11-07-25 FULL SHOW - Jimmy Sengenberger Fills In

The Mandy Connell show is sponsored by Bell and Pollock Accident and Injury Lawyers. Now, it's Mandy Connell. Mandy Conno ruined the day. On KLA, 8.50 a.m. 941 FM. Through the static and the noise she cuts through the frame. Good afternoon, TGIF, Jimmy Sangenberger in for Mandy Connell today on a busy, busy week, especially in the wake of Tuesday's elections. And I know that much has been said on this station and everywhere else about the election results. But that's where I want to begin today, specifically on the school board races that... We're so significant in this election because that's what happens in the odd years. It's basically city councils, school board races, and then you have different ballot measures that are on the ballot. Usually they're more local. We did have LL and M.M. on the ballot, which unfortunately, but not too surprisingly. We're passed by voters. We had 3A in Littleton dealing with high density zoning. And the voters saying, wait a second, we don't want that and putting the kibosh and the movement in that direction. But the school board races are ones that don't get nearly enough attention in a lot of ways. And I think the takes, generally speaking. on those election results are missing a heck of a lot. And that's why I wrote about it. In my column in the Denver Gazette today, where, of course, as investigative columnist, I published Tuesdays and Fridays, today is entitled, School Board Races showed unions outsized clout. And the fact of the matter is that the unions won at least on paper. One big. And that would be the regrettable yet unsurprising big story from Tuesday's results. That teachers' unions still reign in and around Denver. But here's a thing. They are not impervious. Union endorsed candidates win 70% of the time. That's from a report of the Denver Gazette reporting on a report that had been published about union success in election. So 70% of the time when the teachers union endorses a candidate, they win. Now, the interesting thing about Colorado is oftentimes even fewer than a third of a district's teachers are often union members. For example, in Jefferson County schools, and this is confirmed by the...

HR associate head, I think his name was Scott Barnes in a letter to the school board, saying only 30% of teachers in Jeffco are in the union. Then there are estimates for other districts. For example, Douglas County, another district that we will talk about, only 20% of teachers are in the union. And yet, the union-backed candidates now have a 7-0 majority, or will come end of this month, beginning and next month, have a 7-0 majority on that board. Denver Public Schools is different. I've heard it's around 70% of teachers, which isn't particularly surprising. The union has always been very robust in Denver, but it's very telling. that most school districts in Colorado do not have a majority, nay, only a minority of teachers are in the union, which is where we get that term outsized clout or a massively outsized impact. Now, nowhere, of course, is this clearer than Denver Public Schools, which is the state's largest district. All four candidates backed and funded by the Denver Classroom Teachers Association, the DCTA, won. Now, it's interesting because two years ago, voters flipped three union seats after back-to-back shootings at East High School and an illegal closed-door executive session. Voters were also fed up with disgraced ex-board member Tay Anderson. whose antics constantly outrageous. And tone-deaf statements were something that voters were sick and tired. And in 2021, there was a misconduct investigation that resulted in his censure for attempting, aggressively attempting to date, come on to young students, multiple students using social media platforms. Just astonishing when you read the report tanked. All of those things tanked his approval down to 9% and sent him running from re-election. But here's the thing. Two years ago, it took a galvanizing jolt to beat the machine. This year, there wasn't that same unifying spark. Even Mayor Mike Johnston, who is, of course, not particularly popular right now, even his endorsements couldn't slow the juggernaut, which I don't think they hurt the non-union candidates, but they didn't help. But here's the thing. The public's disgust at the previous four years of dysfunction still worried the union. To the point that incumbent Scott Esserman and Michelle Cuadobam were so damaging to the school board's image that even the DCTA, again, that's Denver's Teachers Union, abandoned their re-election bids after supporting them the first time. That's classic buyer's remorse.

Now they say it's because of teacher pay and a couple of the things. I would object to that. I don't think, I think that is cover. The reality is that these two people were dragging things down so badly they had no choice. In fact, the duo of Esmerman and Quattlebaum allied with T. Anderson during their overlapping years. So their first two years, Anderson was on the board. Together, they waged culture war battles. They drowned the board in unending drama, and they crippled progress. To me, it's no wonder that Esmerman and Quattlebaum hired Tay Anderson to run their campaigns both cycles. The first time, even when all the stuff of misconduct and the report and the censure came out, they still had Anderson on their campaign. And this go around hired him again to run their campaigns. They had to go. And the union, it was so obvious, they were so bad that the union recognized they couldn't back him again this time. Now, they did stick with Sochi Gaetan, an incumbent who won big, likely because she wasn't a flashpoint like the other two. And at times when she was board president a few years ago, she even tried to rein them in. I think she'll leave the union majority, which now has three other people. Let's see, Monica Hunter, Amy Klein-Molk, and DJ Torres are the three other union-backed candidates who won. It was a clean sweep, but it was only made possible by clearing up, curing their buyer's remorse over Esterman and Cuadobam, dropping them. And bowing to the public's demand for, as I write in the Denver Gazette, less theater, more governance by cutting off Esmerman, Scott Esmerman, and Michelle Quattlebaum. The real question, though, with this new union majority, will the new board deliver and finally focus on academics and safety? Stay tuned to find out. Honestly, I wouldn't hold my breath if I were you. Because me, as me, I'm not even holding my breath. Now, in Douglas County, where I am, union-backed progressives swept that right-leaning county. Now, for the past four years, we've had what I call a refreshing non-union majority, leading Doug Coe to become the metro area's top-rated district that recovered learning loss ahead of its peers. and pushed politics out of the classroom. They also hired Aaron Kane, who I think is an extremely competent superintendent, which, by the way, is a massively sharp contrast to Denver's failed superintendent, Dr. Alex Marrero. In the case of Doug Co, they'd be wise to keep Kane. In the case of Denver, Marrero must go. That is so unequivocal. Now, Douglas County's swing, though, honestly isn't surprising. That's my view. I don't think it's surprising. It's unfortunate. It's depressing, but it's not surprising. Because we have seen that county regularly flip from reform to union beholden majority candidates on the board. Four years ago, as I mentioned, voters tossed a union majority. In effect, this is another turn of the wheel.

in a right leaning county, but one that, look, Douglas County is still following the trends of the state, which is more leftward. It's hard to say it. It might be hard to accept it, but it is true. It also helps those points help to explain how the union could have a victory when only 20% of Douglas County teachers or members are in the club. And by the way, the district hasn't had collective bargaining in Doug Coe since 2012. Denver and Jeffcoe, two other districts we're talking about, both have collective bargaining. They're both unionized. Douglas County is not. By the way, in Douglas County, speaking of unionization, the four new members just would not give straight answers to the question on that, whether or not they supported unionization. So I think you can watch for a push to revive collective bargaining, even though less than a quarter of teachers or members. And frankly, now with scanning the union win, there is an appetite in Doug Ho for the unionization trap. Now then let's go to Jefferson County Schools. That's Colorado's second largest district. They, as I mentioned, collectively bargain, even though only 30% of their teachers are members of the union club. The union there in Jeffco is the Douglas or the Jefferson County Education Association and they kept their majority, but they lost a seat. More on that in a moment because the union would say, oh, we didn't lose a seat, but they'd be lying to you. Or at least, at least deceptive in hiding the ball. Now, I've seen a lot of news coverage crediting the union and saying voters ousted the board's president, Mary Parker, but quite frankly, Mary Parker was the union's candidate last time. Whether she dropped them or they dropped her, it's again more buyer's remorse from the teachers union. which allows the union to posture as they were opposed, as though they were opposed to the current board, which they installed. In fact, how unpopular? How unpopular is this board right now? So much so that the union outfit, students deserve better, which, by the way, is backed by $830,000 in... cash from the Colorado Education Association from two different entities of the CEA. So you will often hear, and this is that the union says, oh, we overcame all the dark money in Denver public schools or this race for that race. The union doesn't exactly have dark money, but they have layers and layers for the money that they have. So you've got the Colorado Education Association. They have multiple different arms that engage in funding under different names. And they have people who are the registered agents without actually saying this is the CEA or what have you. All layered tracing back to the union, which to me is.

Honestly, this is a discussion for another time, maybe later, but even worse than the idea of dark money. The games that the teachers' unions play. And here's an example of the game. So that group, students deserve better of the CEA, put out glossy mailers that screamed, no confidence in all caps, claiming that superintendent Tracy Dorland puts kids at risk. Well, the board stood by and did nothing. Well, guess what? A majority union board hired Tracy Dorland. And the current board is the union's board. All five members of the board right now in Jeffco Public Schools were elected by the union and they are attacking the board as though that never happened. In fact, the mailers named Parker, Mary Parker, the board president, and three other candidates who aren't even members acting like they are members of the board. You can't make this stuff up. Parents in Jeff Cup, and you've heard it from me and time and time again from Mandy doing great coverage of this. Parents are just fed up. With the endless sexual abuse and misconduct cases in Jeffco schools that are enabled by trusted adult policies that I've always said fuel a culture of secrecy. But perhaps the most infamous example here is the former chief of schools David Bari Weiss, who died by suicide at New Year's while under investigation for child pornography. In fact, The parent group, Jeffco Kids First and Lindsay Dadco there, have identified over 30 other cases of misconduct in just the last few years in Jeffco. So in that climate, the union was forced to yank its support for a candidate named Michael Yolkham, 26-year-old. After public revelations that he had a sealed juvenile sex offense record, which he had admitted and recorded. Yolkham was endorsed by the union, and his original campaign manager, Katie Winner, also ran the other two union campaigns in Jeffco. Yet it sure looked like they still wanted him to win. In fact, the union gave him $10,000 in cash donations. They gave him another $1,200 or something for research in non-monetary contributions. But if the $10,000 that they donated in his campaign, they have not asked for it back. There's no indication that they have or that it's been given back. And they conveniently left Yocum off of their well-financed attack mailers. His name was not among the non-union candidates, even though they pulled their endorsement of them. Unfortunately, a former educator named Dene Echavaria won that race about 6535, resounding.

And now she becomes Jeffco's second non-union back board member in over a decade. The only other one that they've had in over a decade was Susan Miller on the Jeffco school board. And she was fantastic. She left the board. And now this is the next non-union candidate to be elected in Jeffco's board. So let's be clear. Jeff Coe's mess is the union's mess. And the district must clean up its sexual misconduct crisis. A scandal that Yolkham's so-called union-vetted candidacy really, really just epitomized. They kept two seats. The union kept two seats. But if the union's cleanup crew, as they called it, that's what they introduced them as. Oh, our slate is the cleanup crew, originally including Yolkum, is serious about cleaning house. Then his defeat signals a day one mandate to do just that. Will the board take it up? Unfortunately, I don't think they take it seriously enough. Maybe they will. I hope so. Again, don't hold your breath. Now, in my column in the Denver Gazette today, school board races showed unions outsized clout. I close the piece with the following conclusion. Tuesday's election underscored how teachers' unions still dominate. Colorado school boards, even where few teachers belong to the club. But it also exposed an obvious pattern. Unions win, then defend the indefensible until voters force a correction. We saw that with Esmerman and Kuala, we saw that with Yolk. In a sense, we may have seen that with Mary Parker, too. But buyer's remorse always catches up. The only question. is how much damage has to come first. Check on my column in the Denver Gazette today, breaking it all down. I don't think the union should be doing the same kind of victory laps that they are doing right now. Yeah, take the win. Of course, you won. But there's a lot more to it than what they are wanting you to think. I'm Jimmy Sangenberger, filling in for Mandy Connell, just getting started right here on K-O-A. So glad to be with you. But, look, Tuesday's elections were bad for Republicans, of course. That's a given. What's really interesting is when you hear President Trump talk about a lesson from this is that we need to kill the filibuster. which, of course, is a protection for the minority to slow down legislation and require 60 votes in order to move forward with legislation. Here's President Trump in a meeting, I think it was yesterday, with U.S. senators. on the filibuster, encouraging them, look, you got to get rid of this thing. If I thought that they weren't going to pass the filibus, I wouldn't even bring it up. They're going to pass it within the first hour. If they take power, and it's more likely that they take power if we don't do it, because we're not going to be passing any legislation. Not going to approve anything. We're going to go three and a quarter years. There won't be one bill that we're going to pass. Because the easiest thing to pass is exactly right now what they won't pass. And they'll do that, and they'll wreak havoc.

Let's assume they get in. They're doing it anyway. So it wouldn't matter. They're doing it anyway. But the biggest thing is the filibuster. We have to get the country going. We will pass legislation at levels you've never seen before, and it'll be impossible to beat us. By the way, if they do, they're going to do it anyway, and they are going to immediately do the filibuster. Well, so he says, look, if the Democrats take control, they're just going to get rid of the filibuster. Which, look, first of all, you need to have enough in the Senate to do that, and they need to take back the Senate, not just the House. Well, I'm getting ahead of myself because Trump goes on to explain to the senators what he fears will happen if Democrats take charge and the filibuster is not eliminated. They're going to pack the court. They're going to make D.C. a state, and they're going to make Puerto Rico a state. So now they pick up two states. They pick up four senators, okay? You think you have problems? They're going to do all of the things. They're going to pick up electoral votes. It's going to be a very, very bad situation. And it's done. It's done. As soon as they attain power, now if we do what I'm saying, they'll most likely never attain power. Because we will have passed every single thing that you can imagine that it's good. and all good for the country. And there'll be no reason to it. If we don't do that, people say they're not doing much and they're in power. There are so many things running through my head as I hear those clips of trouble. One, he says, look, if we don't pass the filibuster now so we can ram through our agenda. then the Democrats are going to win because we didn't do enough, and then they're going to win, and they're immediately going to get rid of the filibuster. They're going to make D.C. and Puerto Rico, U.S. states, they're going to pack the Supreme Court. Now, we know that Democrats have their eyes set on those objectives, without a doubt. That's something particularly with D.C. and Puerto Rico that they want to do. And with packing the Supreme Court, we've heard them talk about that. But first of all, those are not easily done tasks. And to just act like that is inevitable. If we don't get rid of the filibuster now, that's his logic. We need to get the filibuster now so we can get things done so we can beat the Democrats and they'll never win again. Which, of course, they're going to win again. That's the cycle of politics. And when they do it and the filibuster's gone, then it's going to make it easier for them to ram through those changes that Trump's just talking about, those other things. But then he also says something, I think that is significant in and of itself, just at the very end there. They're not doing much and they're in power. That's the presentation that Trump is saying. will be the words that will be said about Republicans, they're in power and they're not doing much. He's got this mindset of we need to do, do, do. But there's a problem with that. Actually, there are multiple problems with that. One of them is he's doing a lot this year. And it's actually dragging down Republicans to some extent the pace. I'm not saying necessarily that the things he's doing are bad, although I would think some of them are, like terrorists, for example. We'll get to that at the top of the hour.

But when you have the perception that so much is happening so fast, it gets people thrown off. And it's not necessarily a positive because they're feeling like it's boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, just rapid succession. And some people, supporters of Trump will like it and say, oh, yeah, he's getting things done. Trump. Or others will be like, no, I'm not a fan. This is too much. Or I like a lot of the things that he's doing, but it's all happening so fast. And we're not catching a breather. And I think the political implications of that are a challenge for Republicans. But then you also have Trump making the claim we need to do stuff. So he's doing a lot now. Well, you get to a certain point where your hands are tied because. Congress maybe fell to the Democrats, and they have the majority, or maybe it's just the House majority, but that's enough to stop Republicans for making gains and getting legislation through. But then how much more can you actually do yourself by executive order at a certain point? Because you've done so many things, is there that much more that you can do? Trump wants to keep the perception for four years that things are getting done consistently at a rapid pace. And that's not possible. It's also not healthy for the republic. One of the things about the filibuster that's beautiful is that it is one of the last real vestiges of federalism and limited government that we have in this country. What do I mean? Well, until the progressive amendments to the U.S. Constitution, like the 17th Amendment in particular, United States senators were chosen by the state legislatures. At least most of them, there were reforms that some states had done where they allowed the people to do it. But in essence, in the structure of the Constitution, is that the state legislatures would elect who would be the two U.S. senators. The idea behind that is the representatives in the House represented the people in their different districts, hence being re-elected every two years and having a smaller area to represent in a congressional district as opposed to the whole state. U.S. senators were, and really, frankly, are meant to represent a state in a state's interest specifically. And what that meant is there was less of an interest in giving more power to the federal government because the political incentives were different. Nowadays, the American people look to their U.S. senators and they're like, we want you to do stuff for us, do all these kinds of things. And they want to get reelected. So they're not focused on keeping the role, size, scope, power of the federal government less so the states would have more.

Instead, we're okay with giving anything to the federal government, the all-knowing, all-powerful federal government because our constituents want more. The political incentives are very, very different. Well, there's a whole structural discussion to have about the Constitution and how it sets up checks and balances, of course, and federalism with the federal government and state governments. And other things. The filibuster is not in the Constitution, but it is a method to slow the process down in the upper chamber, the U.S. Senate, so that you don't just ram things through but give more consideration. There's a reason that the Senate is considered and viewed as the upper chamber. It's in part because they represent the states. Of course, two of them statewide. But it's also because they're supposed to be a more deliberative body. And if you get rid of the filibuster, you get rid of that stopgap. I don't want a government that's constantly doing things, let alone doing things at rapid succession. We need a government that governs least, which governs best.

And boy, you get rid of the filibuster and Republicans take that lead. There's a reason why they didn't. And after pushing back against the urge before, Democrats get in power in the Senate and they have the same inclination, but they pulled back. They didn't do it. The minority relies upon the filibuster. It's a terrible idea in the long term. It will ruin Republicans' chances at stopping any growth and expansion in the government in so many areas if you just get rid of the filibuster. That would be perhaps the worst thing that the U.S. Senate pushed by President Trump could possibly do to get rid of the filibuster. Our text line, K-O-A, Common Spirit Health Text Line, 56699. What are your thoughts on all of this? I agree with the listener text. Ralph and Black Forest, the 16th through 19th Amendments are the worst disasters in U.S. history. Okay, I don't agree on the 19th Amendment. I'm all good with women having the right to vote. But the 16th, 17th amendments, absolutely disasters in particular. But we've got to take a break. We'll pick it up on the other side. Jimmy Sangenberger in from Andy Connell, K-O.A. We will be joined by two great guests, Thomas Barry of the Cato Institute, and Philip Magnus of the Independent Institute, not to be confused with our friends at the Independence Institute. And they're going to talk and offer insights on the U.S. Supreme Court's oral arguments over tariffs and President Trump's scheme on tariffs that happened a couple of days ago. I listened to the whole thing is really fascinating. It has to be among the longest oral arguments in a while. Usually they're, I think, 30 minutes for each side, if I recall correctly, and something along those lines. This is pretty darn long. Really interesting, a lot of insights and takeaways will get legal analysis and economic history on the other side. Be sure to stick around for that conversation. 56690 is the COA Common Spirit Health Text Line. If you want to join in to the festivities. Trump is not thinking what's best for the country. He's selfishly thinking about his legacy of getting things done, showing accomplishment, his personal sense of achievement, i.e. he says he's ended so many wars. So I agree to an extent, yes, Trump is constantly thinking about his legacy and what he leaves behind. But I do think that. By and large, he wants his legacy to be something remembered positively. He believes he's doing things for the most part that are right, that are appropriate, that are necessary for the American people. And so he wants to show accomplishment in that regard, not just that he's done stuff, but that he's done stuff he thinks are good cells, that he thinks are good for the American people.

So I think that there's a bit of a mix there. Yes, legacy, but also what is that legacy about? He doesn't just want to be known as the president who got things done, but the president who got things done that were good for the American people. Overall, not to say that everything he's done or doing, he has that mindset. But I don't think it's just accomplishment for the sake of accomplishment entirely. There's a big piece of that. But with Trump, it's always a mixed bag. One more thing before we go to break. Another text. Here's the strategy. Keep your opponents from doing anything, then accuse them of doing nothing. Yes, fair enough. Democrats stopping Republicans from doing anything, including ending the shutdown and getting a continuing resolution through, then accusing them of doing nothing. And that's sort of what Trump is responding to. With this whole filibuster discussion, very dangerous to talk about eliminating the filibuster. But that's the motivation for the strategy that you just laid out there in that simple text. Jimmy Sangenberger in for Mandy Connell, two hours up ahead as we continue on KLA. The Mandy Connell show is sponsored by Bell and Pollock Accident and Injury Lawyers. Now, it's Mandy Connell. Mandy Conno, Ruin the Day. On KLA, 8.50 a.m. 94-1 FM. Through the static and the noise, he cuts through the frame. Mandy Connell keeping ignorance at bay.

for the second hour. Jimmy Sangenberger covering for Mandy Connell on this Friday. So good to be with you as we dive into discussion about a couple of days ago, Wednesday, when the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral argument in the joined cases, not one case, on... President Trump's unilateral tariffs. This predominantly is focused on a statute that has been cited by the Trump administration. Aieppa, which is a the... International Emergency Economic Powers Act in 1977 law that the Trump administration says gives him the power to put into effect these unilateral tariffs on basically the entire world. Here's a little taste of some of the Supreme Court's discussions on Wednesday. It's a congressional power, not a presidential power, to tax. And you want to say tariffs are not taxes, but that's exactly what they are. They're generating money from American citizens' revenue. The exercise of the power is to impose tariffs, right? And the statute doesn't use the word tariffs. Congress is a practical matter. Can't get this power back once it's handed it over. The president has a one-way ratchet toward the gradual but continual accretion of power. in the executive branch and away from the people's elected representatives. That's a little bit of the U.S. Supreme Court. Justices Sotomayor, Chief Justice John Roberts, Justice. Samuel Alito, Samuel Alito as well. So how are we to look at this case and what's happening before the U.S. Supreme Court and the issues involved and whether or not the Trump administration actually does have grounds here? To break it all down, I'm pleased to have two different guests on from two vantage points to dive in. Philip W. Magnus is a senior fellow at the Independent Institute and the David J. Thoreau. chair in political economy. He's been a research fellow elsewhere, has been a prolific author of several books as well. I'm also pleased to be joined by Thomas A. Bari Weiss, director of the Robert A. Livy Center for Constitutional Studies and the editor-in-chief of the Cato Supreme Court Review. Gentlemen, welcome to KOA. It's good to talk with you both. Absolutely. Thanks for having us.

Yes, thanks for having me. Thank you both for coming on. So I will start with our legal expert for the beginning, and that would be you, Thomas A. Bari Weiss. Can you break down for us just if you boiled it down what the essence of this case is between the two sides? But the Trump administration is arguing in court and presented the other day and what the plaintiff suing the federal government have said. Absolutely. Well, thanks for having me. And if you'll permit me one brief correction, that third voice we heard talking about the accretion of presidential power was Neil Gorsuch, not saying to Samuel Alito. Excuse me. Thank you. I'm embarrassed. He's from Colorado. How could I? Gorsuch was much more skeptical of the administration than Samuel Alito was in the argument. Thank you for that clarification. In a nutshell, this is about, as you said, the text of AEPA, whether it allows President Trump to impose these tariffs that he started on so-called Liberation Day, as he put it, which have varied quite a bit. Not every tariff he's enacted is a part of this challenge because these lawsuits were filed months ago. So some of the newer ones might not be at issue, though their legal grounding might be undermined as well, depending on the reasoning the court issues. But Aipa, this 1970s statute essentially has a long list of verbs and nouns that the president can do if he finds that there's an extraordinary and unusual threat, and he declares a national emergency, and he claims that he needs to take this action to deal with it. So among all of those very long list of verbs, Some of them are quite broad, for example, nullify, void, prevent, or prohibit importation. So the president can say, you know, no one can import platinum or gold or tungsten or whatever from Vietnam or China or something like that. But the key word is among those verbs is regulate. So it says the president can impose an order to regulate and then among those. objects of the verbs is importation. And what the administration is hanging its hat on completely is that if you combine those two, regulate and then put in ellipses importation, that includes tariffs. The tariffs are essentially a regulation on importation and that they were necessary to deal with the extraordinary two threats, two national emergencies. One being the importation of fentanyl and the other being the so-called trade imbalance with various countries. And the administration's main argument that they made repeatedly in oral arguments is that they don't want these tariffs. The purpose of these isn't to raise revenue. This is what they're claiming now, though. President Trump has said some things at odds with this, but their legal argument now is the purpose of this isn't to raise revenue. It's to provide leverage to change people's behavior, and that the hope is that either other countries will stop the flow of fentanyl, and thus we won't need the tariffs anymore. So essentially, the punishment ends. or that manufacturing will increase in the U.S. the trade imbalance will go away, and the things that we were importing just voluntarily won't be imported anymore, and once again, tariffs won't be imposed. So that's the administration's argument in a nutshell, is that they're dealing with these two extraordinary threats by regulating importation, and tariffs count as among the things encompassed by the verb regulate.

Let's talk for a moment, Philip Magnus, about that aspect of this idea of a regulatory terrorist versus revenue raising tariffs, because that is part of the distinction that the administration is addressing per what Thomas Bari Weiss just told us. And it's interesting to me to hear this at the same time, Phil, that the administration, particularly President Trump, has been touting all kinds of revenue coming into the federal government. Look how much money we've. made in America from these tariffs, but before the Supreme Court, oh, no, this is about regulatory terrorists, not about making money. Right, right. So Trump has actually contradicted in flip-flops several times on this particular point, including in some of his own court filings, and certainly his economic advisors, public documents that they've released. Trump has been touting. that these tariffs, the IEPA tariffs that are being challenged right now, are projected to raise between about $2.8 and $4 trillion in new tax revenue over the next decade. And even as his lawyers are arguing this before the court... The White House is tweeting out media clips of President Trump bragging about all the revenue that's coming in. If you have an internal contradiction in messaging here, although one of them they're arguing for a legal reason because they think if the court accepts these tariffs as regulatory powers, they'll be granted more deference in leeway in the international arena. The reason being that the tax power is so explicitly... tied to what Congress does in Article 1, even though that's also where the Commerce Regulation Power comes from, but the tax power itself is fundamentally seen as something that our representatives in an elected body are supposed to have direct and exclusive oversight on. So Trump wants to run away from the tax claims in court, even while he's making them in public. And kind of dovetailing in with that, I want to ask you real quick of Phil Magnus, because you were tweeting about this on X as well, going back into the early mid, well, still pretty early. 1800s during the nullification crisis. And you had the debate that was going on there and some things you were pointing out about John C. Calhoun, who's a former vice president of the United States, the seventh vice president of the United States. Talk to us a little bit about what you're noticing from the solicitor general. That would be the Trump administration's lawyer, John Sauer, and what he argued to the Supreme Court and John C. Calhoun from 200 years ago. Well, it's the interesting thing. We've had all of these arguments play out before. It goes back to the earliest days of the Republic because James Madison, basically the main figure in the design of the Constitution and the main record keeper at the convention, introduces the first tariff bill in 1789. And in his opening speech, he says, this tariff achieves two things. One is it raises revenue, two, it regulates commerce.

And Madison's point was that tariffs are actually a joint exercise of these two powers under Congress. They are both taxes and regulation. And for your economic followers out there, we also know that the economics of tariffs work in this exact way. You put a tax in place. It raises revenue, but it also discourages importation at the same time, thereby regulating it. So it's a simultaneous exercise of these powers. Well, John C. Calhoun, in 1828, the U.S. Congress passed something referred to as the tariff of abominations. It was an extremely high protective tariff following the philosophy of Henry Clay to basically wall off America from foreign competition and protect our industries. In Calhoun... basically made the same argument. He says, this is a regulatory tariff. This is not a revenue tariff, even though it was listed as the Revenue Act of 1828. But Calhoun's point was, you can only pick one of these two clauses at a time. It's either a revenue tariff or a regulatory tariff. And he had further arguments. He said, if this is a regulatory tariff, it's unconstitutional because it doesn't fulfill the tax power. Madison is still alive in this time, and he's still writing commentaries on these debates. to his friends and close associates. And we have several letters from him. Madison rebukes essentially the Calhoun position. He says, no, these are joint powers exercise simultaneously because every tariff does both things. It raises revenue and it regulates commerce. And quite honestly, I would choose the words of the father of the Constitution over John C. Calhoun, particularly on that one. Again, we're joined by Philip Magnus, who's an economic historian and by constitutional scholar Thomas Bari Weiss. And Thomas, I want to come back to you because one of the things that I've noticed, and I think you've observed this too, is that... President Trump's administration has been searching around what's the legal justification we can find for the broadest tariffs possible? We saw a similar thing with Joe Biden and his presidency on things like in particular the student loans issue. Can you speak to that in presidents looking for a legal justification for their chosen expansions of presidential authority? Yeah, that's exactly right. And this is the reason why the Supreme Court has over the last decade or so developed a named doctrine. It's come to be called the major questions doctrine. And it gets at a common sense idea, which is that if the president starts with a policy goal in mind, and he very, President Trump very much had that goal in mind, he wanted tariffs, he made that clear before he was being elected, if he starts with a policy goal in mind and then goes hunting. for an old statute to enact it because he can't get Congress to give him what he wants, you should be more skeptical about whether that legal argument is correct, especially if that old statute has been around for a while, but has never been used in the way that the president is now using it.

So we saw this play out under President Biden with student loan forgiveness. This was a major issue in the 2020 election. He had a lot of pressure from his base to enact student loan forgiveness. Bills were introduced in Congress, but none of them could get passed. So he uses an uncontroversial old statute enacted during the 2003 Iraq War. and claims that it allows him to, it takes a very general term, waiver, modify provisions related to student loans, and claims that modify encompasses essentially a wholesale change in the structure of the student loan system, including forgiving billions and billions of dollars in debt. And the Supreme Court rightly struck that down, and all of the reasoning of the six justices who voted to strike that down applies just as much, if not more, here. And in fact, we heard John Roberts, Chief Justice. who's been the biggest proponent of the major questions doctrine, asking some pointed questions of the Solicitor General about whether the major questions doctrine should apply here as well. So I think all of that reasoning that of all six justices who joined that student loan's opinion should lead them if they're being consistent to strike down these tariffs. Let me ask you a little more about that, Thomas Barry, particularly justices. Samuel Alito, who you corrected me on before, and yes, absolutely was much more sort of friendly to the government's side, which I found interesting. And Clarence Thomas, who, you know, he's been speaking a lot more since COVID. He didn't say a word for decades that suddenly started to ask questions. And the few questions he asked were. We're not so averse to this. So talk to me a little bit about how you view the conservative justices and their interpretation. What could be here, especially from their questions, and whether they will or will not, I mean, obviously I'm not asking you for crystal ball, may or may not, line up with what they concluded in the student loans case that you just mentioned. Right. Samuel Alito definitely seemed to be on the administration side. And it seems that to Samuel Alito, the difference here is the foreign policy aspect of this. Samuel Alito asked a lot of pointed questions about what if we have, you know, we're on the verge of a hot war with China or we have a hostage in a hostile foreign country like China that we're trying to use leverage to get them out. Shouldn't the president have the maximum number of tools at his disposal? to put leverage on these foreign countries to negotiate with them. So I'm guessing if Samuel Alito, I hope, writes a dissent, not a majority opinion, supporting the government, he would argue that this is different from the student loans case because statutes giving presidents negotiating power with foreign countries should be interpreted more expansively, given that the way the separation of powers is designed, it is understood that the president is the lead negotiator with foreign countries, is the person who often makes quick decisions when an emergency arises unexpectedly. Nonetheless, my response to that would be we have had 200 years of presidents having many tools at their disposal for leverage, but tariffs have never been one of them in terms of unilateral presidential policymaking. We've always relied on Congress to be the one to spell out explicitly in...

statutes what the tariff rates are going to be. So Congress really has always treated tariffs as a different kind of thing because they're not just foreign policy. They're also taxes on Americans. Now, that's a great point, Thomas Barry, and I would tend to agree, although Phil Magnus, there's an argument from President Trump and his supporters that... The reason why Trump is using tariffs in this way is because he views it as a negotiation tool in a way that past presidents had not and therefore is justified in going about it in this way. How do you respond to that? Well, he's been a very erratic and unreliable negotiator here because he keeps setting terms or claiming he comes to deals with other countries. And then a week later, he gets mad at the prime minister of that other country or a government official. He gets mad because Canada runs a TV ad quoting Ronald Reagan and decides that the deal is off and he's going to change the rate. And I think what this highlights is there's a deeper problem in Trump's approach to IEPA. He likes IEPA because he can change it on a whim with an executive order. But that also means any and all of these deals that he has claimed to have secured with foreign countries have no enforcement mechanism. They're not worth the paper that they're written on if they're even written on paper at all. They're outside of the bounds. of the traditional way of doing free trade agreements, which was there was a formal document, an agreement drafted, and it was put before Congress, and often Congress would have to vote on it to accept the terms of that agreement. Trump's done absolutely none of that, and it's just relying on the perpetuity of his own executive orders to keep these supposed deals in place. Well, you just got a few minutes left. I want to ask each of you a different final question. A real quick, Phil Magnus, I'll throw it back to you on the argument about trade imbalances and how they're now viewed as a national emergency. And that is per the arguments presented in court as well before the Supreme Court this week, that this is part of the justification. Is the trade imbalance that we have with a given country a national security matter? It is absolutely not, and you would not be able to find any credible mainstream economists who would support that proposition. In fact, we've run trade deficits for basically the last 50 years. We've run trade deficits for as long as IEPA has been in place. And never once until Donald Trump invented this new power, did anyone try to use IEPA to counter this supposed emergency. And the economics behind it, it just comes down to basically the president and his team. They don't understand basic accounting in the international arena. They only see goods and services coming in or going out of the country. They don't look at all the other financial instruments.

People are not giving us stuff for free and they're not taking stuff away from us. There's always an exchange. And if you do a full accounting of what crosses borders, by definition, it's like if I were to pay my bill at the grocery store, there's no trade deficit that occurs because I offer money in return for goods or vice versa. If someone comes into a store that I own and they give me money for something that I give them as a physical product, it actually comes out to a balance. Finally, appreciate that answer, Phil Magnus. Thomas A. Bari Weiss, let me just ask you briefly to talk a bit about the implications of what the Supreme Court might decide. How do you think this may or may not go down and what could it mean for the long term, particularly insofar as we consider presidential power? Sure. Well, I was in the audience during the Supreme Court argument trying to predict the votes, count the justices see who's giving more skeptical questions. I counted at least five votes that I think are leaning against the administration, the three Democratic appointees plus justices Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett. And I could definitely see Chief John Roberts voting against the administration as well, given his interest in the major questions doctrine. And perhaps Brett Kavanaugh, who seemed to be a genuine swing vote. He seemed genuinely... concerned and pained by both sides and really deep in the weeds of some of the precedents. So if I had to guess, I guess somewhere between five and seven votes against the administration, but a lot will depend on how they write the opinion. Do they try to work through all of the implications of how the refunds might work for every party in the country? Or do they simply say the named parties in this case are entitled to a refund will leave it to the lower courts to deal? with claims for refunds by every other affected person. If I had the guess, I would guess that they would do the latter. The Supreme Court usually takes the approach of less and more. So there's certainly going to be much more litigation to follow no matter what. And, of course, there are many other statutes that President Trump may use and has said he probably will to try to enact terror, some more plausible than others. So we're likely to have litigation, not just about AEPA, but about other statutes going forward. Years ahead of Supreme Court, potentially or at least legal arguments over different justifications for tariffs. Oh, what joy. Thomas A. Bari Weiss, director of the Cato Institute's Robert A. Levy Center for Constitutional Studies and Philip W. Magnus Independent Institute, Senior Fellow and Economic Historian, thank you both so much for your time. Really interesting discussion and appreciate it today. Thanks for having us. Thanks for having you both. Once again, Jimmy Sangenberger filling in for Mandy Connell. What are your thoughts on that conversation? K-O-A Common Spirit Health text line is a buzz at 56690. We'll pick it up on the other side as we continue on K-O-A. Really enjoy the conversation with Thomas A. Bari Weiss and Philip W. Magnus back in the last segment. As we dove in depth on the Supreme Court case before, well, before the Supreme Court, over President Trump's tariffs, unilateral tariffs on a slew of different things. That is to say, goods all across the globe. Countries all across the globe. He says it's a...

But we'll see. We'll see what happens. Listener texts coming in, one of which I found really interesting. If Colorado laws applied, all Trump would need to do is change the name from tariff to fee. Funny you should say that. You're right. All he would need to do is just say that. And it would pass state constitutional muster. But I actually wrote a column about this just a few weeks ago. In the Denver Gazette, it was entitled, look for it, Denver Gazette.com, go to the columns page, scroll down a bit, fees tariffs, taxes by another name. And I particularly was highlighting U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who was asked why President Trump's tariffs are not taxes on imported goods. He said, that's easy, because tariffs are a surcharge, not a tax. They could be paid by the exporter. They could be paid by the country, which, by the way, is straight up nonsense. Just as fees generally are that we've seen new fees go into effect all kinds. Think about the fees on DoorDash deliveries and Amazon deliveries. Or the gas fee that they put in place that is the same as a gas tax, but they call it a fee. So apparently it's okay. And they don't have to go to the people for a vote. Well, tariffs are, by literal definition, taxes on imported goods. The founding fathers knew that. Let's go back to James Madison in 1789 with his tariff act. Let's go to every economic textbook. I remember when I was minoring in economics at Regis University, where I was a student from 08 to 2011. Graduated in 2011, we studied tariffs as a tax. Well, whether a tariff shows up as a duty at a port or gets slapped on a customs form is irrelevant. Calling a tax at surcharge doesn't make it any less of a tax. It makes the salesman sound slick. When I go to the store and I buy a dozen eggs and I pay sales tax on checkout, is that suddenly not a tax because it appears as a surcharge on the receipt? I mean, please, spare me. And by the way, Scott Bessent, the Treasury Secretary had previously acknowledged that it was in essence a tax and that it's the importer who pays it. Not by the exporter, but by the importer. As in American companies. And on and on it goes. And I make the direct comparison to the left trying to make a fee into a tax, or rather a tax into a fee. By saying, oh, we don't have to go to a vote of the people because this is just a fee. It's the same kind of concept. Same kind of concept. Oh, I love this text on the hotline, or text line, 56690. Tariffs are great. The results will show it. Get rid of your TDS. I don't know. After his first, after voting for him in 2016, I voted for him again in 2020 and then I voted for him again in 2024. I've got a funny way of showing TDS. Don't you think? Being a three-time Trump voter as I am.

Another, Jimmy, trade imbalance is a measure of the difference between U.S. dollar in and U.S. dollar out. It's not simply a measure of goods versus dollars paid for them. Yeah. So every trade deficit that you have has a financial flow that's opposite of that. And actually, there's a reason why, if you delve in and this actually goes a little bit to what Phil Magnus said in the last segment. If you delve into this a bit, it tends to be that the larger trade deficit America has, the better we are doing economically. Just go look at the cross tabs of that. And you'll see that's what the economic data has borne out for a very long time. Higher the trade deficit we run? Better the economy is actually doing. And one more text before we've run to a break. Here's a good example of how Trump's policy makes no sense. I work for a large multinational manufacturer. We have paid millions in tariffs and we pass at least some of this along to our customers. Soybean farmers have been hit hard and the same president who levies tariffs on us then needs to subsidize farmers. Totally ridiculous, but what do you expect from a serial bankruptcy guy? Well, yes or no, regardless of the personal financial history of the president, you're right, that he has a policy that had screwed over soybean farmers. Look, these are guys who are planning out. They have to know well in advance what their crops are going to need to, what they're going to need as far as their output. months in advance. And so they end up getting a lot more produced than they're able to sell overseas and whatnot because of that's where so many of their purchases are from, China, for example. So then they're screwed over and then Trump has to say, well, we're going to give you farmers money. I mean, what? What? It's like FDR during the Great Depression. Oh, we know that you guys have a surplus, so we're going to go ahead and pay you. And that actually caused all kinds of economic problems, adding to the Depression, like all of the other policies of FDR, one of the worst domestic policy presidents in the history of this country, FDR. He gets way too much credit, especially in public schools, as though he's the hero of the Depression when he was the one who exacerbated the Great Depression. But I digress. I'm Jimmy Sangenberger, filling in for Mandy Connell. Lots more to go as we continue on K-OA. Next Saturday, November 15th, 8 p.m., the Jimmy Jr. Blues Band will be performing at Cactus Jacks in Evergreen. Come on out. Really excited for this show. That would be on November 15th, not this Saturday, but next Saturday at Cactus Jacks in Evergreen. We've got more gigs coming up in December and even on New Year's Eve when we'll be playing at.

T-birds in Wheatridge. So good times coming. Hope to see you there. Cactus Jacks in Evergreen next Saturday, November 15th. Real quick, I want to respond to one text. I was going to move on, but I want to go COA Common Spirit Health Text line. 56690. The sales tax example on eggs is not analogous to a tariff. Sales tax is a fixed 8% on purchases where an unknown amount of the tariff will be passed on to the customer depending on the elasticity of demand. A couple of things. The one, this, if you're just joining us, has to do with a comparison I made when Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent recently said that tariffs aren't taxes, their surcharges. And that's what I was making a comparison of. Are you going to say that a sales tax is a surcharge on eggs or any other product you buy at the store because it's tacked on afterwards? Yeah, a tariff is not the same structurally as a sales tax, but it's the same exact principle put on after the fact. Now, it varies, and some of it will be passed. Some of the customers, some of it won't. But I'm talking about in terms of the company, the company, the importer is what is being taxed. That is a tax on the company, a sales tax, in effect, on the company. Receiving the product to then resell it. I'm just talking about word games and the use of the term surcharge, not about some of the other facets to that. Now, it is interesting real quickly, President Trump. talking about this message to Republicans about how they should be talking about groceries, energy, inflation. I think of groceries. You know, it's an old-fashioned word, but it's a beautiful word. A beef we have to get down, but we've got prices way down. And think of this energy. She drives a car, probably, and her energy prices are way down. And energy is so all-encompassing. It's so big that when energy goes down, everything comes down. Everything follows it. And I have energy down to five, six-year lows now. You think prices are coming? down from this. You believe that? Yeah, I think they're coming down, but I think they're down already. I think the biggest problem is Republicans don't talk about it. They don't talk about the word affordability. And the Democrats lie about it. Look, when I took over and I said this. Inflation was so bad under Biden. Remember he had the Inflation Reduction Act. It was a... 9%. It was a scam. And he tried to lower inflation, but he caused the inflation, and he tried to lower the inflation. He took over my economy where inflation was at 1%, which is perfect. 1%. He drove it 9 or 10 times higher than that in a short period of time. When I took over, it was a mess.

I have inflation way down. I have it down to a normal number right now. Lower than a normal number, in my opinion. Okay. Well, it's interesting how he wants to talk about. I will say this. Energy is down. And he's right. That makes a big impact. And it is particularly because the Trump energy policy is pro-economy, pro-growth. and allowing the unleashing of oil and gas, which is exactly what we need. And his energy policy is some of the best that we could have. And by the way, Chris Wright, the energy secretary, right from here in Colorado. Jimmy Sangenberger in for Mandy Connell, another hour up ahead here on K. The Mandy Connell show is sponsored by Bell and Pollock accident and injury lawyers. Now, it's Mandy Connell. 8.50 a.m. 94.1 FM. Through the static and the noise he cuts through the frame. Bend E. Connell keeping ignorance at bay.

And final hour, Jimmy Sangenberger here with you in for Mandy Connell. Good to have you along for the ride on this Friday. Of course, Monday's brand new schedule here on K-O-A begins. Colorado's morning news from 5 to 6, then 6 to 9. Ross Kaminsky on the news with Tina Kotek and then Michael Brown over here. From K-HAL, from 9 to noon now on K-O-A. And then, of course, Mandy continues noon to 3, rounding out the more news-oriented political talk before the station heads on into sports. By the way, I haven't mentioned yet. 24-7-365, you want to follow along with my latest content, columns I'm writing, publishing, or... When the Jimmy Junior Blues Band has gigs, like I just talked about, we're playing at Cactus Jackson Evergreen next Saturday the 15th at 8 p.m. Well, you can find those gigs and more as well off of my website, jimmsangenberger.com, where you can also email me 24-7-365. Jimmysangenberger.com. Keep in mind there's no AI or you in Sangenberger. It's all ease all the time. Once you know that, Sangenberger is easy. We talked a bit about the economy and tariffs, actually, that dominated the last hour. But here's some interesting data on the economy right now that may help to explain some of Tuesdays. Election results as well across the country that were not good for Republicans. This from the Wall Street Journal. Consumer sentiment declined in November with the University of Michigan's index falling to 50.3 from 53.6. The continuing government shutdown is a key factor in consumers increased worries about potential negative economic consequences. with near-term inflation expectations rising while longer run inflation expectations decreased in the November survey. Joanne Sue, the surveys director said with the federal government shutdown dragging on for over a month, consumers are now expressing worries about potential negative consequences for the economy. So that's one of the effects, of course, is the government shutdown, which President Trump has interestingly, as Republicans dig in, and I think rightly so, Republicans had dug in.

to say, look, we're going to hold the line here because it's the Democrats who are responsible for the shutdown. Because the Democrats want these subsidies for Obamacare that are set to expire at the end of this year because the Democrats themselves set the subsidies to expire at the end of this year. because they wanted to make the math work at the time. Republicans want to adjust how those subsidies are done, but it's not something that you can do with a continuing resolution. They want to address it after the CR to allow the continuing resolution, of course, funds the government and allows operations to continue. But Democrats have dug in and said, no, no, no, we're not going to reopen the government. and pass the CR until you agree to this and allow for the funding of these subsidies that Republicans fundamentally disagree with how they're done and it's happening to the end of this year. Well, even President Trump has now recognized that Republicans are getting the blame. And that shouldn't be surprising, even though they're not to blame, because of these primary to blame. Both parties fundamentally are to blame. But it's the Democrats predominantly who are. And President Trump has recognized that probably because he's the president, but he will not take responsibility for it. He will never say, of course, it's because he's the president. But he will say Republicans, the polls show Republicans are getting blamed for the shutdown and that's a big reason why they're lost on Tuesday. And there's certainly some truth to that. There is also truth to the Trump effect. I think there's a lot of negativity about President Trump among people who dislike him. And that means they're more galvanized than animated to go out and vote. And that's a big piece. And then when consumer sentiment is down and people are worried about the economy because of the shutdown or because of other things. Well, that may make them more inclined to make their voices heard at the ballot box. Speaking of Tuesday's results, Bernie Sanders, saying, Zohran Mamdani, the mayor elect of New York City, he ain't a kami. Iran Mamnani is not a communist. Maybe Trump might want to read a book or two. He did quote Eugene Debs in the beginning of his speech last night. Who was, as I hope you know, what is the great socialist leaders in our country, one of the great. unsung heroes of American history, man who spent his life fighting for working people and opposing unjust wars. He was not a communist. He was a democratic socialist. So maybe Mr. Trump might want to study up, read a book or two, I don't know if he reads books, and learn a little bit about what democratic socialism is about. Well, first of all, I see nary very little difference. I'll say very, not nary. Very little difference between socialism and communism at bottom.

But I think Zohran Mamdani can accurately be described as a communist. To me, there's no question. But fine, if you want to say no, he's a socialist, to me, that makes no difference. Because they're both bad. Now, I remember during Obama's term, Republicans would say, Obama's a socialist. Look at what he's doing. He's socializing medicine. He's this and that. And it wasn't the case. He's far to the left compared to past presidents, at least the past several decades, like Bill Clinton, for example, farther left for sure than Clinton was. By today's standards, Clinton was actually a relatively conservative president in many respects. Barack Obama was far from it. But he was no socialist. Here is an instance where communist socialist, whatever you want to call it, for Zohran Mamdani, for Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, for Bernie Sanders. I don't care how you slice it. Their ideology is dangerous and wrong for America, and New York City could well get screwed. Although I will say this as we go to break. I will say that I'm less worried about the economic prospects of New York City and what Zohran Mamdani can do in that regard than I am about public safety and particularly safety for Jews, by the way. I don't think he's going to be very apt to guarantee that to the extent nearly that he should. I think we've seen enough indications of that. I hope I'm wrong. But in terms of public safety and support of law enforcement, that's the issue that's going to be bad for New York City compared to, oh, is he going to be able to turn grocery stores into being state run or some of the other things that he wants to do that are outrageous expansions of government that take more of the city council involvement? I think that's going to be trickier. And you're going to see less of that and more concerns about public safety and so forth. That'll be legitimate. I'm Jimmy Sangenberger. Again, in for Mandy Connell. We'll pick it up on the other side on K-O-A. Corrupt land deal happening in Lakewood, Jefferson County, involving the school district, the city, and a nonprofit. Over an elementary school that has been closed, Emery Elementary in the property there, we will have in studio, Anita Springsteen, an attorney, former city councilwoman, and the plaintiff in a lawsuit that was just resolved on Monday, allowing the city to move forward with votes related to this purchase. We'll pick it up at the bottom of the hour with her on that. You do not want to miss. this absolutely crazy story. By the way, since I've been teasing a little bit about music and the Jimmy Jr. Blues band playing Cactus Jacks next Saturday the 15th, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention my friends at the Colorado Country Music Hall of Fame, which this coming Sunday, November 9th from 2 to 6 p.m.

are holding a showcase. The Ladies of Country Music All-Star Showcase at Wild Goose Saloon, which is a really cool place, a fantastic venue for live music. They've got the Hall of Fame band backing them up. And over 20 ladies of country music in Colorado, extremely talented women will be performing. I should be there this coming Sunday. $10 cover supports the Country Music Hall of Fame. This is at Wild Goose Saloon in Parker Sunday from 2 to 6 p.m. They do great work at the Country Music, Colorado Country Music Hall of Fame. One other tidbit. I am struck by this. The FAA, Federal Aviation Administration, is slashing flights. Yes, they're reducing the number of flights that can happen in every airport. Across 40 different airports in particular, I believe DIA is included among those airports. And this is going to be putting a snag, massive snag for travelers everywhere. Keep that in mind. It is insane. What is the fix? What is the solution? Is it just to open the government once again? To end the shutdown? No. Hell no. In fact, there's a great editorial a couple of days ago from the Wall Street Journal. Free the air traffic controllers. Bottom line, they should spin it off from the federal government. No longer have the FAA be part of the federal government, privatize the entity, change the nature of the relationship. And it will work much better and they won't be held every however many years held down to the mercy of the all-knowing, all-powerful federal government and whether or not Congress and the president can get their act together and do what must be done when it comes to keeping the government open. And they write that a nonprofit outfit could be more nimble in upgrading antiquated air traffic systems. The government could still regulate the safety aspects of the job, but spinning off the controllers would free them from pointless political constraints, including the fact that they're not getting paid at the moment because 60 senators can't agree to do their job of funding federal public agencies. Government shutdowns are rarely productive, but letting them cripple national travel is deft. I'm Jimmy Sangenberger in for Andy Connell. The time is flying by one more segment up ahead on K-O-A.

Seeing shadows everywhere. There's shady business going on here. Seeing shadows everywhere. Tell me what are you supposed to do? the Jimmy Jr. Blues band doing a little shady business going on. An original tune by yours truly. As we wrap up and wind down the show, filling in for Mandy Connell, Jimmy Sangenberger, glad to be with you. And look, when it comes to shady business, there's a heck of a lot going on in government right now, all across the board, top to bottom. And that includes locally, which is part of the reason why you may see it talking about Denver public schools or talking about the city of Lakewood, as we will now. In columns I write for the Denver Gazette, where I will say there's shady business going on in this situation or whatnot or reference shady business. Yeah, I have my song in mind. But it's because there is shady business happening. And you can follow along with a lot of this from my coverage in the Denver Gazette. And what is this I'm talking about? Well, a few years ago, Jefferson County Schools closed a number of district schools. One of them is Emery Elementary in Lakewood, which just before they closed the school, the district spent $2.6 million to upgrade the school building. Then they closed it. Then the question is, what do you do with the school? with the property and the land surrounding it. The answer should be open up to private bidding, allow municipalities to have their say and to pitch their offers, allow private developers to do that, allow charter schools the opportunity to say, hey, we'd like to bid on this property because it's already zoned for a school. Well, Jefferson County School said, that's not what we're going to do. Instead, we're going to create this new process called municipal interest. And we're going to say there's no private bidding. The only one that gets to say if they want this property and to present a bid and to negotiate is the city of Lakewood. And this was a process that began in January of last year. Most people were unaware of what was happening in the prospect of a deal until April of this year when the city council voted to authorize the $4 million purchase of Emery Elementary and the surrounding land by the city manager. Kathy Hodgson, go ahead and... Take the opportunity and negotiate this. And it gets even more interesting from there, especially when last fall of last year in September, the city council went into two illegal executive sessions that were not properly noticed, which is where my in studio guest comes into play. Anita Springsteen is an attorney and former city councilwoman in Lakewood who sued.

the city of Lakewood over these illegal executive sessions saying you didn't give proper notice you didn't specify what these negotiations which is what they put in the notice are about and in state law open meetings laws you're supposed to give particular details then a trial was set in February of this year for October 28th Well, the city council had some other votes they had to do, including selling Emery Elementary before they even completed the purchase of Emery Elementary. Imagine that. You go and you say, you know what, we're going to sell this property before we complete the purchase of the property. Like, are you going to do that? How can you even make that determination? Well, needless to say, a judge. in Lakewood, put the kibosh temporarily and delayed the process with an injunction saying we're not going to allow these votes to proceed. And eventually a determination was made from the judge earlier this week saying, actually it's okay. We're going to allow these sales to move or these proceedings to move forward from the city council. They had other votes to sell the school before they even bought it. And to buy the property for a nonprofit. I haven't mentioned yet. The Action Center that provides different community services and they're going to buy the property. of Emory Elementary for $1 million. Now, the property of Emery is worth up to $12 million. Lakewood's buying it for four. Emery is being sold to the Action Center, the building, for $1 million. Meanwhile, the city is going to move ahead and buy the action centers to current buildings for up to $4 million. and lease it to them temporarily while the elementary school is purchased and all of that completes. It is complicated. It is convoluted. It took a long setup before I could welcome my guest, Anita Springsteen. Anita, welcome to the show. Good to have you in studio. Thank you for having me. Thanks for joining us. So. I tried laying out as much as I could in a few minutes' time. What did I miss? What other aspects to this or do you think are worth mentioning? And then we'll get to some of what you've done with filing lawsuits and so forth. So I think a couple of things worth mentioning is that the judge did find that the city erred in the public notice to go into executive session. So the city is required to properly notice a session like that because it's behind closed doors and not in the public purview. The judge found that they erred, but she went on to say that it was just.

a clerical error and harmless and therefore not even a slap on the rest for the city and what i was attempting to do was to hold the city accountable because during my time on council i saw that time after time after time things were kept from the public and there were decisions made behind closed doors all the time. And so I thought this was clear enough that there would be no problem to push that through as an error. Well, I mean, that was essentially creating a new law. And I'm going to appeal it because it's a strict standard. There is nothing in the law that says. you know, that the judge can decide why the error was made and make decisions. Either the error was made or not. And the other thing I'd like to point out is the judge mentioned on that day that... She lives, she's a neighbor of Pam Breyer, who is the CEO of the Action Center. And they're in the same book club together. And the judge didn't mention this until after the trial was over. And. That's a very concerning aspect of this to me. Let me just clarify here. So last Tuesday you had the trial. Yes. And then I think it was also to note Thursday among the different statements that Lakewood had filed included one from Pam Breyer, the CEO of the Action Center. And then Monday morning of this week, you get together for this additional hearing on the injunction, whether or not the votes. could proceed on the different aspects that I mentioned. And at the beginning of that proceeding, but after the trial... is when the judge just closed this personal relationship with the president and CEO of the Action Center nonprofit that stands to buy. Emery Elementary worth up to, I would say, $11 million when we subtract out the land for $1 million. That is correct. Wow. Yeah. Wow. I am pretty stunned by that. By the way, the judge is Megan a mallude or me loud. So that's a surprising aspect to this. Let's talk about the executive session piece for a moment. You had, and I interviewed him for my columnism in the Denver Gazette, another former Lakewood City Councilman, Richard Over, as one of the folks that testified in your case.

And he had an affidavit he submitted, which he also told me about this, that when these executive sessions happened in September of last year, he himself voted no because he as a member of the council did not know what they were going to be discussing behind closed doors. Exactly. He expressed in testimony that he had a lot of concerns because constituents were calling him saying, What is this meeting about? And he couldn't tell them. So he voted no to go into executive session. There was a lot of discussion about was policy made during this executive session where positions taken? And he testified that yes, in fact, that happened. That is not supposed to happen in an executive session. So. He was already expressing problems with it. I would like to note that the public notice excluded the section of the statute that references that they're going to be discussing sale of real estate. And I believe that that was intentional and deliberate. And the reason I say that is. When the council convenes for the public meeting prior to going into the executive session, where they make a vote about going in and a motion is set forth, they do mention the section of the statute that has to do with the sale of real property. But the public isn't really going to see that. What they're going to see is the public notice that was noticed 24 hours in advance on the agenda. And so it's my contention that they knew they should mention that extra piece of information. And they deliberately didn't because they didn't want to tip off the public that they were talking about anything to do with real estate. Now, the city council would say in response, well, Okay, that may have happened. They may accept clerical error. I don't know if they've accepted any wrongdoing in the case of that. But they would say and have said, we've had a ton of public meetings. We had, of course, the meetings on all of these ordinances where the public could come and make comment. We've had other community meetings with the Action Center. That's the nonprofit that will buy the building, Emery Elementary, and other public meetings. It has not been enclosed doors at the very least since September of 2024. What are you saying in response to that? Well, I'd like to, I mean, first of all, I know as a city counselor the propaganda that they sat forth about these public meetings. The truth is the public has very, very little say in anything that happens and any ordinances that are passed. And for instance, Dr. Byrne, who owns a veterinary clinic, tried to go in for the public meeting October 13th. She had to wait like five hours for a three-minute comment. So when you say that's a robust public process, that's a lie. It's a myth. Not only that, I would say.

As I mentioned in the beginning, it took me five minutes just to detail some of the basics. This is a very complicated real estate arrangement that involves the school district selling a property to the city and then the city reselling the property to a nonprofit while simultaneously buying property. current property owned by the nonprofit and then separately leasing that property to the nonprofit. I feel like I'm just speaking mummo jumbo in listening that out. So how is the average person supposed to really understand that, especially when we're also talking a real estate deal in the millions of dollars? Exactly. And not only that, but... There was testimony from the director of planning on Monday when I asked. How was it decided? It would be a $4 million deal that went into the ordinance in April. I said, how did the council know ahead of time what the appraised value of the property was? Did you give them an appraisal? He said, no. And then later, you know, did they even know what the value was? But, you know, to me, kind of the point is, The school district has their handout begging for money. They want a mill levy. They keep saying they're in a budget crisis. We had a situation here at Evergreen High School where the district apparently didn't have enough money to hire a full-time SRO to protect our children. And yet they... seem to be saying that they have the ability to give away valuable property. They're in a $66 million deficit, I think. And. That is astonishing and they have all this property to sell. And they literally, the school district literally said, we're not accepting private bids for Emery. We're doing a municipal interest process and only allowing Lakewood to be a part of this. And then funny money, playing funny money with the whole thing, valued it up to $12 million potentially, selling it to the city for $4 million. But here's the thing. Mayor and City Council put out a statement a few days ago, and they said this. The financial terms of this project are both fair and forward-looking and represent investments in the community for significant public benefits. The city negotiated a $4 million purchase price for the 17-acre Emery property.

$3 million for 7.2 acres of open space the city will retain, and $1 million for the former site, which will be resold to the Action Center for the same $1 million. I am stunned because the assessment from the county assessor puts the building at the bulk of this, about $11 million in value and the land for less than a million dollars. And not only that, but the school district had put $2.6 million into upgrades for the building. And somehow the city is claiming that $3 million is for the land. And the other million dollars is for the building, which is really just a nice way for them to say, no, we're only selling to the action center, the amount that we think the 10-acre building is worth. Well, and that's part of the question. Why was there only one? NGO considered here why was it only the action center why are they the preferred favorite um essentially they're getting it for free because the city's buying their other property and you know everybody wants to talk about well they want to deflect from the issue and say well this is wonderful it's for the public good it's for the community and here's what i ask since when Did the school district's mission change from serving? the education of our children to charity. And when did the city's mission change from serving the needs of the citizens of Lakewood to basically representing a non-governmental organization? Now next week, Jefferson County Schools, the school board, I think it's next week, will be taking up a vote on selling Emery. You have filed a notice of claim in regards to that, to say, okay, maybe try and stop that. What can you tell us about that aspect of this, especially given the fiduciary responsibility the district has the taxpayers? Well, on September 12th, I served them with that notice of claim, which was just to put them on notice that there could be further legal proceedings if they... just blow up their fiduciary duty by making this sale. Not only is there a problem with the numbers and that they're giving away significant millions of dollars that belong to the school district. But I also feel that they are circumventing state law, which requires if they're going to give a building to an NGO. that they need to make findings the building is no longer needed. So it feels unethical to me that they would go through this municipal process when everybody knows that it's just to give the building away to somebody else. But yeah, I stated in that, I sort of stated all of the statutes that I think they're violating, which include fiduciary duty. I feel like...

There could be money laundering going on. I feel like this could be a RICO case. And I'd like to see an investigation by the Attorney General, by the Department of Justice, by, you know, whatever at the state. And I got one more question for you because we're out of time, but I do want to say. It was striking to me that the city is now claiming that the appraisal that they got for the existing property that the Action Center owns, that the city is going to buy. That was appraised at $4 million when the assessed value for the two buildings combined that I saw from the assessor is $2.1 million, about half of that. They're playing funny money all around and fudging numbers and whatnot. And it is stunning. I mean, I was even told by the spokesperson for the city, oh, we're going to be doing $3 million in grants. Then I followed up. Actually, we're not so sure that federal grants are going to be applied to the purchase. What is going on here is crazy. But I want to ask final question. We are out of time. The judge allowed, judgment allowed the city to continue to move forward with all their votes and everything. Are you pleased with what you did? Do you think that even though that's the outcome, what you want to happen? Because I wasn't thinking that the judge was going to completely put the kibosh on this thing. But you moved ahead. You actually got an injunction. Talk to me real quick. So what I've said is even if I lose, I've won because I. brought public attention to all of this shady, corrupt, funny money stuff going on. And people need to be asking questions. For them to say that property is assessed at $4 million is just a lie. And people need to understand it's not about the public good they're trying to do. It's about... That they are playing games with our taxpayer dollars, and we need to be asking questions about why that is. Well said, Anita Springsteen, our guest here in studio. Thanks so much for your time and for fighting the good fight on this one. Thank you for having me. And I will be writing about this again in the Denver Gazette next week. So watch for that. I'm Jimmy Sangenberger. In for Mandy Connell today. Have a great weekend. And may God bless America. Your whole neighborhood goes black in seconds. Except your house. The Patriot Power Generator 2200x from Four Patriots keeps your lights on when the grid goes down. It's the most powerful generator Four Patriots has ever built. Four Patriots gives you backup power without gas, fumes, or a loud engine. Just lights, a cold fridge, and peace of mind when the power fails. Right now, save $500 and get two solar panels free. That means you can recharge twice as fast, but only while supplies last. Keep your lights on, your food cold, and your family calm when the grid goes down. Don't wait for the next blackout. Visit 4Patriots.com today. That's the number 4, p-A-T-R-I-O-T-S dot com, and see why families trust four Patriots to stay ready.