Station:   740 AM, KVOR

Show:     Jimmy Lakey Show

Guest:     Holbert

Link:       http://www.kvor.com/showdj.asp?DJID=57094

Date:      April 15, 2012

Topics:    Marsha Looper, Planned Parenthood, JBC, SB-1335, Balanced Budget Amendment, RainyDay Fund, Tim Hoover, Lynn Bartels, Eli Stokils

Click Here for Audio

[Beginning at 46:39

• Chris Holbert seems to try and explain his ‘no’ vote as a protest to the Balanced Budget Amendment interpretation that the legislature spend every penny, every year, instead of setting aside funds for a Rainy Day Fund.
• JimmyLakey asks Holbert to confirm that “Amy and Frank weren’t beating you up” in the back halls to pressure him on his vote, that there were no back room deals. CH denies there was pressure or quid pro quo politics at play

Then, from 1:10:56]

JIMMY LAKEY:  Here’s the question.  You said you were kind of surprised when you were the only one who voted ‘no’.  Were there other people that up until vote time—you don’t have to name names, unless you want to, but, were there other people who led you to believe that maybe they would stand in the ‘no’ vote as well?

CHRIS HOLBERT:  Well, there are people, I think you can look at the Colorado Union of Taxpayers, the CUT champions and those who are honored by CUT each year.  I was kind of surprised that some of the folks who… for instance, Representative Don Beezley was our number one rated CUT member in the House, but I think… and again, I don’t want to speak for Representative Beezley or any other, I think that he saw an opportunity to point to the compromise and being able to bring back… again, I want to be careful I don’t want to put words in his mouth, but I think there were things that he saw that were good in the budget and merited his vote.

JIMMY LAKEY:  All right. Here’s the big question.  We started with this topic, and we may have to go to the next segment, but I’ve got to ask you, there is a story going around that … But first of all, I’m reading from Fox31KDVR dot com, Fox31 in Denver – Television, Eli Stokils.  You put out a press release about you’re ‘no’ vote, and Stokils, or whoever writes the headlines there at Fox 31 says, “Holbert tries to explain his ‘no’ vote”.  And I’m like you – you and I talked on the phone last night.  No, you didn’t try to – you explained your ‘no’ vote.

CHRIS HOLBERT:  Yes…

JIMMY LAKEY:  It would be like if I came… the next day you were to leave the studio and I said, “Well, Chris Holbert came in here and tried to explain his ‘no’ vote.

CHRIS HOLBERT:  [laughs]  Correct.

JIMMY LAKEY:  No! He came in here and explained his ‘no’ vote, Eli Stokils.  So,  nevertheless, Eli probably doesn’t write the headlines, but here’s what he says, he says, “What do you do when you’re the only one among 65 state representatives to vote against a state budget that all of your colleagues collectively hail as a successful compromise.”  And then he tactfully, or not so tactfully, says, “In the case of Representative Chris Holbert who cast the lone ‘no’ vote, you issue a press release.”  So he goes on to talk about your statements in the press release, and then he says, “There’s a different explanation that’s swirling around the capital on Thursday as Republicans…”  Republicans!  Now you say you apparently didn’t get any pressure but apparently some Republicans have privately groused that your ‘no’ vote was sour grapes because the GOP caucus refused to let you run an amendment dealing with abortion on Wednesday.”  Which actually, didn’t deal with abortion, as much… it was to defund Planned Parenthood in the state budget.  Is that correct?

CHRIS HOLBERT:  It’s sort of correct

Okay

CHRIS HOLBERT:  It’s kind of …

So you… According to Eli, there are Republicans–I don’t know if you know who they are, grousing that you were pouting that you didn’t get to run that amendment.

CHRIS HOLBERT:  Well, if I could talk about the amendment.  I asked Representative John Becker about a month ago … I was asked last year to run that type of amendment, because another representative was going to and then didn’t.  And I didn’t know what the language looked like, but, the request came after the deadline.  So this year, I received that request again, and about a month ago, I represented… I asked Representative John Becker on the JBC to show me what that language would look like.  And I received that language from the JBC and it was complicated.  Our Constitution prohibits direct or indirect funding for abortion, and some would suggest … some would take the position that there’s money indirectly going to Planned Parenthood for that.  But, the language talks about cervical cancer screening and breast cancer screening, and I looked at that language and  I said, “This isn’t a concise argument.  I’m not comfortable with this amendment.”   And then my friend, Representative Marsha Looper was actually working on a bill that had much more concise language in it.  She decided not to run that bill and then, as I understand, was intending to run a paragraph from that bill –it’s very tight and concise, as an amendment to address that defunding issue.

Okay

CHRIS HOLBERT:  And I looked at the complicated language from JBC and said, “Gosh, I don’t really want to argue this because it’s very complicated, and it’s hard to see where the money comes from and where it goes.”  So, I actually told Speaker McNulty and representative Becker about two weeks ago, “I’m not doing that.”

…not going to run that amendment

CHRIS HOLBERT:  …Not going to run that amendment.  There was never an amendment that had my name on it.

Yeah.

CHRIS HOLBERT:  And I had turned away from that two weeks ago because Representative Looper was working on this other language.  And my understanding was that she was going to introduce that.  I would leave it to her to explain what… you know, whether she did or not.  But, it was somewhat frustrating last week because I started hearing that from members of my caucus who were upset that I was pushing this amendment.  And I kept reassuring them, “I don’t have that amendment.  I’m not doing that.”

Because the Becker language that you got from Bec… that was too complicated.  And Marsha was working on some more simple stuff, Marsha Looper, and you’re like, “It’s not me! Hello!”

CHRIS HOLBERT:  Right.  I don’t know why you believe this so stridently, but I don’t have that amendment. And you know, I looked at it, but I gave up on it.  Again, from this point, it was about two weeks ago.  And that message was so prominent Monday, Tuesday, that I was just frustrated with the process.  And I think you can also look to groups like Colorado Right to Life.  They sent out an advocacy piece that was talking about Representative Looper’s amendment.  It wasn’t the Holbert amendment.

…not the Holbert amendment …

CHRIS HOLBERT:  It was the Looper Amendment!

But it didn’t end up being run?

CHRIS HOLBERT:  That’s my understanding.  But I would ask you, please talk…

… talk to Marsha

CHRIS HOLBERT:  …to Representative Looper.  I don’t want to speak for her.

All right.  Very good.  Maybe we’ll do that.  But this is sour grapes, and so do you know who the sour grapes are up there?

CHRIS HOLBERT:  I…

You want to name names here?

CHRIS HOLBERT:  No…

No, I know you don’t.  You’re a nice guy.  I’ll name na…!  No, I don’t know who they are either… Well, we’ll come back, I want to wrap it up with Representative Chris Holbert.  He stood firm and he voted ‘no’ on budget that spends every penny, every year, where it continues to kick some problems down the way.  But Chris HOlbert says he wasn’t pouting.  So there you have it.  We’ll continue to talk about this, wrap it up with Chris Holbert, and uh, I’ll be glad to, in just a moment, tell you how you can contact Chris Holbert, or maybe help him out.  He’s the lone vote!  Voting against some crazy stuff up there, and you ought to support a guy like that.  So stick around!  More to come!  I’m Jimmy Lakey.  Representative Chris Holbert in one more segment of this radio broadcast on AM 740 KVOR.

[1:20:10

JL calls Marsha Looper and leave a voicemail to call back in the next hour so that JL can inquire about her amendment to defund Planned Parenthood  and whether she ran it.

CH says it’s divisive to claim that he held up his vote because they wouldn’t run his amendment.  And Eli Stokils believes it… Tim Hoover was the first to grab him and ask about it.  JL asks whether Tim Hoover bought the planted story?  CH responds that “At first, he went down that road”, but… at least he came to me.  Eli and Lynn Bartels wrote about it and never called CH to ask for his comments or input.  “Somebody planted that story.”  “There were democrats the day we ran the amendments.  I was asked several times,  ‘I understand you’ve got this amendment.’  And I said, ‘No, no I don’t have any amendments, and I don’t have specifically that amendment.’  And a couple of times…, there are some very thoughtful and personable Democrats, so, a few of them came and asked, you know, ‘What’s the real story?’, and I tried to explain the same thing that I did to you.  You know, I had an interest in it, I pulled that language. It was complex, It was complicated.  Marsha seemed to have a better take on it.  And, I think she understands the issue better. I mean, she serves on the Appropriations Committee and can articulate this message.  You know, one of the things I told Tim Hoover when he interviewed me”…. CH is a 2^nd amendment guy… that’s CH”s field of expertise and he’s had a lot of success with legislation centered around the 2^nd amendment, with some democrats and all republicans, such as Make My Day Better Bill,  so he bowed out to Marsha’s expertise.

JL promises to follow up with Marsha Looper for her explanation as to what happened.]