We're going to talk to a guy much like my friend Valdemar who is running in the first congressional district, who picked up the mantle to run in a district that isn't very favorable for Republicans, but Michael Demana did it anyway. He's running for the second district House seat. And welcome to the show. Michael.
Good afternoon, Mandy, thank you for having me.
Well, I'm glad you're here. I'm glad that there are Republicans trying to make some gains in these really blue districts. So I want to ask you, Michael. I bet a lot of my listeners have never heard of you. Tell people a little bit about yourself.
I'd be happy to and I'm also sure that's true. They probably haven't heard of my opponent either, because not too many people in this district even know who that is. But in any event, tell you a little bit about me and my background. Little bit. I am a fourth generation denveright, so I've lived here in my entire life.
I was born in Saint Joseph's Hospital, educated in Catholic schools, high school, grade school, went to university colleg out of a Boulder for my undergraduate work and graduated from the University of Denver Law School, where I've been. I have practice law in this city for a little over fifty two years. My partner and I were the form the first minority owned law firm in Denver, so we're very
proud of that. And we owned a nineteenth century building on seventeenth and the High Street where we did our practice for over forty years together. So that's a little bit about me and a little bit about my background.
So you're obviously accomplished. Why do you want to put your face in the wood chipper of politics? What made you jump into the second House district race?
Well, a couple of things. One, I'm not a politician. I'm just like everybody else that lives in the House district too, and lives in Denver, And candidly, I just got sick and tired of what was happening to my beautiful city and my wonderful state. And I just said, I've had enough, and a lot of people that I know have had enough. What are we going to do about it? Well, somebody needs to stand up and say something about it. And I decided that that was going to be me.
So let's talk about your vision for the second House district. What do you think are the number one concerns and how do you want the legislature to address them?
Well, the number one concern in my view is crime. What's happened to our city and our state with regard to crime has just been unacceptable anymore. We've given the Democrats and liberals their opportunity with you know, no cash bail, with lowering penalties on sentinel and doing a whole number of other things, including welcoming immigrants into this city and state,
and we've seen what's happened. In January, our governor said that he wanted to make Colorado the tenth safest state in the nation, because at this point we are the number third most unsafe state in the nation for felony crime. So why the governor was going to need five years to do it, I guess it's because he's only going to be around for four and then we'll deal with the rest of it after he leaves. But in any event, let me tell you very briefly what the legislature did
for the first of those five years. Nothing. Yeah, absolutely nothing.
Well, Michael, I actually I would argue the opposite. I think that the legislature did a lot. They decriminalized ventanyl, they made car theft a misdemeanor. They did a lot to contribute to our current crime situation here in Colorado. So I'm not going to let you off that let them off that easily. You were being kind. I don't have to be kind because I'm not running for anything.
Thank you, Thank you, Mandy. I meant they did nothing for the citizens, right, they did everything for the criminals. Yes, I've been in the courtroom over thirty years practicing criminal defense law. Every time that I met someone accused of a crime, they had two questions. One, that's the fee, But number two, how much time am I going to do? How I'm going to attack this issue is not let the Democrats get continue to get away from lowering penalties.
In fact, my view is and one of the first pills I will offer is that if you are convicted of a crime involving a firearm, you will not only do the underlying sentence for the crime, You'll do an additional five for the firearm. Now that's an additional five years, not without without parole, without good time, without earn time, without all the other craft that they put onto these things to let these guys out earlier. It will be
five years, and I believe that that will significantly decrease crime. Say, the other thing is we've got to start backing our police officers. We just simply have to start doing that, and we are not doing that, as you can see. In fact, in Denver we have something on the ballot this year that we're going to allow non citizens to become members the Denver Police Department and Fire department. Why because we can't get police officers to do it. Why can't we get people to want to be police officers
because we don't back them. We just simply do not back them. In fact, they can be personally liable for twenty five thousand dollars of damages if they are sued. Now, you tell me who wants to do a job like that,
and what's in our legislator's response. They've left it to the people because we have Proposition one twenty eight, which I hope people will vote for, which requires violent criminals to do wait for it, eighty five percent of their sentence and if they're convicted of free violent crimes, they have to do one hundred percent of their sentence now you mean to tell me that the Colorado legislature cannot agree on this kind of an issue and needs to
send it to the people to make the decision. That's what I'm talking about, about favoring criminals and not protecting the citizens of this state and the city.
I agree, hoohearted ly. Let's talk about affordability that those two things. I think there's three things happening right now. People are concerned about crime because no matter how many talking heads on Twitter tell us that crime has dropped dramatically, the reality is I was talking to a friend of mine and she said, yeah, my son's friends truck was stolen from the airport. I said, no, no, no, there's they fixed that. You know they've got that. And she
said no, this was like three weeks ago. So they can tell us that crime has fallen off a map, but the reality is people are still having their cars stolen. We are really really high up in the number of sexual assaults that we're reporting. It is not good. How do you in the legislature go to address that we just talked about. But now let's talk about affordability, which is the second issue that people I think are really concerned about. In Colorado.
Well, we have your listeners probably know this. This last fiscal year, our budget was forty billion dollars forty billion next year, next fiscal year, it's projected to go up to forty three billion, Mate, if not higher. We can't print money and we can't borrow it, so that money has to come from the people of this state, and that comes through can't do taxes because they have to ask our permission, which is why we have a ballot amendment on our ballot this year wanting to increase the
sales tax on firearms and ammunition. But they do it through fees, fees, because our Supreme Court has decided that a fee is not a tax. Yeah, well, so, as I'm concerned, it comes right out of my pocket, whether you call it a fee or a tax, and that needs to stop. We need to take a look at all of these sees that we impose upon our citizens which are not legal because they have not been voted on, and we need to start eliminating some of them. How
about the bag fee? Do they know where that money goes? No, no, of course not.
Do you know what's funny? Do you know what's funny about the bag fee? And the entire premise behind getting rid of plastic bags in Colorado because you then go and the bags end up in a whale swims through a bag, and then that all comes from Colorado. That's the thinking there. But do you know where you can still buy plastic bags? The coastal state of California, where they could actually end up in the ocean. You can still buy plastic bags there, but not in Colorado. It makes zero.
Sense exactly, And that, of course, is what we're coming. We're becoming. We are becoming a California, and I just don't want that to happen, and I want to try to stop it. And the way to stop it is for me to get elected. Because if we keep electing the same people expecting that they're going to do something different, what we're going to get is the same people and exactly the same result.
Michael Demana is running in House just for two for the Colorado State House. Michael, make your pitch. Why should people vote for you?
People should vote for me for one reason and one reason only. If you like the way things are right now, if you don't have any problem what's happening to your city and your state right now? If there's a guy in office that you can vote for, but if you want something to change, you want somebody to go into that legislature and try to change things for your betterment, then you go to Demana for HD two dot com.
You look at my website. Help me with a few dollars as you can, and I would really appreciate your prayers.
Michael, I just got this text message before you go, Mandy. I'm a lawyer who had Mike Demanda mediate several cases over the years. My experience was he is extremely smart, measured, reasonable and rational. Didn't know he was running, so thank you for having him on. He's got my vote.
Bob. That's one, Mike, Yeah, one's that makes my weekend. Matthew all right so much