05-09-24 FULL SHOW - House Minority Leader Rose Pugliese On the Session

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Welcome to a Thursday edition of theshow. I'm your host for the next
let's see here twenty two minutes,Mandy Connell. But we're gonna make the
best of it. We were gonnaturn the station over at twelve thirty to
the Colorado Rockies. But in themeantime, let me tell you what is
on the blog and where to findit. Visit mandy'sblog dot com. That's
mandy'sblog dot com. That's going totake you to my page on kiowa's website

(00:23):
where you can look for the headlinethat says five nine twenty four. Blog
House Minority Leader Rosepaglici on the session. Click on that and here are the
headlines you will find within are officeHouse American and all with ships and clippas
and say let's going to press flatstoday on the blog. Hi House Minority
Leader Rosepaglici is on the show today. The world has gone mad. Biden

(00:47):
caters to the death to America crowd. Biden deserves condemnation for it is Starbucks
over. The Democratic legislature is crepedall over the law. Listen to Grant's
interview with Dave Logan today, NPR'sCEO dux Co Congress. Congrats to the
joker. Yes, young people ownhomes in Colorado. Here are one hundred
and one bills you should know about. Yes, liberals are unhappier than conservatives.

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How sweet is this for the joker? For people on the right side
of history, they're afraid to goon record dance moves from around the world.
There you go, my friends.Those are the headlines on the blog
at Mandy's blog dot com and yesterday. And they didn't even go to the
wire like so often happens during alegislative session. The Colorado Legislator session wrapped

(01:33):
up its business and joining me now, House Minority Leader Rose Paglici, Rose,
you guys didn't even have to stayuntil midnight. You actually got done
at a reasonable time. I guess. Congratulations her in order, Oh,
well, thank you. I thinkwe got the people's work done and then
we got to and the session ina good way. I think we have

(01:57):
a lot of good, healthy debateand discussion, and I really I feel
confident in the work we did.So I want to make this point again
to all of my listeners, becauseeverything we're about to talk about that has
made me unhappy is not the faultof the Republican Party, because you guys
are very outnumbered in both houses ofthe legislature and it is very challenging to

(02:22):
stop legislation that might be onerous tome and other right leaners. But it
does seem that the Democrats did getmore input this year from Republicans than in
prior years. Is that is thataccurate? I would say that's true.
And what you know, it's funny. When I was on the betrayal campaigning

(02:45):
against Proposition each, each one ofthe messages that I tried to drive home
was that if the grassroots come together, which we did, and unify,
which we did, and beat this, then they have to at least come
back to the table and lift AndI really truly believe that. I mean,
they were shocked that we were ableto defeat Proposition H eight and I

(03:07):
mean by sixty percent, so notjust a small one, but a huge
one for the grassroots movement. Andso I do feel like this legislative session
we came in in a very differentplace. So even being you know,
nineteen Republicans to forty six Democrats inthe House, we came in with more
leverage. I feel like than wedid leave last session. Well, I

(03:30):
talked with Lisa Frizell, who I'ma big fan of Lisa, but about
that property tax bill. But thenI read what was in the property tax
bill, and it's not actually aproperty tax cut. It is a cut
in the increase next year in propertytaxes. And so I mean, how
do you feel about that outcome?Well, again, so I mean we

(03:55):
have some leverage, we don't havea ton of leverage. And Republicans,
and I'm speaking for myself, atthis point, we are going to continue
to support property tax decreases and anycut in property tax I think is good.
Do we want more, We absolutelydo, But at this point I

(04:15):
think having something And I do justwant to remind everyone because this is the
point that's like very hard for me. And I've talked about this before when
Gallagher was repealed, which I wasagainst but in campaign very hard against.
So when Gallagher was repealed, basicallywhat the people said was let's take it
out of the constitution, that predictabilityand give it the legislature to solve.

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Now, whether that was a goodor bad decision is up to the people,
But I truly do believe that asa legislature, we at least came
together to find a middle, amiddle that doesn't hurt local governments to make
their budgets based on property tax,unlike the state that doesn't actually, you
know, use property tax in theirbudgeting, but local governments do. So

(05:00):
we had to find a middle betweennot harming local governments who have to provide
a central services and giving real,true, meaningful property tax relief to the
people. And what I think iswe found the middle. I think there's
always opportunities to do more. Ihope that we will continue to work on
this issue to do more, butI think that we found ourselves in a

(05:21):
good place. And it is alegislature's responsibility. Whether it should be or
not is a different conversation, butit is right now our responsibility to bring
forward responsible property tax relief and Ifeel like we did that in this bill.
Well, the so far, themessage is not getting out if my
next door is any indication, becausepeople thought they were going to have relief

(05:43):
this year, and that they weren'tgoing to have mortgage payments going up four
five, six, seven hundred dollarsbecause of the hit of the property taxes
and insurance premium increases because of theMarshall fire and other insurance stuff. So
I think that that is going tobe a tough sell to people. And
I do know that there's going tobe balid initiatives that that are going to
be pretty tough. I mean,they're they're going to deliver actual relief.

(06:09):
So it's gonna be very interesting tosee how all that shakes out in November.
What passes, what doesn't. Letme ask you where you felt like
the legislation that you were or maybenot directly involved in, but obviously that
passed. What do you feel reallygood about coming out of this session?
You know, what I'm really excitedabout is the income tax reduction. It's

(06:31):
something Republicans have been pushing for along time. And I go back to
Prop Age because I really did feellike there was a pivot after that.
But you know, I debated thegovernor along with Michael Fields, and the
Governor said we need to be doingincome tax relief. We need to reduce
the incompact rate. And I waslike, great, let's do that.
And Representative bottoms and I brought forwarda bill and Democrats killed it in committee

(06:55):
and I was like, okay.Govin are you what you say and what
you mean are two different things.And then towards the end of the session
there was this income tax reduction bill, and I think that having those conversations
are incredibly important. I think someof these conversations were hard for Democrats to
be honest with you. The governor, for better or for worse, is
more on the libertarian side, butI think keeping money in the pockets of

(07:18):
the people income tax reduction is theplace where we want to head. Again.
Would I have loved to have donemore, absolutely, but at this
point, taking a small step inthe right direction I think is incredibly good.
And people are struggling. You knowthat, Mandy. I mean you
hear it all the time, likepeople are struggling. It is unaffordable to
live in Colorado. And I dothink we were able to push forward small

(07:41):
steps towards helping to alleviate that thoseissues. Well, and I will let
me ask you this, are youaware of any efforts by the governor specifically
with specifics, because he's he hastalked about the fact that he would like
to use Tabor refunds to eventually buydown the income rate to zero, which

(08:01):
would be great. I think that'dbe fantastic, But from where I am,
it's all just talk. He's notactually tried to work with legislators to
create meaningful legislation that could take us. There is there anything happening in the
background that I don't know about.So what I would focus on is your
your statement is accurate and as faras meaningful, right, I mean,

(08:26):
we took a stap, a smallstep, but a step in the right
direction towards income tax It's not bigenough, and we will continue to advocate,
especially on the Republican side, formore cuts. But at this point
is four hundred and fifty million dollarsto the people that we wouldn't have had
otherwise. And the other thing,which is really huge for me and I

(08:46):
think Republicans in general, we werevery against flat tabor refunds where everybody gets
the pressed even if you didn't payinto the system, and so the income
tax Reduction Bill will help alleviate thatissue, and I think that's important.
So I think we're taking steps inthe right direction. Is it meaningful enough?
Now? Could he do more?Absolutely? But at least we took

(09:09):
a step, and so I'm atleast proud of the Republicans for being able
to take a step. So whenwe talk about Tabor refunds, there's a
lot of bills that were working theirway through. What happened to the bill
that was going to redistribute Tabor refundsto low income families? Did it die
or is it? Did it getpassed? So the one that I mean,

(09:35):
there's a lot. So this isa year and and this should be
something that we should be talking about. And I'm getting the actual numbers on
what actually passed through the summit lastnight. So obviously a little bit in
flex, but there were more taxcredit bills this year than the legislature has
seen and I think that that we'llhave far reaching implications for the Tabor surplus

(10:00):
because the no tax credits come outof TABER. So I'm getting those numbers
and trying to dig in a littlebit deeper as to what actually passed.
There was a lot that went throughthe House, but the Senate also,
and thank goodness we have such greatsenators were able to kill a lot of
it, so I have to geta better number on that. But there
were definitely some bigger tax income taxI'm sorry, tax credits that potentially went

(10:24):
through last night that you know willhave impacts for sure. Well, I
think that the Democratic leadership is playingfast and loose with the mission of refunding
tabor funds back to the taxpayers ina reasonable fashion, because the way I
see it is they're just using itto find their pet projects. And in

(10:45):
my mind, where I'm sitting,where I'm not going to get my table
refund, probably that's not reasonable.So that's been a big frustration for me.
Another thing that I like, Idon't know, the gun control stuff
that came out of this legislative sessioncould have been worse, right, like,
it could have been worse. ButI was extremely frustrated that we could

(11:05):
not increase the penalties on actual criminalswho use firearms or or possessed guns illegally,
and yet we had plenty of runwayto make owning a gun legally in
Colorado far more expensive and far moreof a pain in the ass. No,
I agree, And you know,every time I went to the well,

(11:28):
I would talk about the town hallsI had in the constituents that I
talked to, and the basic themethat they said, you know, we
always talk about we need to protectour Second Amendment rights, and that's right.
But the biggest theme that they broughtforward, which you articulated so well
just now, is you are makingcriminals out of legal, law abiding citizens

(11:50):
and you need to stop, andyou're making it more expensive, and you
need to stop. And so wedidn't see that as much of that.
I mean, I'm thinking about abill that Ryan Armagoth had brought Representative Armagh
and he, you know, wantedto criminalize stealing guns out of people's cars,
and you know, they killed thatobviously, never made it out of

(12:11):
committee. But then when we're talkingabout you know, secure firearm storage in
a vehicle where they want you tolock it up, I mean, it
doesn't all mesh together, right,So you don't want to criminalize the feeling
of it, but you'll criminalize orat least put the victims on people,
yeah, who had their guns stolenout of cars. Like I mean,
it just doesn't make any sense.Well, the unintended consequence of that particular

(12:35):
piece of legislation Rose is obviously thatnow people are not going to report that
their firearm was stolen out of theircar, you know. I mean that
that that bill makes the least amountof sense to me. And truly it
was really really annoying. Now arethe people going to have the right to
vote on this ammunition tax increase becauseof tabor? Yes, so the fires

(13:00):
of ammunition excites tex is a tax, so new tax, so that will
be voted on. It will beon the ballot again. When I went
to my precinct caucuses, that wasthe number one bill that people were talking
to me about. And you know, they get it's a chance to vote
on it. But why are wetaxing legal firearm owners? I mean,

(13:22):
it's just it is going beyond whatpeople can handle at this point. I'll
be honest, and there's a lotof frustration around all of those films.
I mean, I will be perfectlyfrank. I will buy my ammunition in
Wyoming. You know, it's likethe only thing we're doing and I think
this is what it's designed to dois hurt people like my client DCF Guns
and other you know, legal legallyoperating gun manufacturers who are always trying to

(13:46):
do the right thing, and thenthey're just trying to put them out of
business. Right, No, that'sabsolutely true. We're criminalizing the people who
are actually trying to be law abidingcitizens. It's really sad. So what
are some of the things that camethrough that you find the most objectionable?
You know, One of the thingsthat I am personally struggling with, and

(14:11):
I've talked about this as the while, and I think my cockage struggles with
is the failure of this of thestate as we are trying to deal with
affordability issues, the failure of thestate to prioritize Coloraden people who are here
legally. And so we have putmillions of dollars and I mean millions of

(14:37):
dollars into the migrant crisis. Twentyfour million dollars to address those issues in
our schools, five million to Denverhelp to help deal with the influx of
people that are coming to our hospitalsso that they don't impact our rural hospitals
and some of our smaller hospitals,and then two point five million for a
welcome center, like let's make themfeel welcome. And I come, I

(14:58):
want to be very clear here.I support legal immigration the way my parents,
you know, my dad came overthe way my grandparents came over through
alex Island. And so what isso frustrating is the conversation has become We
need immigrants, we absolutely do,and we always have been a country that
has welcomed immigrants legally who come throughour borders. And we are legislators,

(15:22):
right, so as legislators, weput in place laws so we expect people
to follow. But then we areempowering and giving money, that is our
tax payer money, to help peoplewho are not in this country legally,
And I personally am incredibly offended byall of that money that is going to
address the crisis when we're not actuallydealing with the problem. And the governor

(15:45):
will say, well, to federalproblem, it's not really the state's problem,
but yet we are using millions ofdollars of tax payer money to help
fund this issue. So personally,I think it's something we need to be
talking more about. I agree wholeheartedly, especially after the list of demands by
the illegal immigrants living in a campwere made public yesterday, and I just
can't get over how big their kahonesare because of everything that's been happening in

(16:10):
this state. When you look atthe changes that you'd like to see happen,
obviously there's got to be a shiftat the ballot box for there to
become a more opposition, more moreability to stop some of the more onerous
regulations. When you go out andcampaign, when other Republicans go out and

(16:33):
campaign, what are going to bethe talking points to convince people that Republicans
would be a better option for Coloradobased on this legislative session. Yeah,
I mean, I think it goesback to restoring balance. I think that's
what people really want to see.They don't want to see the fringes.
They want to see legislation that comesout that actually helps people. The reason

(16:56):
that we are actually here and soI think, you know, our message
being around the migrant crisis, Ithink is incredibly important, is one of
the number one issues in Colorado,and we've seen that in polling, and
so I think talking about prioritizing theneeds of Colorado affordability continuing to work to
decrease. You know, what I'mreally frustrated at is the amount of fees.

(17:19):
And I'm actually working on a researchproject in the interim as to how
many seas have been imposed. BecauseI remember when we were talking about property
tax originally and the Democrats that wesay, well we have some of the
lowest property taxes. Well great,but then you add all these feeds on
top. Colorado is not affordable,and we continue to set up enterprises and

(17:41):
all sorts of ways to circumvent tabor. That is not what the people wanted.
And so I think when we talkabout those issues, they really resonate
with the people of Colorado, atleast people that I know. We've been
talking to you, and so tryingto push forward legislation that does help with
the affordability crisis and in showing whatthe Democrats have done that have made Colorado

(18:03):
unaffordable. I think that's a greatstrategy because everybody talks about costs, but
so many people do not connect thingslike the high cost of housing building a
house. All of that can betacked right on to government regulations that are
happening, and they're they're just passingmore. Rose Peglici is the House Minority
leader. I appreciate your time,and I'm glad you get to stay home

(18:23):
now for the next ten months andspend time in your district. And I
hope I can see in person soon. Rose. Absolutely, thanks for the
opportunity. Mandy, all right,that's Rose Paglici. Thanks so much.
We are going to be done herein a moment, But tomorrow we have
a full show, and I wantto tell you what is coming up on

(18:44):
tomorrow's full show, because we've gota good one. We are going to
talk about a wide variety of stuffand we're talking about it or a medical
AI that is actually helping people behealthier using AI. It's fascinating and so
much much more. Right now,we're going to turn the station over to
the Rockies. I'll be back tomorrow. Keep it right here on KOA