Colorado's Constitutional Champion in the State Senate, Senator Lynda Zamora Wilson

[00:00:00]Well, hello free people of the Rocky Mountain region and welcome to this free state Colorado interview. Today I'm joined by Colorado State Senator Linda Zamora Wilson. Senator Zamora Wilson is Colorado's top-rated pro-liberty senator in the state legislature, a 25-year Air Force veteran, a former senior economist for the Pentagon, and mathematics and economics professor at US Air Force Academy. Well, Senator, I hope you are well and thank you for joining me today.

[00:00:26]>> Thank you so much for having me.

[00:00:28]>> So, my first question, you know, it was your first year in the state legislature. What was it like? What's it like serving in the legislature?

[00:00:35]>> Well, um well, first of all, it's an honor.

[00:00:39]Um for the past 5 years, the previous 5 years, I have been I guess you would say on the outside.

[00:00:45]So, giving testimony on all these horrible bills, getting engaged, and there's only so much you can say in 2 minutes of testimony. And now, I'm in the pit. Now, I have more of a voice and just to be able to express and voice we the people's concerns, it's an incredible honor.

[00:01:07]>> Well, I'm curious, too, you know, with your background in math with an economics. What what kind of What was that like? Cuz I'm sure you heard a lot of bills that you're like, "Oh my gosh, from an economics perspective, this is going to be disastrous, you know, the fees, the regulations, the taxes, all the things that they're trying to do." I mean, what was that like with your background?

[00:01:25]>> Well, I take in bring in my experience and most of these bills, if you've seen the fiscal notes on them, are just not right. I mean, when you see zero, and I in my economics uh education, I'm just there's short-term and long-term effects.

[00:01:43]There's monetary and non-monetary costs.

[00:01:46]These things are not being calculated and I would voice that repetitively over and over again.

[00:01:54]>> Yeah, I I I can't imagine, you know, how frustrating that could be cuz because sitting out here watching and reading this and being like, "Oh my goodness, you know, I love reading economics books and it's like this is going to have some sort of long-term effect and some other unintended consequence that these legislators aren't aware of." And yet they they don't seem to either know or they don't seem to care. So, it's just wild to see.

[00:02:15]>> Yeah, and then you we talk about the perverse incentives, right? So, anytime the government comes into the market, there's going to be perverse incentives.

[00:02:22]Number one, there's going to be costs to the taxpayer. It'll always fall upon the taxpayer.

[00:02:28]Um but the intended goal that some of these bills have we know that the actual opposite will happen. Um there's several examples in the bills.

[00:02:41]The first one that comes to my mind is the the puppy mill bill. If you remember that. So, there was this bill that came across that was trying to prevent the abusive puppy mills. And what they did is put a ban on all the pet stores. You have these small mom-and-pop pet stores that are already heavily regulated.

[00:03:04]Um and now they're they're saying they they can't sell puppies. And what that does is it actually causes perverse incentives and unintended consequences of the black market and bringing in puppy mills. I mean, I just reached out to one of the pet store owners a couple weeks ago.

[00:03:25]And already they're seeing, you know, puppies being sold um in the black market, really. So, it's uh it's unfortunate that they don't realize it. It's But yeah, you have a perverse incentives.

[00:03:40]>> Oh, totally. Yeah, and that's a perfect example because yeah, you you're taking it away from the public. The public eye of these regulated and and, you know, open to the anybody kind of pet stores now saying you can't sell puppies, you can't sell kittens, you can't sell cats and dogs, well somebody's still going to sell them cuz the demand is still there.

[00:03:56]You know, you hate I hate to I hate to compare it to the the war on drugs, but you know, people want their puppies, they want their kittens, and somebody's going to end up supplying it. And sure, you know, they want people to go to the rescues and the animal places like that, and that's fine, that's great. But if they don't have what you're looking for and you want a specific type of dog or cat, well, somebody's going to be out there trying to sell it to you. And and yeah, that's a great example of how the government the potentially good good intentions, but can lead to some bad consequences.

[00:04:25]>> Okay. And my role as a legislator is to protect and defend the Constitution. And that is people's life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness. That was a legitimate business.

[00:04:35]Already regulated.

[00:04:37]And that is being the government is saying, "No, you can't do that." That's That's not the role of the government.

[00:04:44]>> Yeah.

[00:04:45]I'm sure you thought that a lot down there in the at the state Senate this year. This is not the role of the government. So, what would you say was one of the most surprising things you saw this year in the state Senate um that maybe people weren't aware of, maybe it wasn't widely reported on the news?

[00:04:58]>> Uh the fiscal notes.

[00:05:00]Yeah. That That was really eye-opening.

[00:05:04]>> So, for people who don't know, every bill that spends money or has an expenditure should have a fiscal note attached that shows, "Hey, this is what it's going to cost. This is our the use of taxpayer money, whether it's employees a new employees in a state department or anything like that." But yeah, it seems like um the legislators can kind of get away with a lot because the fiscal notes aren't necessarily going to be accurate.

[00:05:25]And all of a sudden, they say, "Oh, wow, we didn't realize there's going to be this huge cost to this program." But I mean, [snorts] it's it's supposed to be, you know, non-partisan legislative staff who are writing these fiscal notes.

[00:05:34]Where do you think the disconnect is?

[00:05:37]>> I would question that.

[00:05:39]>> [laughter] >> I would question about the the bipartisan.

[00:05:43]Um I think there's there would be uh some bias in there.

[00:05:48]Based on Based on what I've seen.

[00:05:51]>> No, that makes sense and I could see that too. If if a if a bill writer or somebody in staff knows the intention of the legislator, they might write the bill in a specific way that kind of gets the intention across and and maybe that's very interesting and and I would not be shocked or surprised and I'm sure this kind of thing happens all the time in terms of you know they they they push these policies on us without really fully understanding what these consequences are going to be in the long term. I think that's that's very accurate.

[00:06:17]>> Right.

[00:06:18]Mhm.

[00:06:19]And it's in the every market, right?

[00:06:21]When you you think of of all the markets that we have, insurance markets, not just uh you know, health, car, home, fire insurance. They They bring in these regulations.

[00:06:34]Uh there's unintended consequences with that and costs.

[00:06:38]Um I've already mentioned when you have the government regulating other markets like pet stores, um uh building homes, all the construction, there's regulations, permits, and all those will have costs.

[00:06:55]>> Definitely. Well, what would you say was probably the most egregious bill that you saw in the legislature this year?

[00:07:00]And I'm sure the list is long, don't get me wrong. So I I won't hold you to it.

[00:07:04]But is there anything that sticks out in your mind as saying, "Oh my gosh, I can't believe that this bill passed?"

[00:07:09]>> Uh the first thing that There's lots of them, but the first thing that just popped in my mind was uh Senator Solvang's um a red flag anti-gun bill where he was extending the aperture of who could file an ERPO, the extreme risk protection order. And what he was doing is he was opening up the aperture of who could report it. That would be K through 12 employees.

[00:07:38]And you think about this, where you could have a second grade teacher, I bring my child in. Um I'm a gun owner.

[00:07:47]Uh I like to um shoot and and target practice. And I might have a discussion, my child hears me talk about it, and then my child goes and talks to the teacher about it, and the teacher may not be in alignment with my beliefs and my ideology about protecting the Second Amendment, might get concerned, and think that my child's in danger, call law enforcement, and then they law enforcement if the teacher thinks there's a risk of endangerment, the law enforcement can come to my house by force and take my weapon. And so I'm I'm guilty, and I have to prove my innocence. There were so many violations of our Constitution on this bill. And then I started talking about the economics of this when when I was debating it, because there was, if I remember, a zero fiscal note, and I said, "This is going to increase false ERPO reports, number one."

[00:08:49]And then it was mentioned, "But it's free. It's It's not a cost to the tax or it's not a cost to the person that has to prove themself innocent." And I said, [laughter] "Who free?

[00:09:00]You're talking about a person now that has to take off time from work. That's a cost. That has to now incur time to show up for court. Those are costs, non-monetary costs.

[00:09:15]And in America, we're innocent until proven guilty, and this is the other way around. It's such an extreme violation of our rights."

[00:09:25]>> Well, you've definitely been a a pro-gun champion down there at the legislature.

[00:09:29]I think that's when I first met you was around that committee hearing time, and you've been doing a phenomenal job of asking the right kind of questions, of pushing back on these policies. And and it is wild just to see how unconstitutional, how brazen is some of these what I would call authoritarians have gotten in terms of trying to restrict our God-given right to self-defense. It's absolutely crazy. I mean, I know you've been involved for years, but it did it Is it surprise you just the level of of anti-gun attitude that they have?

[00:09:56]>> Um I knew about the anti-gun attitude, but like I said, when you start researching the bill and you see how utterly crazy and there's so many errors, especially in in the physical notes. There's it's just stunning. You're going to pass this because and it violates the Constitution. It also is going to increase tax the cost on the taxpayer. We're already in a budget crunch here in a deficit.

[00:10:30]And you're still going to push this?

[00:10:33]It's insane.

[00:10:36]>> Absolutely insane, that's for sure.

[00:10:38]Well, you know, Senator, you were the second highest-rated legislator out of all 100 of Colorado state legislators for voting to protect our liberty and our constitutional rights. And can you tell us why you were at the top of the class compared to uh the other Republicans? I mean, we know why you you beat out the Democrats. I think that's fair to say, but but what what makes you a little bit different, I guess, in terms of Why are you such a high score?

[00:11:01]Why do you Why are you so passionate about defending our liberty?

[00:11:04]>> Um well, I I served 25 years in the Air Force. So, protecting and defending the Constitution, I did that for 25 years. I take that very seriously, and when you look at my liberty scorecard my voting record can attest to that.

[00:11:21]When I look at a bill the top two questions Well, not the top two.

[00:11:26]The questions I ask myself is, number one, is this constitutional? Number two, is this the role of the government? And just from that, I'm saying no on these bills because it's these hundreds of bills. This is not the role of the government, and this is exactly why we're in the situation that we are in with our budget deficit.

[00:11:46]It's because you're having the government increase and get involved and and cause inefficiencies on all these markets.

[00:11:56]Um that's we're in the mess that we are in because people have been pushing bills that are not the role of the government.

[00:12:05]>> So, why do so many Republicans fall for that trap? I guess is my question. You know, because it seems like there are some out there, some who served in the past years past, maybe, that are maybe running again and others who who kind of seem to fall in that trap where they say, you know, they they campaign talking about limited government and liberty, but when the push comes to shove and they're in that committee hearing or on the floor, they vote to grow the size of government, to increase this government involvement in our lives. And what what do you think the trap is that they fall into?

[00:12:34]>> Um well, to Unfortunately, I I've seen people measure success by how many bills they pass.

[00:12:46]And and for me, that's not a measure of success. It depends on what the bill is doing. Um as we know, there could be some some pretty bad bills that are we've already mentioned going to increase costs, but also there's the strategy behind some of these bills. It might be a good bill, but there's some wheeling and dealing going reaching across the aisle such that this it might be a great bill is coming at a cost, meaning you have a Republican that's going to vote on a Democrat bill in order to get their good bill passed. So, in the long run, if people are are losing their liberties, is it truly a success? Does that make sense?

[00:13:34]>> Definitely makes sense, and it's so unfortunate. You know, I I've seen it over the years where you hear those stories and the tradeoffs and the the deals that are being made behind closed doors to to support some bad legislation to maybe get some sort of concession or a vote out of committee or something like that, a bill out of committee. But, you know, it's so unfortunate because these are still bad bills. These are bills that restrict our liberty, grow the size of government, and do bad things. And it's And it's one of my biggest pet peeves is when we see the governor or we see the press release come out from the Democratic Caucus saying, "This was a bipartisan bill. We got a bipartisan bill passed to, you know, grow the size of government." And it's because they were able to make that one deal or convince one Republican who maybe isn't [snorts] very strong Yeah.

[00:14:18]>> But, it's bipartisan.

[00:14:20]>> [laughter] >> Exactly. But, they got that one Republican who maybe doesn't really ask those questions, right? Who doesn't ask, "Is this constitutional? Is this the proper role of government?" They say, "Well, I guess we'll go for it." And it's so unfortunate because then it's it seems like it's just a marketing technique at that point. And so much of politics is marketing. But, you know, the voting records don't lie, and I really have to say I applaud you and I appreciate you down at the state legislature as somebody who pays very close attention to see somebody who's so strong in terms of defending our constitutional rights. I I just really appreciate you doing that.

[00:14:51]>> Thank you. And I will also add there's there's bills where I've heard people say, "Well, it's not going to cost the state money. It's we're getting federal money from it." And my response is I pay federal taxes. That's still my money. So, there would be times where I would say, "No, that's not That's not the role of the government."

[00:15:12]>> Yeah, a great point that is often neglected in the conversation, that's for sure.

[00:15:17]Well, you know, one of the things that you become known for is being obviously this pro-liberty champion, but that also extends to fighting against or at least pushing back against the surveillance state that so many people in Colorado are being are concerned with, you know?

[00:15:30]This is a totally non-partisan issue. I think there's an incredible opportunity here for for the people of Colorado to come together and say, "Hey, what's going on with this new surveillance systems being built?" And you're really the only Republican who's standing up, who's protecting our Fourth Amendment rights, I would say, and really trying to put some guardrails around some of these new technologies. Can you talk a little bit about that?

[00:15:51]>> Absolutely. So, this is where my military experience comes in. So, here's a little bit of background. So, law enforcement has been growing their technology.

[00:16:03]Right? They have body cameras, car camera cameras, pole cameras, red light, excuse [clears throat] me, speeding, license plate reader, drones, facial recognition, and now we have AI coming on board. So, it brings about an unknown, right? And I have citizens or constituents that um are concerned of a surveillance state being monitored. And in the military, in 2013, we had China hack into one of our systems that had all of our military personal information when we apply for top secret clearances, that information was compromised. And that's in a military setting.

[00:16:50]Now you have the law enforcement collecting all this information on citizens.

[00:16:56]And we need to protect it. So, one of my bills as um putting guardrails as far as it allows the law enforcement to use these systems, this technology. However, we're putting up guardrails to say um who can see it.

[00:17:15]How uh how are you storing it? Is it secure?

[00:17:18]Um how long can you store it? When are you purging it? Those are the kinds of questions where we put up guardrails to protect citizens' information, and it's this delicate balance, right? How do you optimize the law enforcement law enforcement's ability to do their job and and get criminals, right?

[00:17:40]However, how do you optimize citizens' information such that it's not going to get hacked and protect it.

[00:17:48]And so that's looking at it through my military experience. Also, we have to consider about uh elections, and right now I Most people would trust the law enforcement with this technology. However, it only takes one election where you can have a complete say regime change, where now there's people who do not align with your ideology.

[00:18:15]And the question is, would they use this information against you?

[00:18:19]Now, history has shown in in various ways that yes, they will. And so we have to protect ourselves from that.

[00:18:29]>> Well said, and I I really appreciate you bringing up this idea of just the data storage and the collection and the vulnerabilities there because I haven't heard anybody else bring that up because like you said, maybe it's these law enforcement systems that are not that secure or often times a private company, right? A private company is collecting this data. They have some sort of contract, and who knows, right? How secure that data is, who has access to it, where how what vulnerabilities there are, and it seems we've heard stories nationwide where people are abusing this technology that to track, you know, former girlfriends or boyfriends, you know, to to look up data, to to spy on people, and it just seems like, you know, we probably should keep an eye on this kind of stuff, right? We should keep an eye. We should make sure it's being used properly. Make sure law enforcement can still do their job, of course, to lock up the bad guys, but at the same time we got to be protect our civil liberties and our rights. And And I think that's a message that's going to resonate more and more with the entire people of Colorado, but um I'm shocked that you're really the only leader there. I guess I shouldn't be, but you're really one of the only people, especially on the Republican side of the aisle, who's willing to stand up and protect that. So I I just got to say I you know, I I appreciate that as well.

[00:19:37]>> Yeah, um so the law enforcement lobbyists they lobbied hard against it both on the the Democrat and the Republican side. So even though it was a great bill, in fact, a very similar bill is being sponsored up on the federal level with Congresswoman Lauren Boebert and Congressman Thomas Massie. So I think people are now realizing that there are risk with this. And that's another thing is you have different generations where I would say as I'm knocking on doors and talking to the voters, the younger generation is more aware of the risk versus the older generations because they might not be technical savvy and they don't realize how the risk on our personal information is.

[00:20:34]So you have that difference.

[00:20:37]Also, you're seeing examples of innocent people being impacted by this technology. I had he wasn't even a constituent of mine, but he this gentleman called me up and he looked me up because of the Senate Bill 70 and 71. He says, "I just want to let you know that I've been I was just pulled over by two cops. They said they the flat cameras caught my license plate and said they said that I have a warrant. He goes, I have no warrant.

[00:21:12]And I tried to prove my innocence and they said, well, you have to go to a different county and clear your name.

[00:21:22]So, there was um an issue with evidently there's a a person out there with a warrant who has a similar license plate where the zero was replaced with an O, but here this innocent person now had to go to a different county to clear his name. Again, we find this I'm in I should be innocent, right? I'm I'm innocent until proven guilty and it was the other way around. This guy was guilty and he had to prove his innocence. And there's other examples of similar situations where this uh people who are innocent have to prove their innocence, which is uh it's a violation of our of our Constitution.

[00:22:06]>> Oh, totally un-American. And you know, I think as this technology proliferates, unless we put some guardrails and some protections for the people in, we're going to see more stories like that. You know, we're going to see more situations where where this technology maybe isn't working as as described, as advertised, or or potential abuses. So, very crazy stuff out there. But Senator, you talked about door knocking and getting out there at during your campaign. What are you hearing from the voters?

[00:22:30]>> When they hear um my platform and what I stand for, uh they're they're thrilled. And so, I I am representing them well. That's the feedback that I have received. And when I tell them about the Liberty Scorecard, um it's engaging for them because they're getting right now you have the the fog of war. In the military we call it the fog of war. There's the the smear campaigns that are going on and the voters really don't know what to believe in.

[00:23:02]And so, when I point them to the Liberty Scorecard and tell them, "Check it out. It's a board of 11 Republicans that go through the hundreds of bills that we vote on, and they look at is it constitutional or not, and then they assess me a grade based on how I vote, and I have the highest score in the Senate, almost a perfect score of a 98.1. Scott Bottoms beat me by 0.3 points. So, if you average it out, we're the same, right?"

[00:23:32]>> [laughter] >> But, um they are intrigued and, um impressed.

[00:23:40]And then I say, "The Liberty Scorecard can actually go back, the data that they hold on the legislators goes back to 2019, and you can see past legislators. So, my opponent, uh they they can go back and look at her Liberty Scorecard. So, uh they don't have her first, second, third, or fourth year, but in 2019, they have her fifth year as a legislator in the house, and as a experienced legislator, she has an F.

[00:24:10]So, it's it's not a smear campaign, it's not a spin, they can actually go in, and it's an apples-to-apples comparison between two legislators, right? Me, who has an A+ in protecting and defending their liberties and their rights, or someone that does it half of the time.

[00:24:31]And so, I asked them, "Who would you want protecting your rights, someone who does it all the time, or someone who does it half of the time?" And it it really is that simple.

[00:24:42]With no spin.

[00:24:44]>> Totally agree with you. I've been a big fan of Liberty Scorecard for years. I've interviewed Sue Moore, uh the chairwoman there for many, many times, and I a great resource for the voters, for the people of Colorado who want to pay attention to what's happening in our legislature. But, uh you know, as we wrap it up here, Senator, what haven't I asked you? What else do people need to know about you?

[00:25:02]>> Um if I have represented you well, um and you'd like to support me, you can go to my website. It's zamoraforcolorado.com.

[00:25:12]That's z a m o r a f o r and then spell out Colorado. I would greatly appreciate your support. It's a battle out there.

[00:25:22]There is the fog of war. There is a smear campaign and um we have truth and I hope I can direct people to the truth and arm them up.

[00:25:33]>> Wonderful. Well, thank you so much for your time. I know it's a busy campaign time right now. So, I'll let you get back to it, but really appreciate you talking to me and just uh thank you so much for all your work in the legislature. We haven't seen a Republican Senator with your kind of uh strong liberty score um in a little bit of time here. So, I just appreciate you and good luck to you on the campaign trail.

[00:25:53]>> Thanks, Brandon. Thanks for taking the time, too. Uh I really do appreciate it and I appreciate all the work that you do in educating Coloradans. You do a fantastic job. So, kudos to you.

[00:26:04]>> Oh, well, thank you so much. I appreciate it. And uh take care.

[00:26:07]>> Take care.