Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
The system. Minority Leader Thy Winter, Representative Ty Winters joining
(00:03):
me to talk about everything that this legislative and a
session inflicted on us. First of all, Representative Winner, welcome
back to the show.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Well, thank you for having me. I really appreciate it,
and thank you for allowing us to get our voice out.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
Okay, well let's start. I mean I want you to
hit the we'll call them high points, but maybe they're
the lowest points. One of the biggest things that came
out of this legislative session that you guys fought the hardest.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
Again, so you know, to be honest with you, when
we started this session, we took the things that we
heard at the doors.
Speaker 3 (00:36):
We took the.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
Things the kitchen table, the issues that people had, and
not what we fought for. We fought for affordability, we
fought for public safety, we fought for parental rights, and
we fought to keep Tabor. So I will say that
was kind of like our game plan going into this year,
and I think we had some wins. I think with
Taber being pushed off the calendar, some people say you're
in the minority, you.
Speaker 3 (00:55):
Didn't do anything. That's not true.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
We debated Taber heavily in the world numerous times, and
we activated the voting base, which we know Tabor has
about seventy percent support amongst all Colorado and so I
would definitely say that was a big win for us.
We pushed a really bad healthcare bill that would have
killed rule of Colorado Healthcare that Rett Brown brought off
the calendar. We fought hard on set at Bill three.
The Second Amendment right is under attack in the state
(01:19):
of Colorado. House Republicans put about thirty hours of battle
in from the time it hit committee all through the floor,
fighting for parental rights with thirteen twelve, I mean, the
egregious piece of legislation, and our constituents know that parents
know what's best for their kids, not big government. So
you know, I think we worked on public safety. We
tried to help our law enforcement. We tried to you know,
(01:40):
we had a representative bring a rape against Children bill
which got killed. So I mean I think that we
worked really hard and trying to hit those kitchen table
issues that we talked to voters about.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
Well, it's been very frustrating and a lot of people
don't understand because they don't pay attention as closely as
they should, and they get really upset. They always say
things like, why didn't the Republicans stop it? Why didn't
they do more? I want you to just lay out
how badly outnumbered you are. I try to have Republicans
do this all the time to give some perspective.
Speaker 3 (02:09):
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
You know, out of sixty five, there's only three two
of us in the House, and they only need thirty
three votes to get anything passed. And that's why I
always tell our base, that's why I when Republicans show
up and it's fundraising season and it's campaign season, Mandy.
The only way to fix this it's simple map. It's
addition and subtraction. There needs to be a lot more
Republicans in the Chamber now. We need to be the majority. Yes,
(02:33):
I love that that. If we could get a lot closer.
Where it matters is in committees, because you can get
back legislation killed in a committee of thirteen. You know,
if you get it to where there's just maybe one
or two more Democrats on that committee than Republicans, you
might be able to sway a Democrat or two.
Speaker 3 (02:47):
We saw it happen to hear. So the key to
it is.
Speaker 2 (02:49):
A simple map. The people that back us and follow us.
When it comes time for campaign season, they need to donate,
They need to help us knockdoors, they need to make
phone calls. You really have to unite the base. We
really have to unite the grassroots, and we have to
push forward because at the end of the day, unless
the numbers are closer, we can fight all we want.
And I think the Mighty twenty two fought value only
this year we were united. I think this was definitely
(03:12):
the best team I've been a part of, you know,
this being my third year, and we fought really hard,
and I think we did a bang up job for
the people of Colorado. I think we litigated the long Bill.
We talked about how we don't have a revenue problem
in this state. We have a priority problem about how
Colorado's are being nickeled and dime to death. How the
Democrats have circumvented tabor with fees and enterprises. So, you know,
(03:34):
here's the deal. We've laid the groundwork. The Minority leader,
our staff is putting in a ton of work. It
showed this year. Now we need the cavalry to run
in In the end, we've got an election coming up
in a year. We need that help and we need
to change the numbers. And that's that's the shortened to
all of them now.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
Representative ty Winter is my guest. What ended up happening
with HB thirteen twelve, that was the incredibly onerous anti
parent transgender right bill.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
Well, the Senate amended some of the bad stuff out
of it, but it's still a horrible bill. I will
tell you this. I've been there three years now, and
when we saw the original assault weapons band, I mean
that State House was flooded with people. But I'll tell
you up when thirteen twelve was going to the Senate
committee about a week and a half ago, that is
the most people I have ever seen at the Capitol.
(04:20):
I mean Mama bears and Papa bears and angry grandparents.
I mean, who have ever thought that if your kid
comes home in today's world, where you know, most kids
don't know what they had for breakfast, they can't remember
at the end of the day, and they come home
and say, hey, Mom or Dad, me and my friends
or however it went down. I don't want to be
called Tim anymore. I want to be called Tina. And
(04:42):
if you, as a parent, looked at your kid and said, hey,
we either want you to talk to your priest or
your pastor we want to talk to a mental health professional.
You know, we just want to talk to you about
this just as parents. The way the bill was written
is is if you didn't affirm your child at that point,
the state governments could come in and take.
Speaker 3 (04:59):
Your kid from you. I also worried about the coersion part,
where if you.
Speaker 2 (05:02):
Have a couple that is split up and one parent's
pitting another parent against the child and uses this to
take over custody. Right. So, you know, it was agreed
that it did pass.
Speaker 3 (05:11):
There was some amendments on it.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
I wouldn't say it more palatable. I guess it made
it a little bit less worse. But it passed in
the Senate, it came over to the House.
Speaker 3 (05:20):
We debated it.
Speaker 2 (05:23):
Not yesterday, day before, for as long as we could
debate it, and eventually the concurrences were made with the said.
Speaker 3 (05:28):
And amendment and I'm sure the governor will be signing
it into law.
Speaker 1 (05:31):
Unfortunately, what about the Uber and Lyft bill. Somebody just
sent this An Uber and Lyft driver said that bill
passed and now Uber and probably lift will pull out
of Colorado. Where does that stand.
Speaker 3 (05:45):
You know, I'm gonna be.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
Honest with you many, I truly don't believe that. I
don't believe they're going to pull out of Colorado. There
was a lot of Republicans, the voter for that bill
in the House. We heard the stories, and here's the deal,
ma'm I'm the cap list one hundred and ten percent.
But there's also responsibility because life, I'm pretty pursuit of
happiness has to be protected by the Constitution. And if
(06:07):
any of those things are being done by anybody, oh,
I believe in capitalism. I don't believe they'll leave. If
they do leave, I believe that somebody will come up
with a great business model that will fill that gap,
because that's what capitalism does. But at the end of
the day, after hearing the testimony, hearing the sponsors talk
about some of the horrible things that have happened to
(06:28):
these individuals, at some point, just getting an email back
from a ride share company or just having a ride
share company say we're going to look into this. And
then after months and months and months of victims waiting
for a response, I just, you know, I said, I
don't think there was a Senate Republican the voter for,
but I would say the majority of House Republicans voter for.
Speaker 3 (06:48):
Maybe there was just four or five that didn't.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
So that was one of those topics this year that
came up, and you know, there was a problem that
we saw, and you know, we had a split vote
on that, but I definitely saw both sides of the story.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
What do you think is going to happen with the
labor bill?
Speaker 2 (07:03):
You know, the governor said he's going to veto it.
The problem I have with the labor bill is is
I believe that if people want to unionize, that's fine.
But when you force workers who don't want to to unionize,
then that's.
Speaker 3 (07:15):
Why I have the issue.
Speaker 2 (07:15):
Now, don't get me wrong. That's why you join the
country club. So if you want to swim in the
pool and you join the country club, you should be
able to.
Speaker 3 (07:21):
Swim in the pool.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
But on the other hand, on the right to work,
if you don't want to be part of the union,
I also don't think you should be getting those benefits.
So you know, it's it's that decision that a worker
has to make. But I don't think anybody should ever
be forced into being in the union and then secondly
to meet the threshold to unionize. They wanted to get
rid of the second vote. That's what this bill was about.
But the way that you know Representative to Graphic Passo County,
(07:44):
he's a math genius. The man can do math. The
way he explained it is is you only need about
twenty five percent of a quorum in the first vote.
So you know, out of one hundred people, you only
only need twenty five people to make it happen. So
I don't know, I think it needs to meet better
scrutiny than that.
Speaker 3 (07:59):
You know, you know, if we're.
Speaker 2 (08:01):
Talking about a true democratic process, we're a republic. But
if we're talking about democracy, that's fifty.
Speaker 3 (08:06):
Plus one or mob rule.
Speaker 2 (08:08):
So I think twenty five percent of one hundred isn't
a fair shake for anybody.
Speaker 1 (08:12):
What is your biggest disappointment out of this legislative session?
Speaker 2 (08:17):
You know, ma'am, My biggest disappointment is is Colorados are hurting,
and they're hurting bad. They're deciding whether they're going to
put meat on the table or heat in the home.
They're digging through their couch cushions trying to get enough
change to put gas in their car to get to work.
And what makes it hard for me is we knocked
doors and as we talk to people at the capitol
and we hear them testify they're hanging on by a thread.
(08:39):
And unfortunately we have a state where they show up
and say we're government and we're here to help, and
they tax us and they fee us to death, and
they pass horrible legislation and they don't put priorities first.
They do all of what they want to do in
the beginning, they spend the money, and at the end
of the session, it's all the world's on fire. We
got to help fire departments. We have to take of
(09:00):
our kids. Well, why you call a priority is is
you take care of it prior to everything else. And
the biggest disappointment is is the majority party at the
state legislature constantly puts themselves before the people because they're
legislating from the realm of you don't know what's best
for you. Hold on, we know what's best for you,
(09:21):
even if you don't know. And I guess that's the
most disappointing thing is is to think that you're above
the will of the people. And if you think that
you're in a position to know what's best for them.
Speaker 1 (09:31):
Is there any chance that the governor vetoes the immigration
bill that will absolutely cement our status as a sanctuary state,
considering there's a lawsuit that's been filed by the DOJ.
Speaker 2 (09:44):
Tojnest with you, I doubt it. The Democrats were brazen
this year. You know numerous times we heard from the wow,
we wrote this legislation after the November election if the
total sumb their nose at the Trump administration, which is
unfortunate because they also ran a bill to set aside
four billion dollars of your money to fight the federal
government laws that are passed that goes against federal law,
(10:05):
and that's just insane to me. We know that the
Trump administration is going to come down hard on a state,
and we told people from the well, you can go
back and watch us. We do not want this to
happen to the people of Colorado. Please, Democrats do not
pass these laws because we know we need that federal funding.
Speaker 3 (10:21):
In our state.
Speaker 2 (10:22):
We pay into that federal funding and the people of
Colorado should ever return on that tax dollar. But they
didn't listen to us. We ran favorability clauses on almost
every bill we thought that would bring attention to the
Trump administration. We gave a list to the governor, we
gave a list to the Majority leader and the Speaker,
and these laws still pass. So I don't think he will,
but there will be a price to pay, and unfortunately,
(10:44):
the people of Colorado are going to have to suffer
because you know, and with even more unfortunate is the
governor agreed with the President. And in Colorado, I think
the recent points showed that about fifty five to fifty.
Speaker 3 (10:55):
Six percent of Colorado's.
Speaker 2 (10:56):
Believe in mass deportation. So I think this is a
losing issue for them. I think that that's where we
really excelled this year. I think that we still win
on immigration. We know that that like builds like thirteen
twelve are about an eighty twenty issue, and we know
that col Aradins support Tabor by about seventy percent. So
now they're getting into the weeds and they're starting to
tell Coloradms, we know what's best for you, and that
(11:17):
is Republicans and conservatives. When we need to grab the
keys and say, okay, we have the better ideas, please
put us in a position to govern. The Democrats have
have the keys to the car for too long they're drunk.
Hand them over to us and let us six.
Speaker 1 (11:32):
Representative Ty Winner. I appreciate you working really hard to
keep things in check. I know it's an uphill battle,
and I appreciate you making time for me to today.
Speaker 2 (11:42):
Thank you. I appreciate you. You know, God bless House District
forty seven. God bless Colorado, But most importantly, God blessed
the greatest country on our the United States of America.
Speaker 1 (11:51):
That's representative Tie Winter