July 24, 2025 • 9 mins
Mark Baisley is a Republican candidate for governor of Colorado. Mark is a Colorado State Senator and former technology, especially national defense technology, executive.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Very pleased to welcome back to the show.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
Mark Baisley, State senator here in Colorado, Republican candidate for governor.
As well, Mark's professional background before making the big mistake
of ruining his life with politics, which he wants to.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
Do even more of.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Apparently, he was a former technology executive, especially national defense
related technology and stuff like that. So Mark is a
very smart dude, and I think too smart to be
in politics, but he keeps wanting to bash his head
against the wall. So he's running for governor. Hi, Mark,
you with me, Shannon, as he potted up, Oh, Ross,
(00:38):
I'm sorry, all right, now, don't mute. You're supposed to
be a tech guy and you mute your dude.
Speaker 3 (00:45):
You're so writing. I have such important things to say
about ice cream.
Speaker 1 (00:50):
Go ahead, well, well, Rocky Road.
Speaker 3 (00:53):
I mean that's a don't start with the base of vanilla.
You're right, it's neutral and that accepts all different toppings
and mixes and all that. Okay, But you know, if
you start with Rocky Road and you go ahead and
add some more of more nuts in there of your liking,
and maybe even some.
Speaker 4 (01:13):
Peanut butter, because you know, peanut butter and chocolate has
a mix.
Speaker 3 (01:16):
That's a man that came from the same god as
the one that created mana for supposed to live on.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
Indeed, in this list of America's favorite flavors or the
or the half of the list, flavors that people like
Rocky Road and chocolate peanut butter are right next.
Speaker 1 (01:30):
To each other, but they are in the middle of
the list.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
Neither one of them is near the top of the list,
which I think is a which I think is a
big mistake.
Speaker 1 (01:38):
Oh look at this. David Kale just walked in and
handed me this this thing.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
Mark TMZ reports that WWE legend Hulk Hogan is dead
at the age of seventy one.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
Oh my no, the Hulkster.
Speaker 4 (01:53):
Wow. I was in the same room with him just
this time last year and.
Speaker 3 (01:57):
Only once in my whole life, and that was that
the National Convention where we nominated Donald Trump for president. Thought, Wow,
that's a shame, what a loss.
Speaker 1 (02:06):
Did you chat with him a little bit?
Speaker 3 (02:09):
No? No, they don't let me on stage. People like that.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
They all right, So I want to just talk to
you for a moment about special session. So I talked
to one person whose name I won't use on the radio.
But he's a colleague of yours in the State Senate,
And this was maybe a week ago, and he said
he thought there is a decent chance of a special session.
Speaker 1 (02:33):
Next month in August.
Speaker 2 (02:35):
And then I was talking with somebody else who is
kind of involved in the decision making process, and that
person said, I don't know for sure that there will be.
Speaker 1 (02:45):
A special session.
Speaker 2 (02:46):
There is some stuff that could be done, but really
a lot of the talk had been about a special
session regarding impacts to the state budget from the big
beautiful bills medicaid provisions. But the Medicaid provisions aren't going
to impact the state budget very much for a few years.
Speaker 1 (03:02):
So what are you hearing?
Speaker 2 (03:03):
What are you expecting regarding a special session?
Speaker 3 (03:08):
Yeah, so, our lead leader in the State Senate, Senator
Cleeve Simpson, the best information that he's been able to
squeeze out of the Governor's office for us is a
likely August eighteen start. But since that that rumored date
has gone on for like over a week now, I'm
suspecting it's going to get pushed out to even later,
(03:30):
maybe even September. But there are two reasons that are
driving us to have a special session. The very one
that you described, which is, yeah, the changes in the
big beautiful bill to Medicaid, which impacts a lot of
funding areas for Colorado, but specifically in the in the
medical area for Colorado mental health. I got a call
yesterday from Zoom really from one of the mental health
(03:54):
folks within my district in Jefferson County, and yeah, they're
having to people off.
Speaker 4 (04:00):
So it's it's it's an impact. But the other one
is artificial intelligence.
Speaker 3 (04:05):
So there was a terrible bill signed under duress by
Governor Poulis last year that would regulate artificial intelligence development
and the use of it, and really really an awful bill,
and the governor signed it into law.
Speaker 4 (04:21):
Excuse me with the agreement because it was.
Speaker 3 (04:24):
His favorite bill was being held hostage by the Majority
leader who created that bill, that AI terrible bill. Anyway,
the deal that they cut was both both the governor's
favorite bill and the AI bill regulation bill would both
get signed into law, but we would have twenty twenty
five session to fix the AI bill. Well, that came
(04:47):
up four days before the end of the session. The
Democrats got in a big internal intramural fight and that
bill got killed. So we still have this big problem
with regulating AI and that that's going to go into
effect in February if we don't at least push the
data out. So that is a reason all by itself
(05:08):
to have a special session, because otherwise we're going to
have AI companies move out of the state. Literally, that's
their threatened. I'm sure they'll do it too if we so.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
Mark, and for those just shooting, we're talking with Mark Baisley,
the state Senator from Jefferson County and a Republican Canada
for governor. So just to elaborate briefly, and then I want
to switch topics, but just to elaborate briefly on what's
so bad about this bill and why AI companies are
threatening to leave the state if the bill isn't changed.
Speaker 3 (05:40):
The concern being addressed by the bill is that AI
might discriminate against protected classes of people, minorities and so on,
and discriminate against them in things like housing and college
admissions and that sort of thing. So what the bill does.
It says we want to regulate the development of AI
software all the way to the point of requiring that
(06:03):
those developers send their software, their code, their source code
to the Attorney General's office so that he can have
his staff like they would be qualified to pour over
the software and make sure it can't discriminate against the
protected classes. What a horrible approach. So what my bill
that I'm introducing at the special session, if we have
(06:24):
that opportunity, is to say, hey.
Speaker 4 (06:27):
You know all those protections we have for special.
Speaker 3 (06:29):
Classes to prevent them from being discriminated against, Well, you can't.
Speaker 4 (06:33):
Do that with technology either and not regulate the.
Speaker 3 (06:35):
Technology development itself.
Speaker 4 (06:37):
So we can do a better job with this.
Speaker 3 (06:40):
But that's that's the whole rub.
Speaker 2 (06:42):
What else do you think might be addressed in a
special session?
Speaker 3 (06:46):
It will just be retooling our budget because Medicaid in particular,
there are restrictions coming out of the big beautiful bill
that does that people in the country illegally cannot take
advantage of of things like mental health treatments and stuff
(07:07):
like that. So so there's there's a whole lot of
cutbacks there. There's also cutbacks on some special programs for education,
teacher training and that sort of thing, and so it's
you know, it's upsetting a lot of people across the state,
and it doesn't upset me. A whole lot should be frank,
but it but others are being upset, and so we
(07:28):
have to kind of retool the budget.
Speaker 1 (07:29):
Okay, so just one more minute on this.
Speaker 2 (07:32):
So if there is a negative budget impact, which is
to say, in this case, less revenue to the government,
which by the way, that's generally a good thing, right,
but anyway from for from the government's perspective, it's bad
or at least difficult when they have less money. So
in order to get a balanced budget, which state budget
(07:53):
has to be.
Speaker 1 (07:54):
They, when I say.
Speaker 2 (07:55):
They, the legislature, meaning you and your colleagues, can either
raise taxes or cut other spending. Now you, being a Republican,
are going to be much more interested in cutting other spending.
They meaning the Democrats, are going to be much more
interested in raising taxes or fees that are taxes that
they will call fees.
Speaker 1 (08:14):
They don't have to put them in front of tabor.
Speaker 2 (08:16):
What do you expect to happen in the special session
in particular along any of those lines.
Speaker 3 (08:22):
Yeah, we'll have to cut back on spending, and we
don't have a choice. And I appreciate that we don't
have a choice, and that's because taxpayers bill rights requires
that the people that we go to the people. If
we want to raise taxes, we have to go ask
their permission first, and that's going to take a whole
election cycle for them to vote on that. So now
we'll have to cut back. What if they put in
(08:43):
a fee, Yeah, the fee is yeah, that's the sneaky bypass.
But it really has to be a fee, a fee
for something specific, like a license to operate your barbershop
or something. But now you won't be able to get
away with that as a tax raise a revenue gen.
Speaker 4 (09:00):
Okay, we're gonna have to.
Speaker 3 (09:01):
Cut back, but I have no problem in finding places
to cut back. Let me tell you that.
Speaker 1 (09:06):
I'm sure that's true.
Speaker 2 (09:07):
Mark Baisley is current state senator, former state rep as well.
Speaker 1 (09:12):
Is that right?
Speaker 4 (09:13):
Yes?
Speaker 3 (09:14):
I serve four hours, four four hours, four four hours
every day. I serve four years in the State House
before I'm in my third year in the state Senate now.
Speaker 2 (09:22):
And Mark Baisley is also Republican candidate for governor here
in the state of Colorado. The website if you want
to learn more Mark Baisley B A. I. S. L. E.
Y dot com, Mark Baisley dot com. Mark, thanks for
your time. Really good insights. We will keep in touch.
Thank you, Ross, figure out you two all right. Good
stuff there. We'll see, we'll see if there's a special session.
Very pleased to welcome back to the show.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
Mark Baisley, State senator here in Colorado, Republican candidate for governor.
As well, Mark's professional background before making the big mistake
of ruining his life with politics, which he wants to.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
Do even more of.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Apparently, he was a former technology executive, especially national defense
related technology and stuff like that. So Mark is a
very smart dude, and I think too smart to be
in politics, but he keeps wanting to bash his head
against the wall. So he's running for governor. Hi, Mark,
you with me, Shannon, as he potted up, Oh, Ross,
(00:38):
I'm sorry, all right, now, don't mute. You're supposed to
be a tech guy and you mute your dude.
Speaker 3 (00:45):
You're so writing. I have such important things to say
about ice cream.
Speaker 1 (00:50):
Go ahead, well, well, Rocky Road.
Speaker 3 (00:53):
I mean that's a don't start with the base of vanilla.
You're right, it's neutral and that accepts all different toppings
and mixes and all that. Okay, But you know, if
you start with Rocky Road and you go ahead and
add some more of more nuts in there of your liking,
and maybe even some.
Speaker 4 (01:13):
Peanut butter, because you know, peanut butter and chocolate has
a mix.
Speaker 3 (01:16):
That's a man that came from the same god as
the one that created mana for supposed to live on.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
Indeed, in this list of America's favorite flavors or the
or the half of the list, flavors that people like
Rocky Road and chocolate peanut butter are right next.
Speaker 1 (01:30):
To each other, but they are in the middle of
the list.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
Neither one of them is near the top of the list,
which I think is a which I think is a
big mistake.
Speaker 1 (01:38):
Oh look at this. David Kale just walked in and
handed me this this thing.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
Mark TMZ reports that WWE legend Hulk Hogan is dead
at the age of seventy one.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
Oh my no, the Hulkster.
Speaker 4 (01:53):
Wow. I was in the same room with him just
this time last year and.
Speaker 3 (01:57):
Only once in my whole life, and that was that
the National Convention where we nominated Donald Trump for president. Thought, Wow,
that's a shame, what a loss.
Speaker 1 (02:06):
Did you chat with him a little bit?
Speaker 3 (02:09):
No? No, they don't let me on stage. People like that.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
They all right, So I want to just talk to
you for a moment about special session. So I talked
to one person whose name I won't use on the radio.
But he's a colleague of yours in the State Senate,
And this was maybe a week ago, and he said
he thought there is a decent chance of a special session.
Speaker 1 (02:33):
Next month in August.
Speaker 2 (02:35):
And then I was talking with somebody else who is
kind of involved in the decision making process, and that
person said, I don't know for sure that there will be.
Speaker 1 (02:45):
A special session.
Speaker 2 (02:46):
There is some stuff that could be done, but really
a lot of the talk had been about a special
session regarding impacts to the state budget from the big
beautiful bills medicaid provisions. But the Medicaid provisions aren't going
to impact the state budget very much for a few years.
Speaker 1 (03:02):
So what are you hearing?
Speaker 2 (03:03):
What are you expecting regarding a special session?
Speaker 3 (03:08):
Yeah, so, our lead leader in the State Senate, Senator
Cleeve Simpson, the best information that he's been able to
squeeze out of the Governor's office for us is a
likely August eighteen start. But since that that rumored date
has gone on for like over a week now, I'm
suspecting it's going to get pushed out to even later,
(03:30):
maybe even September. But there are two reasons that are
driving us to have a special session. The very one
that you described, which is, yeah, the changes in the
big beautiful bill to Medicaid, which impacts a lot of
funding areas for Colorado, but specifically in the in the
medical area for Colorado mental health. I got a call
yesterday from Zoom really from one of the mental health
(03:54):
folks within my district in Jefferson County, and yeah, they're
having to people off.
Speaker 4 (04:00):
So it's it's it's an impact. But the other one
is artificial intelligence.
Speaker 3 (04:05):
So there was a terrible bill signed under duress by
Governor Poulis last year that would regulate artificial intelligence development
and the use of it, and really really an awful bill,
and the governor signed it into law.
Speaker 4 (04:21):
Excuse me with the agreement because it was.
Speaker 3 (04:24):
His favorite bill was being held hostage by the Majority
leader who created that bill, that AI terrible bill. Anyway,
the deal that they cut was both both the governor's
favorite bill and the AI bill regulation bill would both
get signed into law, but we would have twenty twenty
five session to fix the AI bill. Well, that came
(04:47):
up four days before the end of the session. The
Democrats got in a big internal intramural fight and that
bill got killed. So we still have this big problem
with regulating AI and that that's going to go into
effect in February if we don't at least push the
data out. So that is a reason all by itself
(05:08):
to have a special session, because otherwise we're going to
have AI companies move out of the state. Literally, that's
their threatened. I'm sure they'll do it too if we so.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
Mark, and for those just shooting, we're talking with Mark Baisley,
the state Senator from Jefferson County and a Republican Canada
for governor. So just to elaborate briefly, and then I want
to switch topics, but just to elaborate briefly on what's
so bad about this bill and why AI companies are
threatening to leave the state if the bill isn't changed.
Speaker 3 (05:40):
The concern being addressed by the bill is that AI
might discriminate against protected classes of people, minorities and so on,
and discriminate against them in things like housing and college
admissions and that sort of thing. So what the bill does.
It says we want to regulate the development of AI
software all the way to the point of requiring that
(06:03):
those developers send their software, their code, their source code
to the Attorney General's office so that he can have
his staff like they would be qualified to pour over
the software and make sure it can't discriminate against the
protected classes. What a horrible approach. So what my bill
that I'm introducing at the special session, if we have
(06:24):
that opportunity, is to say, hey.
Speaker 4 (06:27):
You know all those protections we have for special.
Speaker 3 (06:29):
Classes to prevent them from being discriminated against, Well, you can't.
Speaker 4 (06:33):
Do that with technology either and not regulate the.
Speaker 3 (06:35):
Technology development itself.
Speaker 4 (06:37):
So we can do a better job with this.
Speaker 3 (06:40):
But that's that's the whole rub.
Speaker 2 (06:42):
What else do you think might be addressed in a
special session?
Speaker 3 (06:46):
It will just be retooling our budget because Medicaid in particular,
there are restrictions coming out of the big beautiful bill
that does that people in the country illegally cannot take
advantage of of things like mental health treatments and stuff
(07:07):
like that. So so there's there's a whole lot of
cutbacks there. There's also cutbacks on some special programs for education,
teacher training and that sort of thing, and so it's
you know, it's upsetting a lot of people across the state,
and it doesn't upset me. A whole lot should be frank,
but it but others are being upset, and so we
(07:28):
have to kind of retool the budget.
Speaker 1 (07:29):
Okay, so just one more minute on this.
Speaker 2 (07:32):
So if there is a negative budget impact, which is
to say, in this case, less revenue to the government,
which by the way, that's generally a good thing, right,
but anyway from for from the government's perspective, it's bad
or at least difficult when they have less money. So
in order to get a balanced budget, which state budget
(07:53):
has to be.
Speaker 1 (07:54):
They, when I say.
Speaker 2 (07:55):
They, the legislature, meaning you and your colleagues, can either
raise taxes or cut other spending. Now you, being a Republican,
are going to be much more interested in cutting other spending.
They meaning the Democrats, are going to be much more
interested in raising taxes or fees that are taxes that
they will call fees.
Speaker 1 (08:14):
They don't have to put them in front of tabor.
Speaker 2 (08:16):
What do you expect to happen in the special session
in particular along any of those lines.
Speaker 3 (08:22):
Yeah, we'll have to cut back on spending, and we
don't have a choice. And I appreciate that we don't
have a choice, and that's because taxpayers bill rights requires
that the people that we go to the people. If
we want to raise taxes, we have to go ask
their permission first, and that's going to take a whole
election cycle for them to vote on that. So now
we'll have to cut back. What if they put in
(08:43):
a fee, Yeah, the fee is yeah, that's the sneaky bypass.
But it really has to be a fee, a fee
for something specific, like a license to operate your barbershop
or something. But now you won't be able to get
away with that as a tax raise a revenue gen.
Speaker 4 (09:00):
Okay, we're gonna have to.
Speaker 3 (09:01):
Cut back, but I have no problem in finding places
to cut back. Let me tell you that.
Speaker 1 (09:06):
I'm sure that's true.
Speaker 2 (09:07):
Mark Baisley is current state senator, former state rep as well.
Speaker 1 (09:12):
Is that right?
Speaker 4 (09:13):
Yes?
Speaker 3 (09:14):
I serve four hours, four four hours, four four hours
every day. I serve four years in the State House
before I'm in my third year in the state Senate now.
Speaker 2 (09:22):
And Mark Baisley is also Republican candidate for governor here
in the state of Colorado. The website if you want
to learn more Mark Baisley B A. I. S. L. E.
Y dot com, Mark Baisley dot com. Mark, thanks for
your time. Really good insights. We will keep in touch.
Thank you, Ross, figure out you two all right. Good
stuff there. We'll see, we'll see if there's a special session.
The Ross Kaminsky Show News
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