, your right to keep and bear arms.
Just twelve hours of training, says the government. Bow by
the way, if you've got hunter training, if you've got

(02:22):
a concealed carry permit, you only have to do four
hours of training. But you still have to get training
to go buy that firearm that you otherwise could have
bought as a free American prior to this bill becoming
a law. Another example, and that one's been signed into law,
that is Colorado law.

Speaker 2 (02:39):
At this point, one quick thing before you move on
to the next bill. So obviously I'm exceptionally opposed to
Senate Bill three, even in the form that it passed.

Speaker 1 (02:49):
It's just terrible. I did spend a lot of.

Speaker 2 (02:54):
Private conversation time trying to explain to the governor what's
wrong with the bill.

Speaker 1 (02:58):
I was on the phone with him telling all things
was wrong with it.

Speaker 2 (03:01):
I knew he was gonna sign it because he seems
to really believe in this whole training thing. But it
could have been worse, which doesn't mean it's okay. And
what really struck me about is this thing did start
as an intent to ban some of the guns that
are the most popular, most fun to shoot, and it
really did start as a ban.

Speaker 1 (03:22):
And then I saw.

Speaker 2 (03:23):
This piece over at a website called coloradonewsline dot com
and they're talking about a few different bills, and the
headline for like what they call this bill made me
laugh out loud, partly because of how an acturate is,
but partly also because of how Tom Sullivan and these
other people who really want to ban guns must think

(03:45):
training standards for some gun purchases. That's how they call it,
training standards for some gun purchases, And again it's misleading,
but it also reminds you of what.

Speaker 1 (03:58):
It could have been. Well.

Speaker 3 (04:00):
Absolutely, and some gun purchases are defined by the Department
of Revenue. They get to pick, for instance, a Czechoslovakian
paratroopers rifle. That one's okay, you can buy that without
the training. With Winchester eleven hundred, which was the first
automatic shotgun that I ever shot after I'd learned to
shoot with a brake action as a young kid growing
up in Nebraska. That Winchester eleven hundred you got to

(04:22):
go get training for that.

Speaker 1 (04:23):
You got to get four.

Speaker 3 (04:24):
Hours in my case, because I have the other credentials
with reality. Somebody else who just wants to go buy
a gun next year, yeah, I have to get twelve hours
of training to do that.

Speaker 2 (04:33):
I have actually one more on this. I we can
talk about this for the next twenty five minuts. I've
heard rumors that the most aggressive anti gun people might
try to interpret the language in this bill as banning way, way,
way more pistols than we're told.

Speaker 1 (04:52):
Are you hearing anything on this.

Speaker 3 (04:55):
It's a law, and so what happens with the law
is lawyers bring it to for the court to interpret.
One lawyer says it means this. Another lawyer says it
means that. So yes, there is a potential that it
could be interpreted to be much more limiting. The reality
is it takes what is an inherent right, a natural right,
and turns it into a privilege that the quite frankly,

(05:17):
the bill got worse, in my opinion, starts out as
an unwrite gun ban. It just says you can't buy
these guns, and it ends up with people saying, well
if I cowtow and now looping back to the theme
we started with, to the power of government. If I
say I will bend the knee to the power of government,
that I can get my training and I can get
my weapon, that is the challenge.

Speaker 1 (05:37):
And one last thing and we'll move on to another bill.

Speaker 2 (05:39):
One of the things I really didn't like in this bill,
and it's still in there, is that in order to
be able to get the training that they're going to
require you to do to buy a gun you should
be able to buy anyway, you have to get permission
from your county sheriff. So you have to ask permission
to take the class, and the county sheriff can refuse

(06:00):
the permission if they claim that some behavior they have
seen on your part in the past, whether or not
there's any kind of criminal chargers or criminal conviction or whatever.
They can say, Ah, we think, we think Paul was
a little rambunctious at that block party one time, and
therefore we're not going to let him get this permission.

Speaker 3 (06:20):
Absolutely, and it's again, I love my county sheriff, but
the reality is government employee, government authority intruding it to
my ability to make a decision. So that one's signed
into law zero zero three. It was Senate bill went
right through and the governor signed.

Speaker 1 (06:36):
Well, didn't go right through.

Speaker 3 (06:37):
We debated the dickens out of it and it got
changed dramatically, but it is the law. Another one that
is even broader, this is a three was about gun
rights thirteen twelve.

Speaker 1 (06:47):
This is a bill that's build.

Speaker 3 (06:49):
This a transgender rights bill, and it's the Kelly Loving Act.
It's designed to give all individuals the freedom and protections
they deserve. But what it does under the covers is
it gets into the place where it is putting government
in between parents and their children. It says, if you,

(07:09):
as a parent, seek to manage your family, manage your household,
manage your perspective, and raise your child, and the way
you see and the child sees it differently as they're
going through gender dysphoria or they're trying to get through
puberty and understand what life is about, they can make
a complaint, or again the government, in the person of

(07:29):
a school teacher or some of that nature, can file
a complaint with the Colorado Civil Rights Division and Civil
Rights Commission, And all of a sudden, you've got the
government in between parents and children. Now in a very
limited number of circumstances. Parents and children may be at odds,
may not be able to in fact figure out how
to function as a family. But most of the time,

(07:51):
I would argue, almost all of the time, parents and
children should be connected in that sacred bond that is
known as a family. Well, thirteen twelve has not been signed.
Now again, it's a place where government is intruding into
the natural rights and the natural freedoms of, in this case,
a family. And that's all across the people of Colorado.

(08:14):
Very challenging circumstance.

Speaker 2 (08:16):
This is you said you thought the gun bill got worse,
But anyway, this is another bill that has changed dramatically, dramatically,
and I think a lot of people on the conservative
side think this bill is still bad, but could have
been much worse.

Speaker 3 (08:30):
Oh, as introduced, it was in the extremists, beyond the extreme.
It was in fact, it had built into the law
what was called the family law section of the bill,
which got to mend it out in the Senate Judiciary Committee.
We got to pulled out in Senate Judiciary something that
labeled as coercive abusive behavior if a parent were to

(08:54):
use to dead name as the phrase that it's called
but to use the birth name of a child instead
of the chosen name of a child, and it would
have made in a custody battle or in any kind
of challenge between the parent and the government, it would
have made the parent of guilty of abusive behavior. Now
that got amended out, so the bill is still bad.

(09:14):
It still intrudes into the relationship between families or inside families,
between parents and children, but it's dramatically better. Also, there
was another section of the law that said Colorado law
is the best law in the land. Our law is
better than Nebraska law, Kansas law, Texas law. It made
Colorado law supreme in any kind of a judgment or

(09:35):
action that might be taken between states. That also was
amended out. So this is one of those bills that
did get better, Still bad, and still an easy no
vote for me on third reading.

Speaker 2 (09:46):
Okay, I have a political question, sure are you, rather
than a policy question. So this whole spectrum of policies
laws about all the transgender stuff in recent years. There
is a certain part of the population, maybe very conservative,
who don't support trans anything, individual freedom in that area,

(10:11):
any of that. And then there's the other side, the
extreme past the extreme who think that even a child
suffering from gender dysphoria should be able to override the
wishes of the parents and even have it used against
the parents in court. And then, of course there's the
issue of sports. And I know on the sports one,
it's like an eighty twenty issue or something. Most people,

(10:34):
even people who are extremely socially tolerant like me, do
not think it's okay to have biological males destroying the
hopes and dreams of girls who have spent so many
years trying to achieve the highest levels in their sports.

Speaker 1 (10:47):
So here's my political question for you.

Speaker 2 (10:51):
Why does the political left think or are they right
to think that they can introduce a bill as insane
as that was and not pay any political price.

Speaker 3 (11:04):
Because they believe that it is their requirement. They have
a political requirement to be able to introduce And the
way this bill was drafted, they put out a survey
to transgender adults who and asked them what would you
like to see in a law, and that's the law
that was brought. What we ended up with in the
way I described it in the final debates on the bill,

(11:25):
was an am FM conversation appropriate for sitting here in
a radio station or radio studio. We were saying, the
Republicans protect children and honor the sanctity of the familial relationship.
They were saying, protect adults in the guise of or
in the name of Kelly Loving. That's what the act,

(11:45):
the short title was called the Kelly Loving Act, forty
year old trans woman who threw herself in between her
friends and incoming fire. So you could say that that
trans woman was heroic. And that's the distinction is we
are as publicans saying, wait, don't intrude into the important
familial relationships. And at the same time, I would say,

(12:06):
you need to honor every human being for the circumstance
in which they find themselves. So your question, why did
they feel they needed to do this and will they
pay a political price? I think they probably will pay
a political price because they overreached so far. And that's
part of what this conversation is about. Do I believe
every human being is precious, Absolutely, I do, and they

(12:26):
need to be able to get through their life in
the best way they possibly can. But intruding into the
family relationship is not a good way to do that.

Speaker 2 (12:35):
What I fear is that this state is so blue
that they will not pay a political price, or at
least not an important one. And especially in the House
of Representatives where their majority is so large that even
if they lose a seat or two, you know, unless
their goal is to get back to a veto proof majority,
but they don't care if they lose a seat or two.

(12:59):
Because I don't know whether this is virtue signaling or
whether they really believe it or what.

Speaker 3 (13:04):
But I'm afraid, well, I believe it's a political necessity.
It's a requirement of theirs. The place where let's stay
with politics for a second. Republicans take today when the
day is, when we talk about economics, when we talk
about kitchen table issues, when we talk about freedom and opportunity.
Another bill that's pending out there is the destruction of

(13:27):
the Labor Peace Act. This is one that passed through
in Colorado. We're one of these states that's not a
union state. We're not a right to work state. We're
in between. You can unionize, but you have to have
a second election if you want to take money out
of the paycheck of people who choose not to join
the union. Well, the governor still has not signed this one.

(13:48):
It's pending, and it's a perfect example of owner overweening
government control. If you in fact intrude into that, if
you say no, you were taking the second election away.
That means that, in fact, you are taking money out
of an individual's paycheck who may not want to be
a part of the union, may not want to be
a member of the union, and yet you are taking

(14:10):
money from that individual. That's an example of government too
big and it's intruding onto people's lives. I think it's
very likely that Jared Polus vetoes that bill.

Speaker 1 (14:21):
I hope. So.

Speaker 2 (14:22):
I also think that if our next governor is Michael Bennett,
which is what you'd have to bet on right now,
I think he would not veto the bill, and I
think this will I think I think we'll see. But
I think whatever you think of Jared Polis, and you
know you and I disagree with him on quite a
lot of things, I generally wouldn't call him spineless, and

(14:44):
I think that Michael Bennett is, and I think he
will give the Democrats absolutely every single thing they want.
And if you think it's bad now, it's going to
be much worse than two years.

Speaker 1 (14:55):
I don't disagree with that.

Speaker 3 (14:56):
I have described Governor Polis as having a libertarian st
I like to encourage that he and I during the session,
sit down once a week and talk, and I try
and encourage that libertarian streak anywhere I can, and in fact,
vetoing zero zero five would be a great place for
him to show that libertarian streak. Another place where the
government governor can currently show some backbone is in this

(15:20):
TNC bill twelve seventy seven or I've got to twelve
ninety one. I got the number wrong, but it's the
Uber bill, the Uber and Lyft Bill. It was brought
because there was a tragic circumstance. And as the lawyers say,
bad cases or tough cases make bad law, this is
exactly one of those where there was a horrific circumstance.
Somebody was abused, raped by a false not actual, but

(15:45):
a false tnc driver. This bill goes to this transportation
network company. I try not to use the brand name
here because I don't want to get anybody in trouble.
But one of these larger transportation network companies, they said
they will leave the state if this bill in the

(16:06):
current form, which there is no more legislative days in
front of us, he's in front of the governor. If
he signs it, they say they will leave the state. Well,
from a political standpoint, that would be great for my party,
because we are constantly saying, don't do that, don't take
that authority away from that business. You'll make life more
expensive for the business, which means you'll make life more

(16:26):
expensive for the people of Colorado. In this case, we've
got a company that said, if you do that, we'll
leave the state. I'd love to see him leave the
state because this is a bad law.

Speaker 1 (16:35):
I'm not as constrained as you are.

Speaker 2 (16:36):
So Uber said they would leave, and Lift has said
we might consider leaving. Also, they weren't quite as definitive
about it, but they definitely didn't rule it out. And
there was this again was a bill that was made better,
but it's still really bad and.

Speaker 3 (16:53):
It was fundamentally bad. It is still still fundamentally bad. Yeah,
And basically, as Paul said, there was a.

Speaker 2 (17:02):
Bad situation and now they want to impose all of
these insane costs on these ride sharing companies for close
to zero benefit but at massive costs, and by the way,
not imposing the same requirements for you know, video cameras
or whatever they're doing on taxis sure. So it's just

(17:26):
you think you'll veto that one. I hope he does.

Speaker 3 (17:28):
And that's part of you know, this is the post
session press where we're trying to get out in front
of some of these conversations and encourage a better outcome
for the people of Colorado. Vetoing of twelve ninety one
would be good, that would be really good. And you know,
he just had two vetos that were not overridden in
the legislature. And I thought the AI or the social

(17:49):
media bill, I thought that would get overridden and it didn't.
And there was another one you and I talked about
regarding Corra requests that you were originally a yes on
and then changed and.

Speaker 1 (17:59):
Well I was not willing to override.

Speaker 2 (18:00):
Yeah, And so I hope that Polus got a little
bit of extra spine there saying, you know, he can
veto stuff and not have it overridden, although it doesn't
really matter because the session's done. Yeah, Mandy, do you
want to ask Paul anything?

Speaker 1 (18:13):
No, but it's good. I think you did as good
a job as you could do. Thank you very much.

Speaker 3 (18:17):
But what a dumpster fire Every legislative session I'm telling
you right now.

Speaker 1 (18:21):
At the end of everyone, I go, oh, thank god,
that's over too. Next year's got to be better. And
I'm wrong.

Speaker 2 (18:27):
Every year it's just like, take it any worse and
then now here we are it does I tell you what?

Speaker 3 (18:33):
Since I've got two radio influencers here in front of me,
I'm you need.

Speaker 1 (18:37):
I'm not overselling it at all. Here's the deal.

Speaker 3 (18:39):
We've got government Colorado budget about forty billion, forty four
billion dollars this year. But something else that's going on
that I want you folks to keep an eye on
is enterprises. They ran half a dozen additional enterprise bills.
And these enterprises are government enterprises where they shove off
book instead of it being part of the state budget

(19:00):
to become something that may or may not have an
honest fee, but it's more likely to be at tax
to create other aspects and avenues of governor. And those
enterprises have grown to the point where they're almost as big.
We have about a forty four billion dollar state budget.
We have about thirty billion dollars in enterprises at this point.
Will they go anywhere? So watch when you watch the legislature.

(19:23):
Don't just watch what's happening with the budget, But watch
what's happening with enterprises. Here's what's even worse about enterprises
is they are driven by individuals who are unelected. So
you've got one hundred members of the General Assembly managed
you forty four billion dollar budget, and you've got a
few dozen appointed bureaucrats running all these enterprises. Pay attention

(19:44):
to those very closely. Paul Lundin represents Senate District nine.
He's a Republican from northern El Paso County, Monument area
and such. He is the minority leader in the Colorado
State Senate, doing the best he can to protect us
from the people who have control right now every day.
Thanks for everything you've done, Paul. Always good to be
with you. Always fighting on behalf of freedom for the

(20:04):
people in Colorado. Listen carefully to what the politicians are saying.
Make sure it actually expands your freedom.

Speaker 1 (20:10):
People,