Station:    KNUS, 710 am

Show:       Chuck & Julie Show

Guests:    Neville, Patrick

Link:        https://chuckandjulie.podbean.com/e/chuck-julie-october-4-2019-hr-2/

Date:       October  4, 2019

Topics:     GEO

Click Here for Audio

CO-HOST CHUCK BONNIWELL [00:00:03] All right. We’ve got the bumper music. That’s for Patrick Neville, our good friend and political hero.

CO-HOST JULIE HAYDEN [00:00:10] That’s right, and the minority leader.  And Patrick, so we–.

BONNIWELL [00:00:10] We’ve got something special for you.

HAYDEN [00:00:10] We’ve got something special for you here, too, so take a listen to this: [Plays audio recording of “Uncle Rob” YouTube channel ]

COLORADO HOUSE MINORITY LEADER, PATRICK NEVILLE [00:00:10] Okay.

AUDIO OF “UNCLE ROB” YOUTUBE CLIPS [00:00:19] “Man tips, with Uncle Rob. Never ‘manscape.’ Only shave below your neck if you have mammary glands” “A real man and only drinks two kinds of beer: Budweiser and free.”

HAYDEN [00:00:36] [laughs] There you go! Pat, I had never heard of Uncle Rob, and Patrick sent me a text of him and he sort of said, hey, that that’s how you guys survive down there at the Capitol.  So, a tip to everybody: if you’ve never heard Uncle Rob on YouTube, it’s hilarious!.

NEVILLE [00:00:51] Yeah, “pour some gasoline on it!”   That was kind of our motto.  Everytime, you know, the Democrats were doing something crazy, and we’d have to make some arguments, “Yeah, let’s put a little gasoline on it! Let’s light this fire some more!”

BONNIWELL [00:01:03] I have a question for you. Coming up in a couple weeks, we’ll be getting the ballots. We’ve been told by everybody on the Republican side that say getting ‘no’ on [Proposition] CC is incredibly important, and we need an incredible education campaign because as written by the tricky Democrats, it makes you want to say ‘yes.’ But instead of seeing anything on CC, any kind of campaign at all –at all! — all we get is your referendum, [Proposition] DD, where you have some clinically obese idiot get up there and tell us how it’s going to help water.  And when it’s all funded by the sleaziest casinos in Colorado, gambling dens, dens of iniquity, and–.

HAYDEN [00:01:50] Bookie haters!

BONNIWELL [00:01:50] — and bookie haters. And the only– the good thing, bookies tell me, it’s so badly written, so badly provided, no one will [unintelligible — ever bet there?].

HAYDEN [00:01:59] No, I’m for it, Chuck — just so we’re clear.

BONNIWELL [00:01:59] Yeah, right, right. So, everybody — the only — it’s all casinos, online gamblers, other things that kind of hurt kids and families.  And that’s all we ever hear, is, “DD! DD!  You’re on the radio for DD. The clinically obese guy is on, saying, “It’s the worst campa–.” [correcting himself] Not “worst.”  It’s the most egregiously phony campaign –.

HAYDEN [00:02:21] [admonishing tone] Chuck!

BONNIWELL [00:02:21] Well, it is! And it is all paid by sleazy casinos. So with that intro, how is–.

HAYDEN [00:02:26] [awkward laugh]. Yeah.

NEVILLE [00:02:26] [sarcastically] Yeah, and your bookie is so clean, Chuck!

HAYDEN [00:02:26] Yeah.

NEVILLE [00:02:26] Your black market bookie is so clean, right?

BONNIWELL [00:02:26] Well, the bookies — they’re better than the government! Let me tell you, anybody is better than the government — anybody!

NEVILLE [00:02:26] [unintelligible due to crosstalk– He’s a good guy?] He [the bookie] is just running such a clean operation.

BONNIWELL [00:02:26] They [the casinos] don’t run a clean operation. I used to represent Central City on things. You think they think they’re all just beautiful people!?!? Egad!

HAYDEN [00:02:45] [admonishing tone] Chuck!  That’s violating attorney-client priv–. Your question is valid, though.  Let me — we’ll save the debate on DD for another time.  What is going on, though, on–.

BONNIWELL [00:02:45] Well, there’s nothing on CC. You’re not on the radio for CC! You’re on the radio for DD — “let’s have more taxes!”.

NEVILLE [00:03:00] No, I mean, it is upsetting that we haven’t been able to coalesce a large group of people that would — I mean, we have a decent group there, but we haven’t been able to actually secure a lot of funding. And that’s because there’s a lot of different interests out there. The Denver chambers and those types that want actually see CC pass. And that’s what’s really frustrating about this. I mean, if you ask me, if you were to put the two ballot measures in front of me and say which one is more important, obviously I’m a ‘heck, no’ one CC — 100% — and I’m a ‘yes’ on DD. But I would rather see CC fail and DD fail, than see DD pass and see CC pass.

HAYDEN [00:03:39] Well, let me ask you this:   we were talking to a guy.

BONNIWELL [00:03:41] [interrupting] Well, wait a minute! Let me — before you –.  Oh, they said, “Hey, guys! All of our wonderful donors — you know, the big donors, the Phil Anschutzes, the Coors, everybody else–.

HAYDEN [00:03:41] Didn’t they–? They all came out against CC!

BONNIWELL [00:03:52] Yeah, and they were all [saying], “Oh, yeah, we’ll get lots of money because it’s an establishment [unintelligible].

HAYDEN [00:03:55] Bill Owens–.

BONNIWELL [00:03:55] Bill Owens [said], “Oh, don’t worry! We’ve got lots of money.” You know? And nothing! De nada! Chips! And so it’s going to pass.

HAYDEN [00:04:02] [skeptically] No!

BONNIWELL [00:04:03] It is! Unless–.

NEVILLE [00:04:05] I don’t know if it’s going to pass. And then I don’t think you’ve actually seen the majority of the anti-CC campaign actually ramp up.

HAYDEN [00:04:12] Okay.

BONNIWELL [00:04:13] Well, when are they planning to ramp up?!  After the election is over?!?!

NEVILLE [00:04:13] I mean, you haven’t seen the pro–.  You haven’t seen the pro-CC campaign ramp up, either. I mean, this week they started their whole kick off–.

BONNIWELL [00:04:19] Yes, I have!

HAYDEN [00:04:19] But they just started this week. Yeah.

BONNIWELL [00:04:20] Yes, I have!  When I turned– when I looked up–.

NEVILLE [00:04:24] [unintelligible due to crosstalk] You haven’t — you haven’t seen them start, either.

BONNIWELL [00:04:27] I have seen them!

NEVILLE [00:04:28] I mean, because they know they all stare [?]. And then you even have The Denver Post — of all things — even coming out against CC this week.

BONNIWELL [00:04:28] [facetiously] Oooooo!

HAYDEN [00:04:33] Yeah? Well, no, but Patrick, one thing, though, that is concerning — we were talking to a guy, and I won’t give away too many details because it’s about a whole other subject, but he was talking about Jared Polis on conference calls with people, talking about how necessary CC was. And this guy, you would think, he was sort of, like, “You know, actually, even though this isn’t in my best interest to be against CC, I’m against CC!” Because, he said, it’s taking our tax dollars away.

BONNIWELL [00:04:58] Right! Yeah.

HAYDEN [00:04:58] Yeah. So, I guess — so, pretend that Chuck didn’t go so negative at first.

BONNIWELL [00:04:58] What do you mean? I didn’t go ‘negative.’ I just came — a voice of reason.

HAYDEN [00:04:58] [facetiously] As always. [to Neville] Let me ask you, what kinds of things are going on — and need to be going on — with CC, because I think the ballots drop, here, in a matter of days.

BONNIWELL [00:05:16] Friday, next Friday!

HAYDEN [00:05:16] Yeah.

NEVILLE [00:05:16] Well, the big thing is we have a –, you know, the state [GOP] Party actually came out against it. They actually have some good material on it that’s getting distributed now. Um, you know, that is kudos to Ken Buck and [his] team.  It’s actually really good material that is going to start heading out. The biggest problem we’ve probably faced on this is local counties — and actually local Republicans — endorsing basically pro-CC measures for their own counties.

BONNIWELL [00:05:40] Jefferson County!

NEVILLE [00:05:40] So, whether it’s 1A in Jeffco or this mill levy in Arapahoe County, voters are getting confused because you’ve got, you know, pretty prominent Republicans in those different counties actually coming out in favor of those, which is just nuts, because if you look at the status of county budgets right now, [00:05:52]I mean, every county out there in Colorado — with the increase in the property tax assessment rates — is just swimming in money. [0.0s]

HAYDEN [00:05:52] Right.

NEVILLE [00:05:52] So, now is not the time to ask for more. Now is the time when we can actually do those infrastructure improvements and manage it wisely, while the times are good. They don’t need to ask for a new piece of the pie, when the pie has already gotten bigger.

HAYDEN [00:06:15] Right. Well, I guess you’re right. That is, it’s — and I don’t know if that’s deliberate or not, but you’re absolutely — places, that when you have counties saying, “Give us more money!” and then the state is, “Yeah! Us, too, by the way!” it can get confusing for voters. Which, — hopefully the voters will just say — this is my advice to a voter: if the government is saying, “Hey, can we have more of your money?”  Just say no. I mean, that’s fairly straight forward.

BONNIWELL [00:06:31] Yeah, that’s good advice. Always say ‘no,’ because they’ll figure out some way to steal the money from you. And they always get it.

HAYDEN [00:06:32] Well–.

BONNIWELL [00:06:43] You know, we had your dad [Tim Neville] on [the show].

HAYDEN [00:06:44] About Jeffco 1A.

BONNIWELL [00:06:45]  1A– And it’s amazing the number of Republicans–.  It makes you kind of go, “Well, why is there a Republican Party in Colorado?” You know, if you’ve got the Norma Andersons, and you’ve got the Joe Webbs, and you’ve got all these other people who are figuring out how to–.

HAYDEN [00:07:01] How to get some of that money.

BONNIWELL [00:07:01] Yeah, get more and more of the money, it really is kind of like, “Is there a Republican Party, or is it just–?”.

HAYDEN [00:07:07] Well, Ken Bu– the state Party came out against it.

BONNIWELL [00:07:12] Yeah. That’s good.

HAYDEN [00:07:12] Patrick, –.

NEVILLE [00:07:12] Yeah, the state Party did, [and] Douglas [County], as well. So,Douglas is actually walking and giving out literature on it, as well. And you know, what I keep telling people is, also, get out there and work on this, because I think CC probably is 50/50, right now. So, get out there and work against CC. But while you’re there, find a school board candidate you like.

HAYDEN [00:07:28] Yeah!

BONNIWELL [00:07:28] Well, but they have to–.

NEVILLE [00:07:28] I mean, in Douglas County, here, we have Francine Thompson, who’s a STEM mom, who’s an absolute hero on these types of issues. So, get out there and work! Let’s — you know — we’ll — the Douglas County Party has fired up their system. We’ve fired up Craig Steiner’s data system. And folks are out there working and walking for Francine, and–. Go work for Francine! And while you’re there, grab a stack of the literature the state Party did, which is actually good literature.

BONNIWELL [00:07:54] It is good literature. It’s well written.

NEVILLE [00:07:54] Well you saw [in] this last election, with these –you know– glamor shots pf the candidates we’re against, it’s actually some hard-hitting literature. And go and hit some doors!

BONNIWELL [00:08:04] It was. Who did that? Who did the literature?

NEVILLE [00:08:06] I don’t know exactly who did. But, I know LX [Fangonilo] actually presented to me. And he took input from myself and people like Michael Fields and a bunch of other folks.  And it’s actually — I think it’s a decent piece.

HAYDEN [00:08:18] Patrick, [I] wanted to switch gears a little bit, too, because you were mentioning something I was seeing on Twitter that I think is absolutely true and it just sort of talks about how insane Democrats are. So you have the city of Denver going ahead and saying, “Oh, you have got to be 21 [years of age] now to buy cigarettes and vaping,” right? — on the one hand, because that’s so dangerous for youth, right? We can’t have vaping and cigarettes.

BONNIWELL [00:08:34] We have to save them for heroin. [facetiously] Because that’s good for you!

HAYDEN [00:08:34] But — BUT, we can have safe heroin injection sites, which raises the question, of course: If you’re 18, can you vape in a heroin injection site?  I mean, it’s just ridiculous, they’re — I don’t know, it’s not even a double standard. I don’t even know what you would call it.

NEVILLE [00:08:55] Well, it’s just crazy! I live in this world daily, so I kind of see this and don’t get to take a step back. And so, actually, my wife was listening to 710 [KNUS] on her way into work, and then she heard the report that Denver adopted this. And she was the one who brought it up to me. And like, you know what?  She is so right!  Because, what a difference, here!  Like, literally, you’re going to say that you’re — “Yeah, you came back — you’re a 20-year old soldier who came back from Afghanistan. We’re not going to let you buy a vaping pen.”.

HAYDEN [00:09:13] Right.

NEVILLE [00:09:13] “But come on over here, and you can go ahead and up shoot some meth and heroin, no questions asked!”

BONNIWELL [00:09:23] Yeah, he got addicted overseas, and he can keep the habit going, you know?

HAYDEN [00:09:23] Right! And you can be 14 [years old]! Right. Well, or — here’s the thing. I don’t know how they handle this. What if you’re shooting up heroin but you’ve also got a vaping pen there, and you’re underage. Do they confiscate the vaping pen?

BONNIWELL [00:09:38] Sure! You’re arrested.

HAYDEN [00:09:38] And [do they] let you keep the heroin? Yeah, exactly! They cite you for the vaping pen, but you’re cool with the heroin and the needle. You know? It’s–.

NEVILLE [00:09:46] Right. Exactly. You know, you’ll have the drug sniffing dogs out there. But instead of sniffing for actual drugs, the [dogs] are sniffing for vaping pens, you know?

HAYDEN [00:09:48] [laughing] That’s Right!

NEVILLE [00:09:48] [facetiously pretending to quote an officer monitoring a safe injection site] “Oh! You can’t — you can’t come in, sir!  You can’t come in, sir! — not with that vaping pen!”.

HAYDEN [00:09:48] “You’re going to have to leave your vaping pen outside.”. Yeah.

NEVILLE [00:09:48] “But if you want a needle — yeah, if you want a needle for your heroin, it’s free inside!”.

HAYDEN [00:10:01] That’s right. Speaking of that,  I would anticipate — I mean, we’re getting closer and closer to January when the session starts. What are you hearing — if anything — I mean, like, you guys said you’ve got to pour gasoline on a lot of stuff. Do we need to be sending you, you know, hand warmers and gasoline tanks and things like that? What are you hearing might be coming down the tank, here?

NEVILLE [00:10:21] Oh, gosh! I’m hearing all sorts of things.  I’ve heard there might be 14 different gun bills, eight different bills on nicotine products. I’m sure we’ll probably see the shooting galleries bill [for safe injection sites] back up, in some form or another. So, we’re hearing lots of different rumors. And it doesn’t sound like the Democrats are trying to slow down, at all.

HAYDEN [00:10:40] No.

NEVILLE [00:10:41] [unintelligible due to crosstalk].

BONNIWELL [00:10:41] Well, why should they [slow down]? I mean, you know, I’ve talked to them and they say, “Look, we’ve clinched Colorado. We’ve got it. As long as we have mail-in ballots, we control the state. And we don’t need to worry about what the voters want. I mean, if the Alzheimer’s patients can vote, we’re always set.”.

HAYDEN [00:10:56] [scoffinginly] Oh!

BONNIWELL [00:10:58] And the Republicans — they laugh! They laugh! The Republicans do nothing about it! They just sit there and do nothing about it.

HAYDEN [00:11:04] What about that, Patrick? Is there any–? I mean, we’ve got a couple of important — coming up, I think, in 2020 —  ballot initiatives:  the National Popular Vote, and the, um, you know, [the proposed law] that you [would] have to be a U.S. citizen[in order to vote] . Is there any chance, or any talk of what Chuck and I — or are we just kind of ‘pie in the sky’ — some sort of initiative that would say–that would eliminate the Democrats’ ability — well, anyone’s ability — to ballot harvest, so that you’d have to mail in or drop off your own ballot?  Or is that just not — for whatever reason — a non-starter?

NEVILLE [00:11:35] Well, I think the huge one there is the actual requirement that you prove that you’re a citizen, then. You know, that’s one of those things that I think every Republican should be on endorsing, without even thinking twice about t. I know when I first heard it, I was actually just listening to your radio show and texted in and said, “Yes! Yes! Yes, yes, yes!”  And then, they’re actually moving forward on that. So, I’m encouraging every Republican to get behind that effort. That’s — that might be one of those things that saves our state, overall. Um, you know, and then I think before that, too–

BONNIWELL [00:12:01] [interrupting] You didn’t answer the question. You didn’t answer the question.

NEVILLE [00:12:02] [awkward silence].

HAYDEN [00:12:02] Well, let him finish, and then we’ll ask him that.

BONNIWELL [00:12:02] Okay, but what about doing something about the fact that you’ve given the state over to the Democrats by not doing something about ballot harvesting?

HAYDEN [00:12:19] Or, is there–?

NEVILLE [00:12:19] [unintelligible] I mean, if you actually look at this, Chuck, I actually did sponsor a bill last year to that National — or actually, proving your citizenship. You know, we did sponsor a bill on that. We sponsored several different election bills, and they always fail. But the reason we sponsor those, too — and a lot of people say, “Well, you know it’s not going to pass, so why are you doing this?”  It actually gives those ballot initiatives some —  actually a headstart on a single subject ruling.  Because if it actually comes from the Office of Legislative Legal Services, then that’s already been decided. So, that’s a big reason why we [run those bills]. Even though we know the Democrats will probably defeat these bills because it’s not in their best interest, it actually gives us a headstart on that.

BONNIWELL [00:12:55] Do you have a bill prohibiting ballot harvesting?

NEVILLE [00:13:02] [pause] Well, we don’t know yet, right? So, the legislative session hasn’t started at all, yet. But anyhow, last year I did sponsor a bill that required proof of citizenship [to vote].  And then we ran several different amendments on that bill too–.

BONNIWELL [00:13:13] [interrupting] That doesn’t answer my question. Are you going to run a bill that will prohibit ballot harvesting, notwithstanding the fact–. And, you should add other things, saying [that for] any ballot put in the mail, the state guarantees postage, you have to pay for it — some of the things that go with it. Are you going to put a bill through that–?.

NEVILLE [00:13:31] There are several things that we are looking at doing, Chuck, but I don’t want to give away all my secrets on air.

HAYDEN [00:13:35] No, that makes that makes sense.

BONNIWELL [00:13:36] All right.

HAYDEN [00:13:37] Let me — final question for you, then:  what do you want to give away? Anything else that we haven’t talked about?

BONNIWELL [00:13:39] Yeah, what do you want to give to us? Come one! Give us something!

HAYDEN [00:13:39] Anything else you want folks to know about?

NEVILLE [00:13:46] Oh, no, I think — you know — just going back to DD, without Chuck overtalking me so much.

[00:13:49] [laugh] .

NEVILLE [00:13:49] So, it’s very different than the New Jersey bill that came out. And the New Jersey bill came out — and that’s kind of what was brought to me. It was the model. We made several different changes to that. It is a new tax. It’s not a tax increase. This is something — sports betting is currently not legal in the state of Colorado. So, this would actually authorize casinos to offer sports betting.  We would tax them at the same rate that they currently pay on all their other profits. So, if you actually win and you win at sports betting, you’re not taxed yourself. It’s the casino’s taxes –or their overall profits are taxes. So, it’s a very separate deal. When the bill was first brought to me, I think they wanted to tax it at a 30% rate. And we brought it down to 10%, which puts them in line with all their other profits. And, you know, I look at it now — like, there are some other folks out there — I know Chuck is really worried about his bookie, but there’s other folks that want to expand gaming, they’re the ones’ making the call.

BONNIWELL [00:14:42] I’m not worried about my bookie! My bookie is okay because it–.

HAYDEN [00:14:42] [to Bonniwell] Let him finish.

NEVILLE [00:14:42] Um, so I look at it — look, i don’t want to expand gaming either. You know, I gambled for the second time in my life recently, because Chuck asked me to put 20 on red.

BONNIWELL [00:14:54] [laughing] I still owe you 20. Do I have a video?

NEVILLE [00:14:55] And first [unintelligible due to crosstalk] So, I don’t want to expand it either. But if you look at it, there is a $150 billion industry of offshore sports betting online. And so, if you look at that and you see that’s already happening, so we may as well just legalize it and bring it into the mainstream.

HAYDEN [00:15:12] — and getting our piece of it.  Yeah.

BONNIWELL [00:15:13] Yeah, does that apply to heroin, too? Can they do that?

HAYDEN [00:15:14] [admonishing] No. Chuck!  Chuck, Chuck, Chuck–.

BONNIWELL [00:15:16] [Shouting] “It’s already out there! It’s a billion dollar industry!”

HAYDEN [00:15:20] [to Bonniwell] Shhh.

BONNIWELL [00:15:20] “We ought to have some more of it right here in Colorado! And we can regulate it!”

HAYDEN [00:15:24] No.

NEVILLE [00:15:25] And you can’t beef on mine, either!

BONNIWELL [00:15:25] Well, all I can say is, you know, even the greatest people — and I have you in the ‘greatest people’ — even the greatest of people occasionally stray from good government and good policy.

NEVILLE [00:15:27] Or good bookies!

BONNIWELL [00:15:27] So, we can’t hold that against everybody, when you have a 99% and you fell off the wagon for one day, we can’t blame you.

HAYDEN [00:15:27] No, don’t say ‘we,’ because I support it. I agree with Patrick. So, you–.

BONNIWELL [00:15:52] [to Hayden] You’ve never bet in your life. You wouldn’t know what a bet was

HAYDEN [00:15:55] Hey, Patrick, thank you for your time. Next time, we won’t let Chuck talk as much. No, I’m kidding!

NEVILLE [00:16:00] [laughs].

HAYDEN [00:16:00] Thank you for your time. Thank you for introducing us to Uncle Rob. Have a great week, and we appreciate it.

BONNIWELL [00:16:05] Take care. Take care.

NEVILLE [00:16:06] You bet. All right. Thanks, guys.

HAYDEN [00:16:07] Patrick Neville, there. Okay, now we’re going to turn to all things ‘impeachment.’ But first, we apologize to the newsroom. We went a little long there. But let’s catch up on what’s going on out there.