Left Face
Join Adam Gillard and Dick Wilkinson while they talk politics and community engagement in Pikes Peak region.
Left Face
Harnessing Civic Engagement: Liz Rosenbaum's Journey from Teaching to Political Activism
Liz Rosenbaum, a dynamic force in political activism and a candidate for House District 21, joins us to share her journey from history teacher to community organizer. Through her insightful narratives, Liz illustrates how she has harnessed the power of civic engagement to connect individuals and confront injustices. In this episode, we explore the often-overlooked challenges veterans face when entering political discussions and the critical role mentorship plays in political activism. By sharing personal stories and experiences, Liz and co-host Dick Wilkinson demonstrate how proactive involvement and community building can transform political landscapes.
As we navigate the intricacies of local governance, Liz guides us through the impact that elected officials have on education and daily life, particularly in Colorado's House District 21. Her personal reflections on the aftermath of the 2009 budget crisis reveal the struggles faced by local governments in resource allocation, especially in education. Liz's transition from teaching to politics, spurred by experiences in civic leadership, underscores the importance of understanding governmental influence on local communities and the need for accountability and transparency in public office.
The conversation also spotlights the hurdles and victories of running against an absent incumbent, with Liz emphasizing the significance of being present and accountable to constituents. Her grassroots efforts focus on modernizing infrastructure, advocating for fair healthcare policies, and addressing environmental issues like PFAS contamination. Through compelling anecdotes, Liz shares her commitment to introducing legislation that protects rural populations from unfair billing practices and highlights the need for inclusive healthcare policies. The episode concludes with a strong call for community engagement and the importance of grassroots activism in effecting real change.
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Hello everyone and welcome to Left Face, the Pikes Peak Region Political Commentary Podcast with a veteran point of view. My name is Adam Gillard. Joining me is Dick Wilkinson. Hi, dick, how are you doing? Good morning, adam, doing great Today. Joining us here in our studio is Liz Rosenbaum. She's running for House District 21. I really appreciate you wearing the shirt for me, so I didn't have to remember that.
Speaker 2:Right, I didn't have to remember that.
Speaker 1:I can just look at it I really appreciate the labels. Thanks, liz, for joining us. Appreciate you.
Speaker 2:Thank you for having me and I look forward to our discussion.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know, I've known you for man close to a year now and I got to say like you're one of like the inspirational people that I've met around in this community and you've been doing it for a while now, you know, not sitting in an elected position or anything like that, so you've been a real inspiration to me and my wife, you know, trying to get involved in the community.
Speaker 3:So I just wanted to get that out front first.
Speaker 1:I'm really happy to have you here today, but kind of go through, walk us through you. You know kind of who you are, what drives you to serve, you know kind of where you've been and you know, just tell us about yourself right now, absolutely, I think.
Speaker 2:At heart I'm an organizer and quite a few of my friends call me a disruptor. So if there is an injustice somewhere, people tend to reach out to me, ask me my advice. Who do I know? Where can they start? You know solving their problems. When I meet somebody, I appreciate your kind words, adam, so I try to find out what people are passionate about and I like to ask you know, what do you need to be successful? And usually it's just connections and meeting with other like minded people to solve a problem. Either you know in their immediate family, you know it could be a simple resource, it could be housing or we need a law or a grant to solve a problem and so you know that's, and I like to plug and play.
Speaker 2:So what are you interested in? You're interested in veteran things? Great, let me invite you to a meetup so you can talk to some more veteran friends that are like minded like you, and off you go. You just have a bigger team, off you go. Yeah, you just have a bigger team.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it's such a wild thought process for people coming out of the military to be around like-minded people on like the left side of the spectrum, because I think it's changing. I think there's it's kind of you know, it's not as crazy right as it once was. There are some still out there, but I think overall it's kind of changing, but it's still not really something that's talked about a lot.
Speaker 2:Because overall it's kind of changing, but it's still not really uh something that's talked about a lot, because you're trained not to talk about it, right? Don't talk about religion and politics and a couple other things where really you need to yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:So being able to like reach out to you know different places and you know the party and figure out where these outreach communities are is pretty good. Um, how dick. How did you get involved with politics once you left the military?
Speaker 3:Uh well, I had uh decided, right you know, before I retired, that I wanted to run for office. And I told my boss, who was a civilian he was a retired army guy and I he said what do you want to do when you retire? Cause I was doing sort of the exit interview with him- yeah, and I said I'm going to run for office and he said what?
Speaker 3:what exactly does that mean? So I told him what kind of my ambitions were and he said I know somebody you need to talk to and it was the honorary commander programs that bases have, where it's an exchange program, if you will, between the community and the military base. They usually have like a dozen people a year that they pick and say these people are going to interact with the military community and connect us together. Right, one of those gentlemen is somebody who was a career politician, if you will, in new mexico, and so he became my political mentor and helped me kind of decide what my path could be in new mexico, that's cool.
Speaker 1:So you said you actually got a mentor through the military channel. Yeah, I mean, I had to speak up about it.
Speaker 3:It was an unofficial program, but you know once I said this is what my goals are.
Speaker 1:The resources appeared. If you will. I always tell people that, like once you raise your hand and say that you want to be a leader, that puts the spotlight on you, people can throw those resources at you then. So spotlight on you, people can throw those resources at you then. Um so, liz, you've been doing this for a while, trying, you know, trying to get involved. You ran for office a few times. How did you get involved with running for office and being involved in the political arena?
Speaker 2:you know, when my kids were little I thought that you know I was doing a great job voting and I was a high school history teacher for a while. And when I'm doing outreach at the doors and someone you know is like I don't really know what my districts are, who my elected people are. That is fine, because we all live busy lives, Right. So I I do like a quick little discussion that I kind of term you know civil civics. Quick little discussion that I kind of term you know civil civics. Can I tell you the quick and easy about where you live, with what your house is. After I hear their concerns and then I immediately point them in the direction of what level of government is in charge of a certain situation and it pretty much comes down to your state elected people, your school board and your county commissioner. And those are the three positions that really have the biggest impact in what is happening in your life.
Speaker 2:In Colorado, because we don't all live in a city, the majority of house, district 21, is unincorporated. We have the city of Fountain that is fairly small in size. About 30,000 people live there. The rest of the area around it is unincorporated county commissioners, so for like three quarters of us. You know we really need to be in touch with our local elected officials, and school boards are important because they have a final decision on boundaries of how property is labeled in certain ways and I know I'm not explaining that correctly, but it's a little bit obviously more complicated.
Speaker 2:Yeah, thank you so that's why school boards are really targeted by large land developers okay, so breaking it all down that way.
Speaker 2:Um, it was after, you know, I got done with teaching and that was in 2009, with a huge budget crisis and, like, why did this happen to me? I went to college, I really wanted to be a history teacher and and then, you know, we didn't lose our home, but the majority of my neighbors did. And how did this affect education? And you know, banks got a huge bailout. They didn't have to pay property taxes and that's how our schools are funded and we have literally never recovered from that. And then the state of Colorado is supposed to backfill those issues, and then our local governments then make giant land deals with corporations to get their property tax tax-free, and then our school districts aren't funded again. And then you're supposed to make it up at the state capitol, and then there are special sessions with property taxes. We are stuck in this loop of funding our future off of the back of a kindergartner who just is hungry at school and wants fed. I try to break it down to the most affected person in our neighborhood are our very, very young children, who aren't having a say, but they're getting the biggest impact of our adult decisions and it's not setting them up for future success.
Speaker 2:You know, and the first, what got me into politics? I had a restaurant after I lost my teaching job because I couldn't get hired anywhere. You know the school district I was in. They laid off 75% of their brand new teachers that they had hired three years before. So I started a restaurant Her Story Cafe named food after famous women did that for eight years. It was a great time. Um, I was in Southeast Colorado Springs and it was Mayor Bach at the time came into my restaurant. He said I'm glad you're here as a small business. Here's my vision for this part of town. So I was watching how a place where I had my business, where I couldn't vote, had people coming to me saying this is how I would like you to be successful, and then watching the infighting of other elected officials and it just not happening.
Speaker 2:And then Tony Exum came in one day with his friends, his campaign manager, and they wanted a place to have a small meet and greet with their voters. And I was like I'd never really besides the mayor, never really met someone at the state level. Next thing I know I'm at the Democrat office doing volunteer work for him and somebody who is running for county commissioner and I was like what does a county commissioner do? And then that was, I believe, in 2012. And someone here at the office I believe in 2012. And someone here at another office because we move locations said how are you as a registered voter? I was like you know I'm an unaffiliated voter, because you know I've been a history teacher and I really analyze all this stuff to the best of my ability. And they're like well, you're here all the time, do you want to be a Democrat? And I was like you know here all the time, do you want to be a democrat? And I was like you know what I really do. So I updated my voter registration.
Speaker 2:Four years later, or three years later, I decided to run for county commissioner because we haven't had a democrat since 1972. And why? Why have we not had it up? That went down a different rabbit hole. For me, I'm all about the why. As a researcher, as a historian, historian, anthropologist you name it Like why does this keep happening?
Speaker 1:Legislation yeah.
Speaker 2:And at the time El Paso County had the majority of Republicans and the law was set that sitting county commissioners can draw their own districts. Okay, and I talked about that and what a county commissioner does so much that I really didn't have time to say what I would do as county commissioner. Yeah, because literally nobody knew what a county commissioner did?
Speaker 3:You're just trying to expose the problem.
Speaker 2:And this is why, then Representative V the law did that legislation not too long ago. So when we in el paso county were up for redistricting, county commissioner three vanderwerf threw in an amendment at the last time that said, well, if they can afford it. So guess what happened in El Paso County Sitting county commissioner said we can't afford to pay an independent commission to redraw our district. So they did it themselves. So I went to the meetings.
Speaker 3:So it was sort of a loophole. Yes, so I went to the meetings.
Speaker 2:And at one of the meetings at the county commissioner building there's the mayor of Fountain texting Commissioner Williams and I'm watching their facial. I was like this is so wrong. So I went right up to the attorney for the county commissioners and I was like they're texting right before a vote on a district map and I'm so furious that humans are like that here.
Speaker 2:Right, how are you in a position of trust and okay with that. Two people, one is a mayor, one is a county commissioner, not in the same district, but doing that in a public meeting and how do they justify it Like their?
Speaker 1:only justification is they're scared that they're going to lose their seats, you know. So like what is their thought process? We're kind of going down a rabbit hole here, but look at.
Speaker 2:County Commissioner 5. What just happened? Cammie Bremer is taking a job with United Way, so in January they are appointing a new county commissioner, right before the election, and District 5 is one that Democrats can win. So this is a repeat of what they did with Mark Waller, where the other person stepped down, took a job for a lot of money. Remember Colorado Springs Forward, yeah. So then Mark Waller was appointed. The position I, yeah. Remember Colorado Springs Forward, yeah.
Speaker 1:So then Mark Waller was appointed. The position, I don't remember Colorado Springs Forward, what was that?
Speaker 2:It was a very Republican nonprofit that would fund money to candidates funded by developers and some other things. I don't know if that's. You know I've been pretty much focused on water coalition stuff and getting us clean and safe drinking water, but it's just a plug and play of how important your local elections are to watch what's happening. As they couldn't gerrymander district five because it was an agreed upon uh parameter of 30 precincts, have to stay together because it is a community. Like how are we a Democrat state Senate senator and a Democrat House districts there, but a Republican county commissioner? Because they kept gerrymandering everything? So that's the kind of level that I look at. Is the why? Why are we?
Speaker 3:like this right.
Speaker 2:So in my area where we've had five water poisonings why? Why does this keep happening to us? Right? So in 20, I was able to organize my community Like it's just not me doing something. It was like I'm a good organizer, right? So when all of this was announced, our county commissioner at the time was Heise. The only thing he said at the microphone was the only thing I can do as a county commissioner is keep an eye on your property values. I'm sorry, our water is poison. The last thing I'm thinking about right now is property value.
Speaker 1:yeah, well, you can even simply tie that back into bike. Who wants to buy a house with poisoned water? Yeah, you want to watch property values?
Speaker 3:right, yeah, the epa show up and start roping stuff off around your curb appeal goes down real quick when you got yellow tape wrapped around the whole right.
Speaker 2:So the municipalities got filtered right away because the DOD, you know, before the DOD was like here's our date, and then there's some wonky stuff there. That was not equitable justice by any means. But the major water districts got water from other sources, did it all right away. I moved to Midway Wigwam Water District in 2018. We're on year eight and our water is still not filtered. And Senator Tony Axum he was a state rep then you know he championed the bill. He's not even our district.
Speaker 2:He championed that bill and then got our other people signed on with it, and so it was a very bipartisan bill and passed with 100% of the vote, which is very rare, and that funding from the 2019 bill is giving us a grant to filter our water in Midway and that'll start in January.
Speaker 2:But this is since 2016, of me working with CDPHE, state Health Department, doing their meetings that they have online now the Water Quality Control Commission and saying, yeah, you have a grant, but what do you have in place to help implement that grant? So when my water district so as all of this was happening, you know, the CDPHE reaches out to me and said, hey, there's a grant available. Cool, call my water district manager. Yes, he's aware, you know, so I get him to come to our HOA meeting so people can meet him. He's a really cool guy. Like he has our best interest at heart. None of this is the fault of water district managers, right? And so he called me one day and he said this grant is impossible to fill out. I was like, okay, give me a minute.
Speaker 2:So, I called the state health department. I was like hey, um, you need to have somebody come down here and fill this out. I have not been personally working on this since 2016 to get ignored where I live. This has to happen and I need you to help him fill this out. Literally the next day, someone came down from Denver, sat next to him and they filled out the grant and we got it.
Speaker 3:We got two different grants.
Speaker 2:Yes, so what I'm applying for what I do in my community when I'm elected for house district 21 is that's great. We have grants. I want them implemented into my area, which is not happening with the current incumbents who are running for office. Like we don't have a charging station in a public charging station in house district 21. Not a single one.
Speaker 3:So as I'm out canvassing doors.
Speaker 2:you know people have their garage door. I'm like hey, where do you charge your car? They're like at home and it's a slow charge.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:We're not bringing grants to our community to improve it. We're stuck in the eighties.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Well, we talked about this a little bit before we started recording here, where you know all the stuff that you just talked about. This is all like on your own time, All my own time. You have your own personal gig and you've had these big victories for the community, but your opponent just isn't seen out in public. She doesn't do forums or town halls. Town halls, uh, you know, during the sessions, or anything like that. Um, I don't know how she's getting her feedback from her constituents, you know?
Speaker 1:at that point, I don't know either um so you know, when we, when we're working with somebody like that, that that's not seen and you know not, obviously not heard, because she's not being, you know, talking to the media at all. Like, how do you draw out Address?
Speaker 3:Address yeah.
Speaker 1:This lack of leadership and this lack of presence in our community, because, I mean, you've got the credentials, you've got results Right. You know we ran into a situation where the League of of women voters you know they put out all these candidate forums and if one candidate doesn't show up, the other person doesn't get to speak either. And uh, your opponent is one of the folks that and they've run against her before.
Speaker 2:This is so common for her she doesn't show up. Yeah, it's a. It's a combined because there's other opponents. You know in the area that they know that they'll get votes for having an r next to for her.
Speaker 1:She doesn't show up. Yeah, it's a combined because there's other opponents you know in the area that they know that they'll get votes for having an R next to their name.
Speaker 2:So they don't talk.
Speaker 1:How do we combat that? And like what can we do, you know, at a grassroots level, to you know, get the message out even more.
Speaker 2:So I love all of that. What I'm talking with people at the doors about, you know, I'm like, hey, what is important to you? And then I have just a small list to kind of get their thoughts rolling because the last thing you're ready for is like you open the door and there's like a history lesson right there in front of you. Okay, I got like a three-part quiz for you about civics are you aware?
Speaker 3:there's an agricultural watershed. They're standing there with a spoon. They're standing there with a spoon and an apron.
Speaker 2:I don't even know so it usually comes down to, you know with when you have small kids, is their education? It's classroom size and gosh. I mean I don't know how to explain it. I mean this is the fourth time I've run for office, the third time for this seat, and there are so many organizations that have said let's do a town hall.
Speaker 2:She does not show up yeah and when I think it was 2020, there was a libertarian who ran and he showed up with a milk carton with her face on it, and then she was later interviewed by um mary lou, make peace, you know, pikes Peak Women. Okay, you listen to that and she's like you know. I just never had any time. Our schedules didn't match and I was like it was left wide open to her for three months. Pick a day.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:And then we did it anyways without her. And if you're not getting out in front of people the ones on your team or not on your team you're not being held accountable for your votes, right, and you know. The point of our walk pieces is this is what we're going to do when you elect us, to the best of our, you know I can promise I'm going to work on things. I cannot promise that it's going to happen, because there are a hundred elected people, there are 65 state representatives and 35 state senators, and each bill has three times on each side, and then the governor can veto it, right?
Speaker 3:So there's a lot of things that are happening there.
Speaker 2:But I'm going to promise you I'm going to work on these things. My very first bill that I want to do is to make ambulances held accountable for their billing. They negotiated themselves out of no surprise billing. So when you're a rural person like me and you're dying and you need an ambulance to take you to the emergency room, it was billed out of network. Need an ambulance to take you to the emergency room, it was billed out of network. And senator exum did legislation. You know I was his campaign manager during that and you know I'm like talking. It was like.
Speaker 2:Young people in my area have medical debt that is none of their fault because we were poisoned. We were intentionally poisoned for profit and it was kept from us of how poisonous this was. Watch the movie Dark Waters a couple of times and you'll have a slight understanding of what is happening to people and we are easy to poison. I was in a meeting with the National Institute of Health and Sciences and I was, like you know, here's the some of the brightest of minds in the nation in this meeting that I had an opportunity to be on in Zoom and they said you're easy to poison because you're military, you're young, there's not enough health insurance and you don't have a hospital or doctor's offices. So I looked at that in 2017 going. You know this is a year in going.
Speaker 2:Well, shit, I can't. I don't know if I could solve any of this personally and I had a friend who was a health insurance broker and she's like you could do that. Actually, I recommend you do that because it frees you up to do all this stuff that you're passionate about and helping your community. So I studied really hard, I took the test and passed the first time, and I'm going into like another year of it. So I work on other legislation that improves access to health insurance. So that's my small little part that I can do with that. But when we're setting up legislation that doesn't help working families, I am always so angry. So on our sixth PFAS bill the incumbent here I went into her office at the state capitol and she didn't even recognize me and I'm like this is literally right after elections and my friend who went with me goes. Well, if you would have done a town hall with her, you would have recognized her right okay and I was like that is so savage
Speaker 2:but so I negotiated this thing with her of. I think it would be really great if you co-sponsored this PFAS bill. I didn't realize that she would gut it. I didn't realize she would take money from the chemical manufacturers to win her next campaign.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:In a primary and everything else. I mean I was so Wow, I was too naive in that.
Speaker 1:Right, yeah, you're trying to bring this.
Speaker 3:I'll champion your bill Sure sure no problem.
Speaker 1:But I'm going to freaking gut it yeah.
Speaker 2:Watch for the vote in a few weeks and you'll see, we'll pass it, like these chemical companies personally came after me saying Democrats want to ban car seats in the state of Colorado and I'm like no, I want to ban your chemicals in car seats in the state of Colorado. So when I have grandchildren they're going to be safer than my kids were.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Because I didn't know what Scotchgard was doing to them.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Also, why am I championing the incumbent's safety, of her grandkids and great grandkids, like what is happening here, that you are siding with a chemical company where everything says it poisons us? Right, and I was just that's when I really decided to run again because I was so angry. I was like I can't believe that you're working on legislation that then benefits a trillion dollar industry. So we had to come back and fix bill number seven. I didn't work on that one as much, I just mostly kept track of it because I was busy doing the reproductive rights. So vote yes on 79, please. And so that one had to happen to fix number six.
Speaker 2:Uh, she wasn't allowed anywhere near it yeah good, like we're not even gonna let you read this I literally don't care how you vote on this, this is happening, happening. Thank you, senator Lisa Cutter, it's cruel to me right. In my area there are schools that are exposed to PFAS, chemicals, and there aren't straight answers given if those little kids at that little elementary school that's very rural have clean and safe drinking water or not. Or how often is a filter changed? Or you know, shouldn't we care about little kids? I would think so, and the incumbent is a retired educator.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's sad where it'd be interesting to see where people take their different turns in life. And how do you make that decision to side with a chemical company over your own community? We talked a little bit about this last week because there's been some train derailments and things like that or no, the train car leaks. So we talked about it a little bit. Where these companies they're behind everything else, they're not like the tide up front, they're not the big company up front Right.
Speaker 1:But they're behind the scenes and so they get away with a lot of stuff, because people don't well one. They really don't realize how much stuff it's in, so they don't even know where to boycott or where to spend their money things like that and how dangerous it is. So that's been a huge focus on your life for the last eight years or so.
Speaker 2:It's a weird hobby. Yeah, it is. It's a strange one. We're not a nonprofit, we didn't do any of that. We're just a group of people that kind of keep track of the historical record of our work through a Facebook page and binders at my house. You know Parks and Rec, Leslie Knope over here.
Speaker 1:Yeah, right, yeah. So you know, when elected to be a state representative, what do you? What other things do you want to focus on? What other things do you want to do as a state representative for your area, for your constituents, right?
Speaker 2:right Always. I always want to look at the why, like why are? Why is this problem here? What if we could get together with a really good group of people and we don't even need legislation because y'all can work it out, right, right? That would be fantastic.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:And just kind of hold people accountable for decisions, not corporation hidden. We're just going to let this go because you're a business Right. So our PFAS bill number seven that we did this year, 2024, 70 million dollars were spent by lobbyists on all the bills. Was there three or four hundred Fifty million was spent by the chemical industry in one bill.
Speaker 3:Oh wow, a PFAS bill, wow, so you can tell me what is important, there's some protected interest there.
Speaker 2:Yes, and why Right? So what if this 50 million could have been spent on something else Right could have been spent on something else right. So I go to the national, international PFAS conferences and we have three really intense days of panel discussions and topics. And when we're there as just regular people versus a scientist, we always know who the chemical manufacturer, plant people are right, like the ones who are planted there, to just kind of observe. We can tell, we know who you are by your facial expressions.
Speaker 2:And elected officials, like it is an all hands on deck to solve this problem. So you wonder why PFAS has made such huge strides compared to other chemicals that have never done anything. It is because the organization that our Fountain Valley Clean Water Coalition is teamworking with. You know this gal. Her name is Dana. She got a grant to pay her to coordinate all of us. She got a grant to pay her to coordinate all of us, right? So some of us, like me, we're just a group area organizer. Some have turned it into a nonprofit or whatever. So we all get together and then every two years we get together again and then we have panel discussions. That's how we're solving this so quickly. We're having panel discussions, which is what I am so good at doing. Right, like, let's sit down and solve this problem, tell me your experiences. You come in and you present your site and as a community, we're going to solve this together.
Speaker 2:And we, if this $50 million was spent differently, like you know what? Here's a small community that doesn't have the grants available to pay for the filters to take care of their water. The chemical manufacturers are making the filters. That are millions of dollars for these small communities when they start doing that. You know they're choosing to do better when they're spending $50 million against legislation to continue to poison us. Some person needs to be held accountable for this deadly decision. And I look at who the elected officials are siding with a chemical manufacturer trying to get away with additional murder. Yeah, because if a regular person were to take this product and pour it into a neighbor's drinking water system, that's attempted murder. That is how wrong these chemicals are.
Speaker 1:So again back to your hopeful new career and state legislation. What things do you want to focus on? You know, outside of the pfas, how else can we give?
Speaker 2:back to our community, right? Um, there was a bill last year that I was really excited about and I'll pull it up here. Two bills House Bill 22-1289. So when you see HB, that's a House Bill. State representatives did it 22, that is the year dash. 1289. That's just the number of the order that it was assigned, right? So House Bill 22-1289 allows a special enrollment period for pregnant people, a special enrollment period in health insurance Into the state's health program or just an?
Speaker 2:ACA, affordable Care Act, real health insurance special enrollment period.
Speaker 2:So if you are just a family or an individual, your open enrollment period is January 1st, but you can start I can start on boarding my people November 1st, right, but then it starts, you know, january, January 1st and then there's a couple other extensions, right?
Speaker 2:So having a special enrollment period for a pregnant person is huge in our area because PFAS causes very fragile pregnancies. It causes spontaneous abortions which are miscarriages, and this is why we cannot ban any type of abortion in the state of Colorado and we have to remove government interference from it, which is the yes on 79. Because when you have chronic health conditions, it affects you showing up to work, advancing to another level in your career because you're sick and you're missing work right. When you're pregnant, it is going to be harder for you to stay pregnant, right? So we're talking about wanted pregnancies, planned or unplanned, right? She voted no on this because she doesn't like the term pregnant person, right? But the reason we say pregnant person is because we need to start changing our written language so it is more inclusive, because we cannot imply people, like our entire constitution.
Speaker 1:Okay, right, so we imply women there. Okay, but then that was a good point.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:I didn't even draw that Right. Pregnant persons versus pregnant women yeah, pregnant. And the culture war argument. There is only women get pregnant. Right.
Speaker 3:And so using the term pregnant person is Right, basically a cultural overreach Right.
Speaker 2:So this eliminates a corporation from banning healthcare to somebody because of how they identify who they are.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:It is a way to avoid playing semantics.
Speaker 1:Yeah, right, right.
Speaker 2:A pregnant person and then clearly you're a person who is pregnant, right? Right when we're talking about health care. Here in the state of Colorado the progressive elected officials have done a really good job of expanding opportunities to get health insurance and you know the result is people are getting healthier. They don't have to declare bankruptcy because of medical debt. They can get a car loan, an apartment, lease, redone Like. There's so many opportunities.
Speaker 1:The places up in Denver who have more, better education when it comes to like sex ed things like that more access to things. They've shown us results also.
Speaker 3:You know that progressive legislation has led to direct results less teen pregnancies, less abortions, things like that.
Speaker 1:Exactly yeah, it's the same concept where we have folks that show up and produce results and we have people that don't show up and produce checks for themselves.
Speaker 2:Right, and you know, the special enrollment period started this year and so it takes a little while, once you do a bill, for it to implement.
Speaker 1:So, even though she voted, no it's still passed because you know it went through the house and the Senate and the governor's like hey, that's great.
Speaker 3:Got a blue super majority, so the language culture that's not going to fly.
Speaker 2:And during COVID, when open enrollment was extended until August it did not bankrupt the industry.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:It ended up saving them money and the people that I acquired as clients. I've only lost a few because they went to a company that offered health insurance.
Speaker 1:They did not decide to be uninsured.
Speaker 2:And those are just straight up stats coming from a department of insurance and Colorado Connect for Health and the director in charge of Connect for Health. Another thing that I was really excited to give my opinion on is that most of us know when your kid turns 26, they get kicked off of your health insurance right.
Speaker 2:What 26 year old is all of a sudden going to understand how health insurance works in July and then has to pick a plan within 60 days or whatever. They lose their deductible, whatever. So now it is at the end of the year, so when open enrollment happens now, they're treated like everybody else. Now you get it. Because what if you get kicked off in November? And then you're at your deductible and you have to start over. Why are we setting our youth up for failure?
Speaker 1:Yeah, we seem to be doing that in a few areas, though, right.
Speaker 2:Doesn't really matter. No the health insurance company is like yeah, keep them on a couple more months, that's not a big deal, right, yeah?
Speaker 1:That's cool. Yeah, all right. Well, thanks for joining us today. Like I mentioned earlier, you're very inspirational to sit here and talk to. Your focus on are things that you've been doing for a long time when it comes to, you know, the education and the health insurance, and Water.
Speaker 1:Water obviously I mean you know the environment, really look forward to you know, doing everything we can to get you sitting up there and actually getting paid to. You know, push some of these things and actually be even more effective than what you already are and clearly be more effective than our current representation down there.
Speaker 2:So thank you for joining us today um the way people can help me win this seat like I said this is a third time I run for it and I wouldn't be doing it if I didn't have the community support. So if people would canvas with me, door knock with me. Honestly I I've hit more than 3,000 doors. I've had four people be grumpy Like don't let the opposing team's anger keep you from being successful in your community by getting to know your neighbors. Like you, just spend how much money on a house or an apartment. It is okay to talk politics with your neighbor.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Because talking politics about your with your neighbor is how are we going to get clean and safe drinking water? How are we going to get health insurance? How are we going to feed our kids at school? That's politics.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:You know those are the people that you need to pay attention to to get elected. It's what drew me in. It was someone came and they said that they cared about how I was doing with my business in their voting record matched that Right and this incumbent she's, so I took her. If you go to my website, I took her walk piece that.
Speaker 2:I acquired. Somebody gave me and I matched it up with her voting record. She says she's for behavioral health, mental health. She has a 20% rating from the professionals and we have Colorado Options Health Insurance that includes mental health care at no charge. I'm actually implementing this.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Right, Like you have to look at what someone is saying and match it up to really, what are you doing?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so she's not. She's not reaching that.
Speaker 2:Well, what's her?
Speaker 1:other priorities there.
Speaker 2:Uh, she says public safety, uh, but she doesn't vote to protect kids in schools from gun violence. You know, I just happened to be there at the Capitol the day that East high Denver East high school had a school shooting and the kids showed up. The Republicans left the buildings, they left, they weren't in their offices. And I'm talking with kids and parents because you know my kids had to go through school shooting exercises.
Speaker 2:You know why we don't as adults at a theater, because we're crazy. Could you imagine having to experience an active shooter drill? How many people in that theater have guns? And then, all of a sudden, like they decide that oh, there's a shooter. And then chaos erupts right Like why are we pushing our burden onto little kids at a school?
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's always tough for me when I hear my kids talking about it, and you know my soon-to-be 12-year-old she's starting to understand what those drills are, and she's starting to get scared, Right, but when they're little?
Speaker 2:when my kids were little, I had to go pick them up from school. This is very early on when you know these are being implemented. My kids thought their friends in the classroom next door were being killed with guns yeah, yeah you know and this is an adult problem, not a little kid problem and the discussions that need to be had are not happening. It's like two sides are yelling at each other. Kids are showing up and being ignored yeah, and then we have more school shootings.
Speaker 2:yeah, you know, and I'm a responsible gun owner, I own guns, I've done gun safety training, hunter safety training, all of this and I don't want another kid to have to go through an active shooter drill because adults can't get their stuff together and come up with a better solution. And kids are easy targets. Well, let's not make them an easy target. Who has the weapons? That shouldn't have them. And responsible gun owners have to make that decision. And responsible gun owners have to make that decision. Republicans in the 70s and 80s decided they were going to do safer hunting laws because a couple of people were accidentally getting killed while hunting. Republicans did that and they came up with some really great solutions that are preventing gun deaths. We can implement those same solutions to other responsible gun owners and bring down fatalities. Yeah, not all the way to zero, that is never going to happen, yeah.
Speaker 2:Right, but you can't travel from one point to another with you know any. You have to put it in a hard case, right?
Speaker 3:To transport from point A to point b let's do that and stop terrorizing communities.
Speaker 2:Like, yeah, just pause for a little bit and think about the person standing next to you. Like, yeah, you have the second degree, or sorry?
Speaker 1:your second amendment, right yeah?
Speaker 2:but at what point are you causing harm with that? Why are you choosing to do that in this location?
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Right Like are you really being a responsible gun owner right now with your decision? Yeah, and I like that.
Speaker 1:The parents are getting charged now too, you know when things aren't being safely stored and things like that. So that's you know. I think some of the narrative has been being changed so that you know the adults are being held more accountable than just you know as another victim of these things.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I think, that, that's good. I think we went a little over your time too.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, we're a little over right now.
Speaker 2:I'm a talker.
Speaker 1:Yeah, thanks again for joining us. Dick, thanks for joining us.
Speaker 3:Yeah, great discussion.
Speaker 2:Thanks for coming out today Absolutely Thank you guys as always.
Speaker 1:thank you for joining us here on Left Face. We are proudly sponsored by Native Roots Cannabis Company, colorado's leading locally grown and owned dispensary chain. Native Roots is a huge supporter of ours and a huge supporter of our local communities and businesses. They have 20 locations in Colorado and four here in Colorado Springs. Native Roots is ready to educate and serve medicinal and recreational patients alike. Thank you for listening to the Left Face Podcast. Please check us out on the web at epccpvorg and sign up for our newsletter. Feel free to drop us a line at info at EPC CPV dot org. Thanks for listening to everyone. I hope you're having fun out there. Stay safe.
