Editor's note: KUNC is publishing un-edited interviews with the Republican and Democratic gubernatorial candidates so the public can view their answers in a transparent and unfiltered manner. Their answers may include statements that are not supported by evidence.
Colorado voters will choose a new governor this year, with Governor Jared Polis term-limited and unable to seek a third term. Ahead of the June 30 primary election, KUNC is interviewing each of the Democratic and Republican candidates running to replace him.
Next in our series is Republican candidate and current state Rep. Scott Bottoms. KUNC host Mike Lyle sat down with Bottoms to discuss his campaign, priorities, and the issues facing Colorado voters.
MIKE LYLE: A top concern for Colorado voters right now is affordability. What are some specific policies that you would implement as governor to bring down Coloradans' everyday cost of living?
SCOTT BOTTOMS: Well, we are third in the most expensive state to live in in the United States. We're also fifth in the highest housing costs. Those obviously are tied together. The first thing we've got to do is we've got to get rid of regulations. Regulations are killing us right now when it comes to trying to build a starter home. The first $35,000-ish and plus is going to be to red tape, it's going to be to fees, it's going to be to applications, and all that kind of stuff. Well, when you're trying to build a $500,000 home, maybe $35,000 isn't that big of a deal. But when you're trying to build a $200,000 home, a $250,000 home, this is huge.
So, we got to get rid of regulations, and we also have to get rid of property tax. We have to get rid of income tax, which means that we're going to have to restructure the entire tax code, but it's definitely doable. Florida's doing it right now, so it's just going to be, how do we do it? How do we get that structure down to actually save people money?
But when you get rid of regulations and when you get rid of corruption, that's probably $30 billion that myself and Vice President [JD] Vance's fraud team has figured out, is if we get rid of that $30 billion, our budget is under $30 billion. So, you put those together, this can be a comfortable state to live in, an affordable state to live in, and actually the people of Colorado could, can be wealthy in the process. That's where I would begin.
LYLE: Other than affordability, what are two other top issues that you would prioritize as governor, and how would you address them?
BOTTOMS: The first one actually is constitutionality. We are passing unconstitutional laws constantly when the House is in session. I go down to the well, and I read the Constitution, and I say, you cannot pass this law. It is illegal to pass this law. It is not constitutional. And the Democrats come down and say, well, we're going to pass the law and you sue us. The problem is they have no respect for the rule of law. And so the first thing I do, executive orders, we're going to go back to the Constitution. Any bill that comes forward that is not constitutional, which is obviously TABOR, Second Amendment, parental authority, any of those kinds of things, I will veto that bill.
I'll probably be the vetoing-est governor in the history of Colorado, but we've got to do this, because if we don't root out the fraud and the corruption, and get back to the Constitution, we are never going to be an affordable state. We are never going to be a safe state. We are never going to be a state that people want to move back to instead of moving away from. And so, constitutionality is the biggest one.
I would say then the next one is parental authority and children. 85% of our state say that they are not okay with boys and girls sports, and there's other issues that are very similar, that they're all right in that same arena, and so the entire state is actually not okay with what we're doing to our children and what we're doing to parental authority. So, I would go after that pretty quickly, but that's also constitutionality, so it's going to be intertwined together, and that's where I would start.
LYLE: Many Coloradans are also worried about the state of our democracy. So, when it comes to the democratic process, what is working and what is not, and what would you do to address those problems?
BOTTOMS: Well, as I just said, our Democrat leadership in the House and the Senate, and this is codified and signed into law, many oftentimes by the governor, is constitutionality. We don't go by the rule of law in the state of Colorado. We hadn't in quite a few years. We thumb our nose at the rule of law, we thumb our nose at the Constitution, state and federal. We attack the federal Constitution illegally. We prop up illegal immigrants, we prop up crime, we attack the police, we have a culture in Colorado that is very antagonistic against the police.
But this is only the leadership; it's not the Democrats around the state, it's not the unaffiliated, it's not the Republicans. It's the Democrat leadership, nine of which are registered socialist. So, they hate the police, they hate ICE, they hate the rule of law, they punish citizens of Colorado when there's anything that goes against their ideology of let's keep people out of jail.
I've heard many Democrats in the House come down to the microphone and say that people should never be in cages, that is their way of saying don't ever arrest somebody, don't ever put them in jail. Well, guess what? I've met some murderers that need to be in cages, I've met pedophiles that need to be in cages, I've met rapists that need to be in cages, and so I totally disagree with the culture ideology that is coming out of the statehouse from the Democrats. We're going to fix this when I'm governor; we're going to actually put the culture back into positivity toward the police, toward the rule of law, and toward all the things that we desperately need to set straight. You're never going to get a handle on the economy when crime is going off the charts, and so we've got to start with these basic common-sense things across our state.
LYLE: You mentioned $30 billion in fraud from corruption in your first answer. Can you briefly expand on where that number comes from?
BOTTOMS: That number comes from a handful of places. I have a lady that works with our staff that all she does is try to uncover fraud, corruption, waste, abuse, all those different things. I've also, like I said, I've been working with Vice President Vance's fraud team. We've been working to uncover these kinds of things. We've sat down and some of this, some of this we already have evidence from. I sent stuff to their group.
I also tried to run a resolution to get an independent investigator and an assistant attorney general to come in and audit our state. That was shot down by the Democrats in the House. The beginning of that one is $3 million, $2.75 million, but on top of that, that case was fraud from a justice coach that was working with chief of staff for the state, and those were hush money payments that included both of them. This was covered up by Attorney General [Phil] Weiser. It was covered up by our Supreme Court and justice system, but that's the key, is it was hush money. Well, what are you hushing up? All the other rest of the fraud.
So, we know there's major chunks there, we know there's chunks with all kinds of different groups across the state that we've, we even brought some of these up in committee. Sitting with Vice President Vance's team, they said, "Look, the stuff that we're seeing in the state of Colorado, this is like $30 billion-plus, and we are coming to Colorado soon, and we're going to be rooting that out,” and I'm going to be working with them. Hopefully, they'll let me be a tip of the spear a little bit on some of these.
But until we get rid of this corruption and fraud in Colorado, we are stuck. We are stuck with what we've got. We're stuck with a broken CDOT. We're stuck with a broken education system. We're stuck with fraud all through Medicaid that is stealing money from people that deserve Medicaid. This is horrible stuff, and we got to stop it.
LYLE: Finally, Coloradans have repeatedly chosen Democrats for all of Colorado's statewide offices over Republicans in recent years, including the governor's office. So, why are you the Republican to change that trend?
BOTTOMS: Well, we're already seeing this across the state that Democrats all over the state are pulling away from Democrat leadership. And, by the way, the Democrat leadership knows it. They have verbalized this to me. This is not my conspiracy. This is their numbers. This is their interaction, saying that we know we're going to lose all—the Democrats know they're going to lose all four state seats, we're going to lose seats in the House, they will even lose a few seats in the Senate.
Guys, this is the year that the Democrats have just—this has been the line in the sand. The Democrat Marxist leftist leadership has been pushing, pushing, pushing, attacking children, trying to decriminalize prostitution was a big one, even though it didn't even make it. This is where a lot of Democrats across the state, specifically rural communities, have said this is too far. We are done with the Democrat leadership, and we will push back. Even Forbes magazine said that there was a good chance that Colorado was going to elect a Republican governor in this cycle. Denver Post even warned about that, Wall Street Journal.
This is the year we're going to do this. We haven't had this success, and if we can just count all the votes, which there's a lot of positive in that area, too, I could tell you about. But I'm the next governor of Colorado, and we're going to blow the doors off this thing. We're pretty excited about it. We know where our numbers are.
