December 17, 2025 • 22 mins
REP. SCOTT BOTTOMS JOINS TODAY AT 1 Not only is he running for Governor, he's also been dragged into the fray with Victor Marx. Marx said on Ryan Schuiling's show yesterday (You should listen to that interview here) that Bottoms had not only asked Marx not to run, but had also offered him a position as Lt. Governor if Bottoms was the nominee. Bottoms says this is not at all accurate. Find out more about Rep. Bottoms' campaign here.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
As much as I hate it, the governor's race has begun.
And I'm not mad that there's a governor's race. I'm
just saying it feels like we're always in political season.
But next year we will have the opportunity to make
a change in the governor's office. And I don't just
mean the human being, I mean policy wise. It could
be massive. And joining me now is one of those candidates.
(00:20):
Representative Scott Bottoms has thrown his hat in the ring.
He will be participating in the debate that Ryan Schuley
and I from our assist our brother Station K Howe
will be moderating January tenth and Greeley if you want
to find out more information about that. And he joins
me now to not only talk about his run for governor,
but also a little deverbal kerfuffle that we're having right
(00:42):
now between he and another candidate. First of all, Representative Bottoms,
welcome to the show.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
Yeah, thank you for having me. Always enjoy it.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
So let's talk about why you decided to put your
face in the wood chipper for this election cycle and
decide to run for governor. What is your motivation?
Speaker 3 (01:02):
Well, I've never heard that description but it's not a
bad one. This is so I've been a representative now
for two terms, but I've been a pastor all my
life since i was twenty years old. I'm fifty five now,
and that's that's who I am. That's what I've done.
But a few years back, I realized, through a bunch
of different things and really praying about it, that I
(01:23):
needed to be running for representative. And that was a
crazy journey. And now I really felt the same thing
we declared about this time last year. Actually, I've been
in the race for a year. I'm the first person
to have declared, and I just really feel like I
have to do this. This is a spiritual journey for
me too. But this is also very much we have
(01:46):
got to reclaim Colorado. We're losing our state and everybody's
just sitting around watching it happen. And I'm not one
of those kind of people.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
So I want to start. I'm glad you brought up
the fact that you're a pastor and that you're a
man of faith, and this is a spiritual journey because
I I'm going to be perfectly frank. One of my
biggest concerns about a general election for you is how
secular Colorado is. We have a higher percentage of atheists
and agnostics, we have many people, we have a slight
(02:14):
majority that identify as Christian. I looked up all this
data today, But we have a lot of people who
are like, yeah, there's probably a God, but it's not
centered in my life. Do you feel like that is
going to be a drawback and how do you reach
out to those people who may not only be non religious,
but maybe a little hostile towards religion.
Speaker 3 (02:36):
Well, being a pastor for thirty five years, I've experienced
hostile toward Christianity. I've experienced that over and over and
I've had many conversations with so many different atheists, agnostics,
humanist people that just really are you know, they just
don't care different religions. I travel all over the world,
(02:59):
I'm preaching, teach and those.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
Kind of things. So this is not new to me.
Speaker 3 (03:02):
But the interesting thing is about being a pastor is
I actually understand them better than most people do because
I've been having the conversations for so many years and
I know, and here's a big thing, is I respect
people's rights and I respect people's individual ability for free
speech and free expression and spiritual expression. I do believe
(03:25):
that Jesus is God. I do believe that, and I
do believe that the Bible is the guidebook for all
of humanity. But I can't force that upon anyone. I've
never forced that. If I could do that, my church
would be in Colorado would be five million people.
Speaker 2 (03:42):
I can't even do. I can't even get people in
my church, for the.
Speaker 3 (03:44):
Most part, to do some of the things that I
think the Bible is telling.
Speaker 2 (03:47):
Us, which is called job security as a pastor.
Speaker 3 (03:50):
But when you're so broken and society is so sinful,
it is job description. I mean, is job security. But
here's the thing with that is my personality, my lifestyle.
Who I am is truly a Christian. It's not just
something I do on the side. And so I am
(04:11):
very much a moral person. I'm a person I don't lie,
I don't cheat, I don't steal. I don't even drink.
A lot of pastors drink. I'm not picking on that,
but I don't drink. I don't do anything like that.
And so when I have this conversation with people, I'm like,
what in that area makes me a bad guy? They
think I'm going to somehow force I'm going to somehow
force people to go to church or so. I don't
(04:34):
know what people are thinking that I'm going to accomplish.
I do pray for the state. I pray for the
state for years. That's going to continue. I pray in
the capital that will continue. I don't force anybody to
pray any of that stuff. So it's kind of a
strange question that I get, but I get it all
the time.
Speaker 1 (04:50):
Well, I think part of it is, and this is
just why this is just me spitballing here. I think
part of it is when people do have a bad experience,
maybe they had a church that didn't live up to
the standards that they were putting forward. Maybe they have
a negative view of religion. They're just putting that on you, right,
because then you become the representative of whatever it is
that they don't like. And that's the part that I
(05:12):
that concerns me. Not because I think everything you just
said was really smart from a pastor's point of view,
but I'm concerned that it's going to be more challenging
to say, Look, I am a Christian, I believe in God.
I'm assuming that you pray for guidance you know, as
most Christians that I know do. But there are people
who are not Christians who say, oh, he wants a theocracy,
(05:33):
which is absurd. But I do think that criticism is
going to be there.
Speaker 3 (05:39):
Oh yeah, it's already there, and I don't shy away
from it. I'll answer those questions. It doesn't bother me.
Everybody's got a thing that somebody's going to try to
pick on or do whatever, and this is going to
be the thing they pick on with me. That the
other side of this is people don't realize that I
have years and years and years worth of preaching online.
(05:59):
They can and go find what I actually believe. Most
of the other candidates you're not going to get that.
You have to take them at their word at a
and I'm not saying just Republican, saying both sides of
the aisle.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
You have to take them at their word at a
town hall or.
Speaker 3 (06:12):
Something like that, that this is who they are and
this is what they believe. I have three years of
a voting record in the House, I have speeches on
the floor.
Speaker 2 (06:20):
All this is on my website.
Speaker 3 (06:22):
I have sermons online that you can go back and
listen to for years. I'm consistently been out in the
public arena, and it doesn't scare me, it doesn't bother me.
I don't have the ability to turn Colorado into theocracy.
Speaker 2 (06:37):
It's just not possible.
Speaker 3 (06:39):
But I will be a very good, solid, consistently moral
looking out for people. A lot of my job as
a pastor is the widows and the orphans. That's scriptural,
taking care of people, taking care of homeless. I've done
that for years and years and years. I sat on
the board of a group that after the girls were
rescued out of human trafficking, we rehabilitated them for two years.
(07:01):
I've been working in these arenas forever, feeding people, homeless shelters.
I go all over the world, helping people get water
and food and buildings and stuff, and so I if that,
if somebody sees that as a negative, there's nothing I
can do about that.
Speaker 2 (07:17):
But I'm actually a good guy.
Speaker 1 (07:21):
That's a great response, that's a solid response. Let's talk
about the issues facing Colorado right now. What do you
think is the number one issue facing the state.
Speaker 3 (07:29):
I think the number one issue, and this, by the way,
is backed up by statistics, but it's also my personal
number one issue is mental illness. We have a huge
problem across the state and all kinds of things. And
here's part of the problem is where we're taking money away.
There was just one bill last session this last spring
took one hundred and eighty million away from mental health.
Speaker 2 (07:51):
Right.
Speaker 3 (07:52):
I think there's some intentionality there that does seem a
little devious and I'm not okay with it, But we
don't want to have good stuff of mental health. We
don't want to put money in there. I think there's
only one institution in the state of Colorado that is
a penal type of mental health institution, and we're shutting
all those down because why a couple of things we
(08:13):
don't want to actually deal with mental illness. I've dealt
with that for thirty five years. That's like the biggest
thing that a pastor does is spiritual slash mental illness.
And we're shutting these things down in Colorado. I think
part of the reason is the same thing with the
bill that people have been talking about HB twenty four,
(08:35):
ten thirty four, where we're now letting criminals out much
more consistently because we're saying they're incompetent to serve trial.
Speaker 2 (08:44):
I voted against that.
Speaker 3 (08:45):
I was one of the few people that voted against
that because that's a mental illness issue as well as
a prosecutorial issue.
Speaker 1 (08:54):
I do think the tide has shifted a little bit
on that conversation because of the horrible, high profile crimes
that have been committed by people who have been let
out after being deemed and competent. Are you hopeful now?
Are you you'll be back in the House this legislative session.
Are you hopeful that meaningful change will happen there and
that you may be able to lead the reversal of
(09:15):
some of that funding that has been shortchanged outa mental
because for me, I agree with you. I think it's
an issue that doesn't just affect the people that are
suffering from it. We obviously to see the quality of
life in Denver, in Colorado Springs that has been impacted
by this stuff. Do you have or are you working
on a bill to address some of the stuff.
Speaker 2 (09:38):
Yeah, I've tried to do this. When it was voted in.
Speaker 3 (09:42):
We had a lot of discussions in our caucus about this,
and I was telling the cocus, look, we've got to
vote no on this. When it first came through the House,
there was only two no votes, me and one other representative.
It went to the Senate. Luckily, the Senate amended it,
which means it can come back to the House. If
the Senate went amended it, it would have passed with
two no votes me and Representative de Graf. When it
(10:04):
came back to the House with amendments, then twelve Republicans
got on end, which I was very thankful for, but
it wasn't enough. The bill passes. We've already got plans
to do some things with that. But interestingly, some Republicans
and some Democrats got together. I did a press conference
in front of the Supreme Court a few months ago
about this bill. I've done three press conferences about it,
(10:27):
two of them in front of the Supreme Court.
Speaker 2 (10:29):
And interestingly, the people that the.
Speaker 3 (10:32):
Democrats and the Republicans that got together and had a
meeting about this did not include me in the meeting.
I didn't even know what was happening. They kept me
out of it, and the first round I was one
of two people that voted no. I knew I could
see down the road, I know what this is going
to do, and I was telling people this is going
to put people at risk, and they're going to be
more criminals attacking people in Colorado because of legislation, and
(10:56):
they've left me out of the meetings.
Speaker 2 (10:58):
I don't know what to do with that.
Speaker 1 (11:00):
Well, sounds like they didn't want you there, going hey, guys,
you should have listened to me the whole time. I
knew what I was talking about. No, I'm just kidding secondary.
Speaker 2 (11:07):
I told you so kind of guy. But I got
to say I told him so.
Speaker 1 (11:11):
Yeah. So the second thing I want to talk about
with you specifically is affordability in the state.
Speaker 3 (11:16):
It is.
Speaker 1 (11:17):
You know, we've got Excel shutting down power lines right now,
and in my mind, there are a lot of people
who have tried to politicize that and make it into
some kind of political issue, when in reality, it's a
liability issue for Excel. But it does make me ask
questions about when we are one hundred percent renewables, which
is the green dream in Colorado, we are going to
(11:38):
have reliable power, right, I mean, it just stands to
reason that renewables are not reliable, so we're not going
to have reliable energy. If you become governor, what would
your energy policy be and what would that look like
in terms of trying to bring down the cost of
everything in Colorado.
Speaker 2 (11:54):
Right, So that's you know, that's a two hour conversation. Though.
Let me throw some quick things out.
Speaker 3 (12:00):
So first, the shutdown of the electricity, I don't think
that is actually I don't think that was nefarious. I
think there was some legitimate reasons why they were doing that.
But with that being said, this is something that's important.
Two years ago, we voted in a law that said
that there are going to be entire neighborhoods in the
state of Colorado that will be electric only they will
(12:23):
not supply gas to them. Gas will not be available
because the leftist in the House and the Senate hate gas.
Speaker 2 (12:30):
Okay, the hate oil, they hate coal, the hate gas,
and they.
Speaker 3 (12:32):
Have stood up at the well in the Capitol and said,
we will shut down oil, we will shut down coal. Well,
the problem is is solar and wind will never accomplish
what needs to be accomplished with the grid. And now
you add AI to this, that is going to be
putting the demands. I read an article a few weeks
ago that said, for our federal government to accomplish the
(12:54):
demands that AI is going to put on electric grids
across the United States that we're going to have to
spend five one hundred billion dollars a year to be
able to accomplish that. Well, in Colorado, we think we
can do this through wind power. Come on, this is
this is craziness. That is it is wind power and
solar are not even making positive one penny positive net
(13:16):
games yet and so the government's subsidizing at all. The
answer to that long term is small nuclear reactors. We
need this in Colorado. This is going to be part
of my energy plan. But we also need to drill
for oil again. We also need to open up some
of these coal mines that have been shutting down, and
we've got to go back to coal providing electricity and
also natural gas. I've been talking a lot with the
(13:38):
energy industry and some of the natural gas distributors.
Speaker 2 (13:41):
We're getting another line.
Speaker 3 (13:43):
We have one gas line in Colorado sports all of Colorado.
Speaker 2 (13:46):
That's not okay.
Speaker 3 (13:47):
We need more, and there's another one coming through eastern
Colorado that just got approved by the federal government.
Speaker 2 (13:53):
So so some of this we're going to be able
to do.
Speaker 3 (13:56):
But my desire is long term for Colorado. We need
data centers in Colorado. We need to put them on
mountain streams and rivers so that the natural cold of
the mountains and the water will help cool these things.
But we have to have small nuclear reactors to support them.
And I believe that small nuclear reactors need to be
voted on at the local level, not by the federal level.
(14:18):
Right now, Senator to Lee out of Utah, which I
like the guy. I think he's a good guy. But
he's trying to just plant these in the national forest
and then just kind of mandate it. And I think
I think local control is always the thing when it
comes to affordability and housing and things like that. We've
got to stop the taxes, and we've got to stop
the regulation. We're the sixth most regulated state in the
(14:40):
United States. We've lost forty percent of our businesses under
the Police administration in the last five years. Okay, these
are direct decisions the governor Police is making, and that
the House and the Senator making. We've gone after private
property ownership with about twenty bills in the last three years.
We're going we are raising taxes. The big beautiful bill
(15:01):
that Trump came up with, this horrible, bad bill actually
said that people that get tips and overtime should not
be taxed for those and we went into special session
so that Governor Poulos could could could tell the House
to make sure that we're taxing people with their tips.
Speaker 2 (15:18):
Why are we doing this.
Speaker 3 (15:19):
This is attacking people, This isn't helping people, And we
just got to take the regulations off. We just now,
after an eight year hiatus, we just now last year
started building townhomes and condos again. Yeah, because they had
we had regulated so much and put so much legislation
to make it easy to sue all of these people
that they just stopped building. We went eight years without
(15:41):
building townhomes and condos, and that is a that's a
transitionary housing and concept.
Speaker 2 (15:50):
That's how people actually get affordable housing. But we just
we just took.
Speaker 3 (15:53):
It off the table and said it's not a there's
I mean, I could go on and on. We are
passing too many laws that are attacking the consumers in Colorado,
and I'm going to change that starting day one.
Speaker 1 (16:03):
All right, so let me finish this interview. We got
about four minutes left. Representative Scott Bottoms is my guest.
By the way, I put a link to his website
if you want to learn he's actually got policy positions
on his website, which I'm excited to see. And honestly,
you had me at small modular reactors. I talk about
them a lot, and I think they're the future of
energy period. But let's talk about the gossipy reason why
(16:24):
unfortunately you're here. And that is part of an interview
that was between my colleague grind Shuling from KJOWR, our
next door neighbor, and Victor Marx yesterday and I grabbed
this one little snippet. Can I buy audio a rod?
Speaker 2 (16:39):
Please?
Speaker 4 (16:39):
Here's why I'm running. No one else can win in
the general but me. If Senator Kurtmeyer could, if she
really could, I wouldn't be running. If Scott Bottoms who
I know, and I've called her friend, I text someone
his father passed away. I wrote on his Facebook page
(17:04):
it was his anniversary thirty five years with him and
his bride yesterday.
Speaker 2 (17:10):
God can't win the general.
Speaker 4 (17:12):
He called me the night before I announced and he said, Victor,
don't announce.
Speaker 2 (17:18):
I said why why?
Speaker 4 (17:21):
And I'm talking to him as a friend who I've
spoken at his church, Ryan and my life's not been
anything but normal, So I'm like, what's going on?
Speaker 2 (17:35):
What do I need to know, Scott?
Speaker 4 (17:37):
And he said, I've been trying to get a hold
of you because you know, I'm running for governor and
I want you to be my lieutenant governor.
Speaker 2 (17:48):
Ask him direct, So.
Speaker 1 (17:50):
I'm asking you direct. Did you ask him to be
your lieutenant governor?
Speaker 3 (17:54):
No, Ryan asked me direct earlier today too, the same question,
played the same clip.
Speaker 2 (17:59):
But here's the thing.
Speaker 3 (18:01):
I never asked Victor to be my lieutenant governor, and
he knows it. I called him and it wasn't the
night before, is the day of, about two hours before,
three hours before.
Speaker 2 (18:10):
He declared, And I said, and I was trying to
get a hold.
Speaker 3 (18:13):
Of him for a long time because I needed his
help on some human trafficking stuff. And I think providentially,
now that we're seeing all of the the stuff that's
coming out about who he really is as a human
trafficking you know, savior guy or whatever, you know, when
the truth is coming out, it's I think it's providential
that he didn't help me because there's a lot of
bad stuff come out. So but no, I told him,
(18:35):
I said, Victor, I've been trying to reach you. I
need some help on this human trafficking stuff. And I said,
plus I wanted to talk to you about my campaign
and maybe even possibly being lieutenant governor. I said, but
now you have scuttled that whole thing. You've you've taken
that off the table. I said, because you don't know
what you're doing. And I said, there are three people
that are using you. They're propping you up and using
(18:57):
you so that they can gain some of the notoriety
or money because their nonprofit or their political whatever is broke,
and including our state party. That's one of the people
as our state party chair. And I said, these people
are using you and you don't even know this. And
then he calls me, leaves a message a week or
(19:18):
two ago saying that he wanted me to give money
from my governor campaign to the state party because the
state party's broke and they need seventy thousand dollars to
have a state assembly.
Speaker 2 (19:31):
It is by law they have to have a state Assembly.
Speaker 3 (19:34):
So I'm actually looking at some stuff, maybe some legal
action or something, because they're not letting us know anything.
But Victor is the one they're sending out to try
to raise money. Well, he's trying to use my friendship,
which I did think we were friends, but he lied
about me and he allied to me, and I'm not
okay with that. And then you use my church also,
and now we're finding out a bunch of stuff about
the human trafficking where it looks like he's conned my
(19:56):
church too, And so when you put all that stuff together,
this is really bothered me. I called him because we
were friends. I called him to try to help him
and to warn him. And I never I never said,
would you please be my lieutenant Governor. What I said was,
I had considered that a couple months ago when I
reached out to you. But there's no way that's gonna
(20:16):
happen now. It can't because you are jumping into something
that is gonna hurt you. It's gonna hurt the human traffickings,
rescuing arena, all this kind of stuff. And now he
did say toward the end of the conversation, because I
told him, Victor, you're never gonna win, Governor, it's not possible.
And he did say, well, you can't win. But here's
the thing, because he said this on the radio yesterday, right,
(20:39):
But here's the thing. I'm the front runner in every
single category in any kind of social media, any kind
of anything. My team is constantly doing analytics. I've had
Democrats reach out to me because I am the front runner,
and not just the front runner, but I am so
far ahead of all the Republicans it's not even same race.
I'm more than twice as far ahead as all of
the rest of the Republicans put together. The second place
(21:01):
person behind me is Barb Kirkmer, Senator Kirkmer, and she's
the only one in double digits, and it's barely into
double digits. I'm in the seventy five to eighty percentile.
She's in double digits. All the rest of the Republicans
are in single digits, including Victor Marx. And so when
when he comes out and he uses me or tries
to leverage some kind of conversation and twist it and turn.
Speaker 2 (21:23):
It that that that's.
Speaker 3 (21:25):
First, I don't think a friend should do that, and
so I really question I don't I don't I think
he was using my friendship.
Speaker 2 (21:31):
I don't think we were really ever friends.
Speaker 3 (21:33):
All of that has really bothered me, and so that's
why I came out and I'm saying this is this
is not okay. Yeah, run your governor campaign. But don't
try to don't try to leverage me by by changing
a conversation saying I say something I didn't say.
Speaker 1 (21:46):
Representative Scott Bottoms, I have to cut you off there.
I'm running late. Right now, we'll be talking again. It's
a long race. You said a lot of stuff that
I really like. So thank you for your time today.
And if people want to get more information about Representative
Scott Botoms up a link to his website Scottbottoms dot org,
correct dot org dot com, Scott Bottoms dot com, check
(22:07):
him out. Scott, thank you for your time today.
Speaker 2 (22:09):
Yeah, thank you, Mandy,
As much as I hate it, the governor's race has begun.
And I'm not mad that there's a governor's race. I'm
just saying it feels like we're always in political season.
But next year we will have the opportunity to make
a change in the governor's office. And I don't just
mean the human being, I mean policy wise. It could
be massive. And joining me now is one of those candidates.
(00:20):
Representative Scott Bottoms has thrown his hat in the ring.
He will be participating in the debate that Ryan Schuley
and I from our assist our brother Station K Howe
will be moderating January tenth and Greeley if you want
to find out more information about that. And he joins
me now to not only talk about his run for governor,
but also a little deverbal kerfuffle that we're having right
(00:42):
now between he and another candidate. First of all, Representative Bottoms,
welcome to the show.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
Yeah, thank you for having me. Always enjoy it.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
So let's talk about why you decided to put your
face in the wood chipper for this election cycle and
decide to run for governor. What is your motivation?
Speaker 3 (01:02):
Well, I've never heard that description but it's not a
bad one. This is so I've been a representative now
for two terms, but I've been a pastor all my
life since i was twenty years old. I'm fifty five now,
and that's that's who I am. That's what I've done.
But a few years back, I realized, through a bunch
of different things and really praying about it, that I
(01:23):
needed to be running for representative. And that was a
crazy journey. And now I really felt the same thing
we declared about this time last year. Actually, I've been
in the race for a year. I'm the first person
to have declared, and I just really feel like I
have to do this. This is a spiritual journey for
me too. But this is also very much we have
(01:46):
got to reclaim Colorado. We're losing our state and everybody's
just sitting around watching it happen. And I'm not one
of those kind of people.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
So I want to start. I'm glad you brought up
the fact that you're a pastor and that you're a
man of faith, and this is a spiritual journey because
I I'm going to be perfectly frank. One of my
biggest concerns about a general election for you is how
secular Colorado is. We have a higher percentage of atheists
and agnostics, we have many people, we have a slight
(02:14):
majority that identify as Christian. I looked up all this
data today, But we have a lot of people who
are like, yeah, there's probably a God, but it's not
centered in my life. Do you feel like that is
going to be a drawback and how do you reach
out to those people who may not only be non religious,
but maybe a little hostile towards religion.
Speaker 3 (02:36):
Well, being a pastor for thirty five years, I've experienced
hostile toward Christianity. I've experienced that over and over and
I've had many conversations with so many different atheists, agnostics,
humanist people that just really are you know, they just
don't care different religions. I travel all over the world,
(02:59):
I'm preaching, teach and those.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
Kind of things. So this is not new to me.
Speaker 3 (03:02):
But the interesting thing is about being a pastor is
I actually understand them better than most people do because
I've been having the conversations for so many years and
I know, and here's a big thing, is I respect
people's rights and I respect people's individual ability for free
speech and free expression and spiritual expression. I do believe
(03:25):
that Jesus is God. I do believe that, and I
do believe that the Bible is the guidebook for all
of humanity. But I can't force that upon anyone. I've
never forced that. If I could do that, my church
would be in Colorado would be five million people.
Speaker 2 (03:42):
I can't even do. I can't even get people in
my church, for the.
Speaker 3 (03:44):
Most part, to do some of the things that I
think the Bible is telling.
Speaker 2 (03:47):
Us, which is called job security as a pastor.
Speaker 3 (03:50):
But when you're so broken and society is so sinful,
it is job description. I mean, is job security. But
here's the thing with that is my personality, my lifestyle.
Who I am is truly a Christian. It's not just
something I do on the side. And so I am
(04:11):
very much a moral person. I'm a person I don't lie,
I don't cheat, I don't steal. I don't even drink.
A lot of pastors drink. I'm not picking on that,
but I don't drink. I don't do anything like that.
And so when I have this conversation with people, I'm like,
what in that area makes me a bad guy? They
think I'm going to somehow force I'm going to somehow
force people to go to church or so. I don't
(04:34):
know what people are thinking that I'm going to accomplish.
I do pray for the state. I pray for the
state for years. That's going to continue. I pray in
the capital that will continue. I don't force anybody to
pray any of that stuff. So it's kind of a
strange question that I get, but I get it all
the time.
Speaker 1 (04:50):
Well, I think part of it is, and this is
just why this is just me spitballing here. I think
part of it is when people do have a bad experience,
maybe they had a church that didn't live up to
the standards that they were putting forward. Maybe they have
a negative view of religion. They're just putting that on you, right,
because then you become the representative of whatever it is
that they don't like. And that's the part that I
(05:12):
that concerns me. Not because I think everything you just
said was really smart from a pastor's point of view,
but I'm concerned that it's going to be more challenging
to say, Look, I am a Christian, I believe in God.
I'm assuming that you pray for guidance you know, as
most Christians that I know do. But there are people
who are not Christians who say, oh, he wants a theocracy,
(05:33):
which is absurd. But I do think that criticism is
going to be there.
Speaker 3 (05:39):
Oh yeah, it's already there, and I don't shy away
from it. I'll answer those questions. It doesn't bother me.
Everybody's got a thing that somebody's going to try to
pick on or do whatever, and this is going to
be the thing they pick on with me. That the
other side of this is people don't realize that I
have years and years and years worth of preaching online.
(05:59):
They can and go find what I actually believe. Most
of the other candidates you're not going to get that.
You have to take them at their word at a
and I'm not saying just Republican, saying both sides of
the aisle.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
You have to take them at their word at a
town hall or.
Speaker 3 (06:12):
Something like that, that this is who they are and
this is what they believe. I have three years of
a voting record in the House, I have speeches on
the floor.
Speaker 2 (06:20):
All this is on my website.
Speaker 3 (06:22):
I have sermons online that you can go back and
listen to for years. I'm consistently been out in the
public arena, and it doesn't scare me, it doesn't bother me.
I don't have the ability to turn Colorado into theocracy.
Speaker 2 (06:37):
It's just not possible.
Speaker 3 (06:39):
But I will be a very good, solid, consistently moral
looking out for people. A lot of my job as
a pastor is the widows and the orphans. That's scriptural,
taking care of people, taking care of homeless. I've done
that for years and years and years. I sat on
the board of a group that after the girls were
rescued out of human trafficking, we rehabilitated them for two years.
(07:01):
I've been working in these arenas forever, feeding people, homeless shelters.
I go all over the world, helping people get water
and food and buildings and stuff, and so I if that,
if somebody sees that as a negative, there's nothing I
can do about that.
Speaker 2 (07:17):
But I'm actually a good guy.
Speaker 1 (07:21):
That's a great response, that's a solid response. Let's talk
about the issues facing Colorado right now. What do you
think is the number one issue facing the state.
Speaker 3 (07:29):
I think the number one issue, and this, by the way,
is backed up by statistics, but it's also my personal
number one issue is mental illness. We have a huge
problem across the state and all kinds of things. And
here's part of the problem is where we're taking money away.
There was just one bill last session this last spring
took one hundred and eighty million away from mental health.
Speaker 2 (07:51):
Right.
Speaker 3 (07:52):
I think there's some intentionality there that does seem a
little devious and I'm not okay with it, But we
don't want to have good stuff of mental health. We
don't want to put money in there. I think there's
only one institution in the state of Colorado that is
a penal type of mental health institution, and we're shutting
all those down because why a couple of things we
(08:13):
don't want to actually deal with mental illness. I've dealt
with that for thirty five years. That's like the biggest
thing that a pastor does is spiritual slash mental illness.
And we're shutting these things down in Colorado. I think
part of the reason is the same thing with the
bill that people have been talking about HB twenty four,
(08:35):
ten thirty four, where we're now letting criminals out much
more consistently because we're saying they're incompetent to serve trial.
Speaker 2 (08:44):
I voted against that.
Speaker 3 (08:45):
I was one of the few people that voted against
that because that's a mental illness issue as well as
a prosecutorial issue.
Speaker 1 (08:54):
I do think the tide has shifted a little bit
on that conversation because of the horrible, high profile crimes
that have been committed by people who have been let
out after being deemed and competent. Are you hopeful now?
Are you you'll be back in the House this legislative session.
Are you hopeful that meaningful change will happen there and
that you may be able to lead the reversal of
(09:15):
some of that funding that has been shortchanged outa mental
because for me, I agree with you. I think it's
an issue that doesn't just affect the people that are
suffering from it. We obviously to see the quality of
life in Denver, in Colorado Springs that has been impacted
by this stuff. Do you have or are you working
on a bill to address some of the stuff.
Speaker 2 (09:38):
Yeah, I've tried to do this. When it was voted in.
Speaker 3 (09:42):
We had a lot of discussions in our caucus about this,
and I was telling the cocus, look, we've got to
vote no on this. When it first came through the House,
there was only two no votes, me and one other representative.
It went to the Senate. Luckily, the Senate amended it,
which means it can come back to the House. If
the Senate went amended it, it would have passed with
two no votes me and Representative de Graf. When it
(10:04):
came back to the House with amendments, then twelve Republicans
got on end, which I was very thankful for, but
it wasn't enough. The bill passes. We've already got plans
to do some things with that. But interestingly, some Republicans
and some Democrats got together. I did a press conference
in front of the Supreme Court a few months ago
about this bill. I've done three press conferences about it,
(10:27):
two of them in front of the Supreme Court.
Speaker 2 (10:29):
And interestingly, the people that the.
Speaker 3 (10:32):
Democrats and the Republicans that got together and had a
meeting about this did not include me in the meeting.
I didn't even know what was happening. They kept me
out of it, and the first round I was one
of two people that voted no. I knew I could
see down the road, I know what this is going
to do, and I was telling people this is going
to put people at risk, and they're going to be
more criminals attacking people in Colorado because of legislation, and
(10:56):
they've left me out of the meetings.
Speaker 2 (10:58):
I don't know what to do with that.
Speaker 1 (11:00):
Well, sounds like they didn't want you there, going hey, guys,
you should have listened to me the whole time. I
knew what I was talking about. No, I'm just kidding secondary.
Speaker 2 (11:07):
I told you so kind of guy. But I got
to say I told him so.
Speaker 1 (11:11):
Yeah. So the second thing I want to talk about
with you specifically is affordability in the state.
Speaker 3 (11:16):
It is.
Speaker 1 (11:17):
You know, we've got Excel shutting down power lines right now,
and in my mind, there are a lot of people
who have tried to politicize that and make it into
some kind of political issue, when in reality, it's a
liability issue for Excel. But it does make me ask
questions about when we are one hundred percent renewables, which
is the green dream in Colorado, we are going to
(11:38):
have reliable power, right, I mean, it just stands to
reason that renewables are not reliable, so we're not going
to have reliable energy. If you become governor, what would
your energy policy be and what would that look like
in terms of trying to bring down the cost of
everything in Colorado.
Speaker 2 (11:54):
Right, So that's you know, that's a two hour conversation. Though.
Let me throw some quick things out.
Speaker 3 (12:00):
So first, the shutdown of the electricity, I don't think
that is actually I don't think that was nefarious. I
think there was some legitimate reasons why they were doing that.
But with that being said, this is something that's important.
Two years ago, we voted in a law that said
that there are going to be entire neighborhoods in the
state of Colorado that will be electric only they will
(12:23):
not supply gas to them. Gas will not be available
because the leftist in the House and the Senate hate gas.
Speaker 2 (12:30):
Okay, the hate oil, they hate coal, the hate gas,
and they.
Speaker 3 (12:32):
Have stood up at the well in the Capitol and said,
we will shut down oil, we will shut down coal. Well,
the problem is is solar and wind will never accomplish
what needs to be accomplished with the grid. And now
you add AI to this, that is going to be
putting the demands. I read an article a few weeks
ago that said, for our federal government to accomplish the
(12:54):
demands that AI is going to put on electric grids
across the United States that we're going to have to
spend five one hundred billion dollars a year to be
able to accomplish that. Well, in Colorado, we think we
can do this through wind power. Come on, this is
this is craziness. That is it is wind power and
solar are not even making positive one penny positive net
(13:16):
games yet and so the government's subsidizing at all. The
answer to that long term is small nuclear reactors. We
need this in Colorado. This is going to be part
of my energy plan. But we also need to drill
for oil again. We also need to open up some
of these coal mines that have been shutting down, and
we've got to go back to coal providing electricity and
also natural gas. I've been talking a lot with the
(13:38):
energy industry and some of the natural gas distributors.
Speaker 2 (13:41):
We're getting another line.
Speaker 3 (13:43):
We have one gas line in Colorado sports all of Colorado.
Speaker 2 (13:46):
That's not okay.
Speaker 3 (13:47):
We need more, and there's another one coming through eastern
Colorado that just got approved by the federal government.
Speaker 2 (13:53):
So so some of this we're going to be able
to do.
Speaker 3 (13:56):
But my desire is long term for Colorado. We need
data centers in Colorado. We need to put them on
mountain streams and rivers so that the natural cold of
the mountains and the water will help cool these things.
But we have to have small nuclear reactors to support them.
And I believe that small nuclear reactors need to be
voted on at the local level, not by the federal level.
(14:18):
Right now, Senator to Lee out of Utah, which I
like the guy. I think he's a good guy. But
he's trying to just plant these in the national forest
and then just kind of mandate it. And I think
I think local control is always the thing when it
comes to affordability and housing and things like that. We've
got to stop the taxes, and we've got to stop
the regulation. We're the sixth most regulated state in the
(14:40):
United States. We've lost forty percent of our businesses under
the Police administration in the last five years. Okay, these
are direct decisions the governor Police is making, and that
the House and the Senator making. We've gone after private
property ownership with about twenty bills in the last three years.
We're going we are raising taxes. The big beautiful bill
(15:01):
that Trump came up with, this horrible, bad bill actually
said that people that get tips and overtime should not
be taxed for those and we went into special session
so that Governor Poulos could could could tell the House
to make sure that we're taxing people with their tips.
Speaker 2 (15:18):
Why are we doing this.
Speaker 3 (15:19):
This is attacking people, This isn't helping people, And we
just got to take the regulations off. We just now,
after an eight year hiatus, we just now last year
started building townhomes and condos again. Yeah, because they had
we had regulated so much and put so much legislation
to make it easy to sue all of these people
that they just stopped building. We went eight years without
(15:41):
building townhomes and condos, and that is a that's a
transitionary housing and concept.
Speaker 2 (15:50):
That's how people actually get affordable housing. But we just
we just took.
Speaker 3 (15:53):
It off the table and said it's not a there's
I mean, I could go on and on. We are
passing too many laws that are attacking the consumers in Colorado,
and I'm going to change that starting day one.
Speaker 1 (16:03):
All right, so let me finish this interview. We got
about four minutes left. Representative Scott Bottoms is my guest.
By the way, I put a link to his website
if you want to learn he's actually got policy positions
on his website, which I'm excited to see. And honestly,
you had me at small modular reactors. I talk about
them a lot, and I think they're the future of
energy period. But let's talk about the gossipy reason why
(16:24):
unfortunately you're here. And that is part of an interview
that was between my colleague grind Shuling from KJOWR, our
next door neighbor, and Victor Marx yesterday and I grabbed
this one little snippet. Can I buy audio a rod?
Speaker 2 (16:39):
Please?
Speaker 4 (16:39):
Here's why I'm running. No one else can win in
the general but me. If Senator Kurtmeyer could, if she
really could, I wouldn't be running. If Scott Bottoms who
I know, and I've called her friend, I text someone
his father passed away. I wrote on his Facebook page
(17:04):
it was his anniversary thirty five years with him and
his bride yesterday.
Speaker 2 (17:10):
God can't win the general.
Speaker 4 (17:12):
He called me the night before I announced and he said, Victor,
don't announce.
Speaker 2 (17:18):
I said why why?
Speaker 4 (17:21):
And I'm talking to him as a friend who I've
spoken at his church, Ryan and my life's not been
anything but normal, So I'm like, what's going on?
Speaker 2 (17:35):
What do I need to know, Scott?
Speaker 4 (17:37):
And he said, I've been trying to get a hold
of you because you know, I'm running for governor and
I want you to be my lieutenant governor.
Speaker 2 (17:48):
Ask him direct, So.
Speaker 1 (17:50):
I'm asking you direct. Did you ask him to be
your lieutenant governor?
Speaker 3 (17:54):
No, Ryan asked me direct earlier today too, the same question,
played the same clip.
Speaker 2 (17:59):
But here's the thing.
Speaker 3 (18:01):
I never asked Victor to be my lieutenant governor, and
he knows it. I called him and it wasn't the
night before, is the day of, about two hours before,
three hours before.
Speaker 2 (18:10):
He declared, And I said, and I was trying to
get a hold.
Speaker 3 (18:13):
Of him for a long time because I needed his
help on some human trafficking stuff. And I think providentially,
now that we're seeing all of the the stuff that's
coming out about who he really is as a human
trafficking you know, savior guy or whatever, you know, when
the truth is coming out, it's I think it's providential
that he didn't help me because there's a lot of
bad stuff come out. So but no, I told him,
(18:35):
I said, Victor, I've been trying to reach you. I
need some help on this human trafficking stuff. And I said,
plus I wanted to talk to you about my campaign
and maybe even possibly being lieutenant governor. I said, but
now you have scuttled that whole thing. You've you've taken
that off the table. I said, because you don't know
what you're doing. And I said, there are three people
that are using you. They're propping you up and using
(18:57):
you so that they can gain some of the notoriety
or money because their nonprofit or their political whatever is broke,
and including our state party. That's one of the people
as our state party chair. And I said, these people
are using you and you don't even know this. And
then he calls me, leaves a message a week or
(19:18):
two ago saying that he wanted me to give money
from my governor campaign to the state party because the
state party's broke and they need seventy thousand dollars to
have a state assembly.
Speaker 2 (19:31):
It is by law they have to have a state Assembly.
Speaker 3 (19:34):
So I'm actually looking at some stuff, maybe some legal
action or something, because they're not letting us know anything.
But Victor is the one they're sending out to try
to raise money. Well, he's trying to use my friendship,
which I did think we were friends, but he lied
about me and he allied to me, and I'm not
okay with that. And then you use my church also,
and now we're finding out a bunch of stuff about
the human trafficking where it looks like he's conned my
(19:56):
church too, And so when you put all that stuff together,
this is really bothered me. I called him because we
were friends. I called him to try to help him
and to warn him. And I never I never said,
would you please be my lieutenant Governor. What I said was,
I had considered that a couple months ago when I
reached out to you. But there's no way that's gonna
(20:16):
happen now. It can't because you are jumping into something
that is gonna hurt you. It's gonna hurt the human traffickings,
rescuing arena, all this kind of stuff. And now he
did say toward the end of the conversation, because I
told him, Victor, you're never gonna win, Governor, it's not possible.
And he did say, well, you can't win. But here's
the thing, because he said this on the radio yesterday, right,
(20:39):
But here's the thing. I'm the front runner in every
single category in any kind of social media, any kind
of anything. My team is constantly doing analytics. I've had
Democrats reach out to me because I am the front runner,
and not just the front runner, but I am so
far ahead of all the Republicans it's not even same race.
I'm more than twice as far ahead as all of
the rest of the Republicans put together. The second place
(21:01):
person behind me is Barb Kirkmer, Senator Kirkmer, and she's
the only one in double digits, and it's barely into
double digits. I'm in the seventy five to eighty percentile.
She's in double digits. All the rest of the Republicans
are in single digits, including Victor Marx. And so when
when he comes out and he uses me or tries
to leverage some kind of conversation and twist it and turn.
Speaker 2 (21:23):
It that that that's.
Speaker 3 (21:25):
First, I don't think a friend should do that, and
so I really question I don't I don't I think
he was using my friendship.
Speaker 2 (21:31):
I don't think we were really ever friends.
Speaker 3 (21:33):
All of that has really bothered me, and so that's
why I came out and I'm saying this is this
is not okay. Yeah, run your governor campaign. But don't
try to don't try to leverage me by by changing
a conversation saying I say something I didn't say.
Speaker 1 (21:46):
Representative Scott Bottoms, I have to cut you off there.
I'm running late. Right now, we'll be talking again. It's
a long race. You said a lot of stuff that
I really like. So thank you for your time today.
And if people want to get more information about Representative
Scott Botoms up a link to his website Scottbottoms dot org,
correct dot org dot com, Scott Bottoms dot com, check
(22:07):
him out. Scott, thank you for your time today.
Speaker 2 (22:09):
Yeah, thank you, Mandy,
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