This is Dan Capless and welcome to today's online podcast edition of The Dan Caplis Show. Please be sure to give us a five star rating if you'd be so kind, and to subscribe, download and listen to the show every single day on your favorite podcast platform.
Welcome back to The Dan Capliss Show. An hour two of the show with Weld County Sheriff Steve Reims. It's this day two of two for me. Dan's off to trial, so you'll have some guest hosts the rest of the week, but it will not be me. I'll go back to my regularly scheduled program as the Sheriff of Weld County. And I got to tell you this is always a treat to come down here just because of nothing else.
It's a change of pace, get a chance to interact with the listeners, take a few texts, answer a few questions about gun laws, because every time I come on here, I get one or two or twelve or one hundred. So during our break we did get one text message about a gun law that I'll address here in just a second, or a question about gun laws. But if you want to text in the numbers five, seven, seven, three nine, start your text off with Dan so that
it comes to me. Also, if you want to call in, we still have a bit of time for a call in this first segment three h three seventy one, three eight two five y five. You can talk about governor's candidates who you'd like to see run or whatever. Whatever scratches your fancy is something you want to talk about. But this question came in, Sheriff, can you tell me what will change and the reciprocity laws for Colorado gun owners through the other states which do allow Colorado conceal
weapons permits. And essentially the best answer I can give is none. There's no change with some of the recent gun laws that have passed. The conceal weapons permits that are being recognized from Colorado and other states will likely still be that unless there's a change in that individual states laws. Having said that, there's a bill that went through in twenty twenty one that very few people paid attention to outside of law enforcement, and it's a concerning
one that Centate Bill twenty one two fifty six. That bill, which was passed and signed into law, allows for local governments to create their own patchwork of gun laws. If you will so Boulder can have its own restraint of gun laws as compared to I say, Boulder, Boulder County, the City of Boulder. You could have competing gun laws even in those two areas, and those could be vastly
different from Weld County. So if you're driving along with your concealed weapons permit from Weld County, where we love for you to own a conceal weapons permit, and you cross county line road and drive over into Boulder, Let's say they were to change their gun laws there, They're not going to put up a sign that tells you that. And when you drive into another jurisdiction, the expectation is that you know the law. So ignorance of the law
is not a defense of it. So it's always important to know the laws out there that impact you, especially when it comes to gun rights, because in this state it's navigating a landmine. To say the least. This is not a gun friendly state. It's not a police friendly state anymore either. So whoever the text was there, that's
the best answer I can give you. Another one here from one of our favorites, Steven Littleton, retired law enforcement officers, says Sheriff I keep thinking that Colorado voters will stop voting for the purveyors of the Marxist healthscape, but but they keep doubling down. Boy, that's pretty accurate, unfortunately, especially the scorched earth that we just saw coming out of this last legislative cycle. This was painful for me as
a law enforcement guy. I was happy to see that they didn't focus in on the anti cop legislation quite as much as as we've seen in the past. But there's always next session, so I don't hold my breath too much because every time I think we've we've escaped some kind of attack, they come back to next go around. This time it seemed more to be on parental rights and gun laws, So who knows, next session will probably be anti cop again. And even though it is an electioneer,
it doesn't seem like the Democrats even care anymore. I think they believe they're untouchable. And there's a part of me that says, go as far as you want to the left to give a Republican a chance at winning in a state wide race, you know, show show the voters who you really are, and hopefully they'll come around and say as Steven Lyttleton has said they're the purveyors of the Marxist healscape, and hopefully people realize, you know,
it's time for us to vote a different direction. Having said all that, we're having some governor's candidates on today. In the first hour we had Alexander Mugatu and Jason Michel, who's the sheriff down in Teller County. You know, it's always hard to know how these races are going to shake out. Those are two of four that we're going to have on today. After this upcoming break, we'll have on Mark Baisley, and then in the towards the end
of the show, we'll have on Scott Bottoms. Mark Baisley is a senator out of Senate District four at the state Capitol, and Scott Bottoms representative out of HD fifteen. So they'll give you their bio when they come on. But it's important to hear from these folks as they're running. You know, it's the early stages of the campaign. I believe it's about one year, seven months and sixteen days away or something like that. And I only say that because that's how much time I have left in my
office of sheriff. So when polis Lee I leave and no, I'm not running to replace him, and there'll be someone else that will replace me, as in many seats around the state of Colorado, and hopefully we'll see a Republican jump into that seat and have a successful run for statewide campaign in Colorado for governor. But we need one for attorney General, we need one for Secretary of State, and the list goes on. So what we're going to do is go ahead and jump to break. When we
come back, we'll have Mark Baisley on with us. We want to make sure we give him plenty of time. You're right here on the Dan Caplas Show with Well Kunny Sheriff Steve Riams as your guest host.
And now back to the Dan Kaplas Show podcast.
Steve Riams sitting in as your guest host and going back to our lineup for today. Like I said at the top of the show, we're going to have some governor's candidates on and it's a distinct pleasure to have this next guest on. I've had a chance to testify down at the State House when he was setting in on a few committees and whatnot through the years. But we have on the line. Senator Mark Baisley from Senate District for Mark, Welcome to the Dan Kessler Show.
Thank you. It's great to be on with you. I appreciate your including me.
You bet, And you know, I think a lot of people know your name. They probably know a little bit about you, but let's educate those that don't, so a little bit about your background. I know you've been down at the state House for a while. Educate the voters as to kind of what your background is and how you got there.
Sure. So, first and foremost, I'm a husband of a wonderful wife, my high school sweetheart, married forty seven years. We've got four kids, seven grandkids. And then after that, I made my living as an aerospace engineer. So I live in Colorado because Luckie Martin now Knockie Martin, back when they were just smart and Marietta. I've moved me out here.
Thirty six years ago.
So that's my professional background. My international upbringing is what got me interested in preserving what the founders created for us. So I had always tried to kind of ledge along get the right people into office. And so one day I made eye contact at just the wrong moment, and all of a sudden, I'm in the state legislature myself.
So I served for four years as the state representative and now I'm in my third year as a state senator, and I represent the heart of the state, the center of the state, eight counties that goes from Leadville to Franktown and Douglas County, and it goes from kim Carroll Valley in Jefferson County all the way down to Westcliff in Custer County.
So just a tiny little area there, right, Well, you got a lot of driving to do to cover your voting district. So you know, I know that you've been heavily involved in this last legislative session, and I don't want to give you PTSD, so we'll jump straight into the governor's race and kind of you know, you're down there in you're down there in the fight, and I know that as a legislator you see it daily and it's got to be a frustrating point to be at.
So how do you go from there to say? And you know what, this isn't frustrating enough, I think I'll run for governor.
You know, I think you just answered my question. Well, it's you know, the emphasis that I've had, and I've.
Found ways to be successful in spite of being in the super minority. You know, we, as everybody knows, we don't control the House, the majority in the House, we don't control the majority in the Senate, or do we have the governor's office the three legs of the stool for laws being our bills being.
Passed into law. But in the ways that I can use my.
Position as a state Senator to advance good things in Colorado, I've been bringing in business.
I've been focusing on the economics because.
I figure if people can can have the dignity of work, if they can feed themselves well in their families and have a little left over to take care of church and others, then all those other things that are annoying, that are challenging, they seem to diminish. And so that's been a focus of mine. So working on bringing the Chips Act semiconductor work into Colorado led the charge to bring in to Land the Tech Hub designation for quantum computing.
So we've brought in We've had some real successes.
In bringing in some work, including most recently the bringing the Sundance Film Festival to Colorado.
So that's one that I was very.
Heavily involved in anyway. In the meantime, yes, we're just losing the battle daily in the state legislature, and the frustration level just seems to be, well, you know, while we have our mini wins, it feels like holding up a glacier. You know, the glacier is still going and still going in it, and while it's coming slowly, it's
still going and you're still walking backwards. So after suggestions from the folks that I've been working with in the business community, especially the advanced technology community, a lot of nudging from them, I said, well, yeah, let me rethink all this, because it doesn't make sense to keep playing the game as best you can if you're guaranteed to lose.
So I just want to go on offense.
For a change. And I'll tell you Steve, as I'm thinking about it, I don't want to simply win the governor's office in twenty twenty six. I want to gain back most of the seats that we need. So we need six in the Senate to take the majority, and in the House as well, we need eleven seat fare and by twenty twenty eight, it is my determination to have the majority in the House, the majority in the Senate, and the governor's office.
So in order to get there, I mean, obviously you've got to have a plan of action. You talked about wanting to restore business in the state of Colorado, so that's obviously one of the planks of your candidacy. What are some of the other things that you think resonates with the voters out there? And knowing that Colorado is is not really a third a third and a third anymore. I mean, independents make up a large portion of voters
in Colorado. How do you resonate with those folks outside of just that business plank?
Yeah, you know another big one that's related to business, but I'll just spend a moment with it, and that's education. So sure I have I've been fa on being on the Education Board for.
Six years and.
The committee, excuse me, Education Committee and getting to know the presidents and chancellors of our flank ship universities, trying to move the needle there from being anything of an indoctrination camp, but to instead partner with industry to prepare those students for those high tap jobs. But the bigger two is in the area of safety. So safety, I break that down into three areas. One of those is
yours law enforcement. I have run a bill, as you well know, because you've testified in favor, but trying to get the trying to pull the government, state government's monkey off your back and let you work with ice, let the law enforcement because they're restricted, as you know better than I do, and what you can do in dealing with the federal government, Yes, forty cent a bill forty seven and then yes, that's right.
And then then the.
Other two facets of safety or wildfires.
So I've been working on the Wildfire.
Task Force within the state Senate and for one working with the folks for mitigating properties, and we just passed a bill that helps delineate where's the responsibility cut off from a neighborhood to open area and the Forest Service and so on. But then aircraft, So we have acquired two helicopters, two Blackhawk helicopters that have been outfitted as Firehawk helicopters with a thousand gallon tank on the billy.
And then we've.
Acquired four more fixed wing aircraft about three years ago in a kind of a fire sale, no pun intended, and then I just led a group of fifteen of us in the state Senate. We all signed a letter to the federal government to really the agencies. They're asking them Department of Defense to outfit the C one planes or eight of them parked down in Colorado Springs, outfit them with tanks so they can be duty of dropping water on the fires.
Well, anybody who lives in the state of Colorado knows how important the wildfire issue is here, especially over the last few years. It seems like half of the state was on fire for the last few years. So all those are good efforts. As a candidate, what makes you different from every other candidate? How do you how do you distance yourself from every every other Republican candidate or any of the candidates they're in the race.
Sure, well, it's because I'm not going to I'm not promising that I'm going to be doing things that that are hopeful matters.
These are I'm i.
Am promising that I'm going to do things that I've already been doing. But from a weekend so I've been making advances in these areas I'm talking about in education and in the economy, and in safety, and the last thing I'll say is in property tax. That's that's my last plank, big plank. And so I have I have submitted bills, run bills and had some success is with some but as you all know, they will kill my bills because it was a Republican who couldn't get a
Democrat to co sponsor on something. And that's the frustration. But the difference between me and my friends who are also running for the position is that I'm already doing this work. I work with the Governor's office daily. I'm in there all the time and working with them, we aligned on quite a few things, so I've gotten to know that job. I know, I know where we are inefficient.
I serve on the Joint Technology Committee, and I already have the have folks who work in the technology areas coming to me saying, hey, when you're ready to clean this place up, I'm ready.
To be on your team. And I've even had.
The former chief of staff to Governor Polis he has offered to me to help me set up the office. So I'm already ready.
Well, Mark, I know, Senator Baisley, I know that you're trying to get your name out there in this particular race and the race for governor. If people want to find find your name out there and figure out how to support you, learn more about you, where do they go? Look? What are your social media pages? How do they find more value?
So Mark Baisley dot com is the place to start. Just on the Internet, Mark Baisley dot com and r K B A I, S L E Y dot com and yes at Mark Baisley on X and also on Facebook Instagram.
Pretty easy to find, Okay, no TikTok though, right, I'm not a TikTok guy either. I don't know how well that works for governor, but it worked pretty well for Trump as a presidential candidate. So who knows. We have just a few minutes left. I got to ask you some of the tough questions that always get asked. Where do you stand on the Second Amendment? What did you think of Senate Bill three? Going through Bill three?
Let me think about that one.
Yeah, that's the gun band. No, what an awful bill.
I mean we fought that thing till till midnight and for days, and yeah it is. You know what, there's there are some people in the state legislature who are obsessed over particular things, and that makes them a bad legislator. We should not have people who obsess over matters to try to pass alack because they passed one law after the other after the other. You know, it was anything that could have been considered reasonable was passed ten twelve
years ago. Now they're just making stuff up like Senate Bill three, and it's highly unreasonable and it just serves to diminish one's ability to defend their castle, which to me is in support of what might also be asking me about still thirteen twelve.
Mark, I'd love to get into that, but we got to go to a heartbreak here. You did great on the show. We'll make sure that people know where to find you out there. You're listening to the Dankapitla Show. We just got finished with Mark Baisley right here with Well County Sheriff Steve Riams as your guest host.
You're listening to the Dan Kaplis Show podcast.
The Dan Caplas Show with Well County Sheriff Steve Riams setting in on the driver's seat, Day two of two and we're with our last candidate of the day for Colorado Governor on the Republican side of the House, but before we announce his name, please, if you're listening out there and you want to call in or text in, you can text in at five seven seventy three nine. Start your text out with Dan, let us know what you think about the candidates we've had on or the
one that we're about to have on. Or you can call in for our last segment at three o three seven one three eight two five five, but without further Ado on the line with us, we have Scott Bottoms, current representative out of HD fifteen and candidate for governor for the state of Colorado on the Republican side. Scott, welcome to the show.
Yeah, thanks for having me. How are you enjoy it?
You bet? And you know we just had Mark Baisley on. I'll say the same thing to you as I did to him. I don't want to give you a PTSD for talking about the legislative session, but you just got out of that mess. How are you feeling after getting through that session?
Well, the biggest thing is I'm glad I'm not in the building. Every day we do not meet as a legislature is good for the people of Colorado.
I can totally agree with that. So for the people who don't know you out there, Scott Representative Bottoms, what's a little bit about your background. Where do you come from and what area do you currently represent in your HDC.
Yeah, currently I represent I'm out of Paso County, the east side of Colorado Springs. Okay, so almost the whole entire east side. And my background. Have been a pastor since I was twenty years old and so thirty five years just about. And I was also in the Navy.
Went into Navy at seventeen, and I spent a few years there and and then I've done a bunch of stuff that on board, worked with grooves, worked with anti trafficking groups, quite a few of those, and and so just kind of overall been in positions of leadership and working with with some people State of Colorado, younger people, all all these kinds of things. And then obviously my charge.
Okay, so how long have you been down at the State House as a representative.
This is my third year. I was re elected back in November, and okay, and are our.
Terms are two years? Sure? Soea, one more session and you're running for governor at the same time. So you're you're down there, you're seeing how the sausage gets made. You're part of the the lawmaking process or you know, trying to prevent some of these laws from being made. And you make the decision to run for governor. What inspired you and what's the thing that you champion? You know, what's your primary thing that you champion.
See the whole running for governor thing, it's really a spiritual decision. First, just what we've been praying about it. I am sick and tired of watching them come after our kids and destroy parental rights. And you know, literally we will debate for hours whether a twelve year old should have mutilation surgery. But what we're debating is not where they should. We're debating whether it should happen with
or without parental consent or even knowledge. And these kind of things are just they're two egregious for that, I believe for the average person in the state of Colorado, but definitely for me, and so definitely children, children are the biggest issue for me. There's too much there's too much abuse, pedophilia, grooming, surgeries, all this kind of stuff
going on in the state of Colorado. And I'm done with this, and so that's that's why I'm going to be the next governor, We're going to shut some of this stuff down.
Well, So on those lines, House built Third teen twelve. That was one of the most controversial bills of the session, if not the most controversial bill of the session. What was the crowd like that showed up for that? And does that crowd tell you that you're in this race for the right reason?
It does the you know, the more interesting site. So there was the people that were for the bill, and this was very discouraging to watch this. It was like a circus inside the capital. People shoving. I mean, this is a transgender crowd shoving some of our representatives and spitting on people and cussing a people. And the people that were against the bill very calm, seleected group of people and people that were for it was about seventy people and there was about eight hundred people that wind
up to testify against it. Now Here is part of what I'm seeing which is important to that conversation is I'm getting emails, text phone calls all the time from Democrats that are fed up with this. They do not believe this is okay to not mess with their children. But the Democrats in the House and the Senate are so far left. They are leftist Marxists that they first they don't care about what people think. They're going to run their ideologies. But they have left the Democrats in
the state of Colorado behind there. The Democrats are not behind all of this stuff for the most part, They're not behind this stuff. And we could even see that there were many many Democrats that were testifying against this bill and against this ideology. Remember, transgenderism is an ideology, LGB is a sexual preference, t Q plus is an ideology. And it's been crazy to watch all this stuff going down.
Sure, so I think we know where you stand on this issue. This is probably your primary issue. What are some of the other major major issues that you take up with the state of Colorado. I think we've got a crumbling infrastructure. We've got some law enforcement folks that are that are working from behind the eight ball. I can say that from my own perspective, the tides have definitely been turned against this crime is out of control
in the state. We've got centinels out of control. What are some of those other things that you would focus on as the governor of the State of Colorado or as the candidate on the Republican side for the state of Colorado.
Well, most people in Colorado don't realize how bad crime is in Colorado, specifically if they're in more rural communities. But we are one of the highest crime states in the entire United States. We rate one, two three in almost every category. We're also the sixth most regulated state in the United States, and the Federal Reserves just released a couple of weeks ago that now, per capita, Colorado is the most expensive state in the United States to live in.
So when you're processing all.
This information, you're already in a crumbling problem. Then when you add the illegal immigrant crime on top of that, and the fact that we we have drug cartels in Venezuela and drug cartels that are now combining with and this is and you would be in privy to some of this information. Now we know MS thirteen is combining with them, and that's what was going on in that raid down in Carra Springs here that they're trying to
set up that cartel now in Springs too. We're in a very difficult situation for the average citizen, and I believe it starts with the policies of our governor and the House and the Senate. They have propped up illegal immigrant crime, they have propped up criminals. They make it almost impossible to put a pedophile in jail. We've done everything we can to stop pedophilia or at least give
them jail time. Right now, they're getting off on formation almost every single time they are caught with a small child raping that child. This is crazy stuff. And then the financial infrastructure is tied directly into all this stuff. We're spending five hundred million dollars on it to prop up illegal immigrant crime, taking it away from a law enforcement and you know, because of the law, you as a sheriff cannot even call ICE when you arrest somebody.
They can be a horrible, violent criminal and you have to let them go and you cannot call ICE. This stuff has got the stomp. This is part of the crumbling of our financial infrastructure in Colorado too, as we're profit up all these other things that are destroying businesses, attacking business owners. And then the regulations. I've tried to lower the income tax twice with through bills and they just vote unanimously against it. We need to go at
every single piece. There is not one system in Colorado that is working well, and we have to start with the crime. We have to start with the illegal immigrant issue, and then we have to work on protecting our children, giving rights back to parents. All these things all work together, and then as we change taxes and regulations, we can free up the businesses. There's not one part of it that's not directly connected to the other.
That's that's very fair. Representative Bottoms Scott Bottoms on with this candidate for governor Republican here in the state of Colorado. If people want to get out there and support you, you know, we've got several candidates running twelve on the Republican side. Where do they find you and how do they how do they how do they go out and support you? On the social media's and whatnot?
Where?
Where are you? Where are you at?
My website is Scottbottoms dot com and all my social media has the same tag, It's Scott bottom COO. But you can find all that on my website. You can. There's giving portals on my website, there's volunteer portals. We are going to have a Republican sitting in the governor's seat. And I believe that everything in me. It's me. I know I can beat Bennett. He'll be the Democrat that
rises through the mist. And we have got to mobilize the people of Colorado to get out and vote and make and and this is both Republicans and Democrats make their voices known.
I couldn't agree with you more. Scott. Is great to have you on Representative Bottoms out of HD fifteen running for Republican governor candidate here in the state of Colorado. Again, thanks for coming on the show and hopefully people will reach out to you. Yeah. Again, thanks for coming on the show. Hopefully people will reach out to you and show some support and good luck in your campaign. And again thanks for being on with us. We'll cut the break.
We'll use our last segment to wrap up. But you're listening to Dan Caples's show here with Weld, can't you, Shriff Steve Raims as your guest host.
And now back to the Dan Kapless Show podcast.
Ran Thanks for playing that song. Coming back to this last and final segment. You know that's an honor of George Went better known as Norm from Cheers. Iconic song, iconic character. The guy was full of one liners and just one of the favorites of the show I passed away today. I got a you know, not to be tongue in cheek. I was honestly not aware that he
was still alive. But it is sad to know that he has officially passed away again because that's one of my childhood favorite shows or young adult favorite shows, and he was just an iconic character.
He was, That's a perfect way to put it.
He had his spot at the bar.
There was another scene I was looking through and putting some clips together for my earlier show here in Denver, and it was too visual so I wouldn't translate as well audio only, but a couple had sat down.
Where he and Cliff normally I know the show episode. I don't mean a norm get.
The heck out of the way. Well and his sidekick Cliffy you know yeah, well, I mean those are you know those are those are tied together in infamy.
Well, you were telling me during my program, might as well share with these listeners that you have a colleague who reminded you a bit of Cliff.
He is Cliff Clayton and that's that's Chief Brian Skaggs down at the Dakono Police Department he's a good friend, known him for a long time. I've called him Cliffy for years. Uh, and he listens to the show religiously. He'd better be listening today because this is his shout out that his partner, his long term partner in crime at the bar, has finally gone off to the Angels. So sad day to see George went past. But you know, in some other news, we did have some some rather
intriguing stuff come out from on the national level. You know, Trump's announcing the Golden Dome project to create a missile defense system for the United States. And if Trump says it's going to happen, He's probably going to figure out a way to make it make it work. That's obviously copying the israel Iron Dome system. But just like in everything Trump, it'll be bigger and better.
I'm sure we're gonna get plenty of gold, all right, And what if Notre Dane's going to have an issue with that, you know, I don't.
Know, that'll be maybe maybe they can sponsor it since he's pulling so much money away from all the colleges, So who knows.
Because of me, we have an America Pope, don't forget that.
Okay, yeah, the orange smoke. And then I heard and I don't. I haven't confirmed this. I just saw a few teasers. But Bill Belichick may be engaged.
Now congratulations, Although that looks like a nightmare, I must say, did you watch the sixty minutes?
I watched what I could of it, of course, what she allowed to play of it. Oh goodness, man, I think that guy's in for a world to hurt. But you know, to each his own whatever.
Well, it's the age difference, for one.
It just has that Anna Nicole Smith vibe of you know who's calling the shots here.
She's waiting for the geezer to keel over.
Yeah, kind of write herself into his will as kids are freaking out.
The creepy factors off the charts. But I want to grab just a couple of texts here. One of them is a classic. This one actually came in on my cell phone. So it's somebody I know talking about some of these governor's candidates, because I was really hoping we'd see we'd get the fire. And it said, just like Michael Bennett, some of these guys could bore wet paint back into a can you know, I know, I know it's a tough one, but you send them, we read them.
And another one here that's trying to remind people what the Second Amendment is really about. This isn't about self defense, but it's mostly about finding off a tyrannical government. And this is precisely why the Democrats want want guns out of our hands. You know, that's pretty pretty on point. And the more you say it, the more people think
you're radical. But if you think about the founding of our country and the Bill of Rights and how those Bill of Rights were written and put into effect, that's very much the point here. And then we also have Donna who texts it in. As she said many times before, she would volunteer to help Dan's campaign for governor with all of her energy. She says, even Amy's coming your way, been waiting for you to run forever. Your debating will
knock them out. Yeah. Absolutely. You talk about a guy that I think could bring the fire and you couldn't. I will say this. I think Mark Bailey and Scott Bottoms both hinted that Michael Bennett was probably going to be the Democrat or Democrat candidate. You couldn't ask for a better opposition, especially if Dan were to jump in the race. Watch those two go at each other.
Yeah, Bluss, I can impersonate Michael Bennett and do a debate right here in the show with Dan.
Like I said, come on, Jami's not that big a deal, right.
To be Come on, just talk through a yawn. I mean, that's what that guy does consistently.
He walked through a yawn. Is that a rock album?
It would be a loud, big one. Hey, It's been a pleasure to be here for day two of two of many that I've got to cover for Dan in the recent history. Hopefully I'll be back for some more in the future. Thanks to Ryan, Thanks for Kelly on the other side of the glass for making this so much fun. And maybe when we come back the next time, we'll have a few more governor's candidates, maybe even Dan Caplis.
Thanks for listening to the Dan Capless Show here with Well Kenny Sheriff Steve Raims as your guest host.