Empowering Parents: Erin Lee

SPEAKER 01 : 0:03

Welcome to Restoring Education in America with Priscilla Rahn. She’s a master educator and author leading the conversation to restore the American mind through wisdom, virtue, and truth.

SPEAKER 03 : 0:16

well hello everybody welcome to restoring education in america i’m your host priscilla rahn and i am so thrilled that you’ve decided to join the conversation today we are right in the middle of school choice time parents are looking for wonderful options for their children and there is a great option this fall there’s a new private classical school opening called excalibur classical academy They’re opening in the Centennial, Colorado area, and their mission and vision is restoring America’s heritage by developing servant leaders who are keepers and defenders of the principles of freedom for which our founding fathers pledged their lives, fortunes, and sacred honor. And I can’t think of anything more exciting than opening a new school in our year, 2026, because it’s America’s 250th birthday. But I have to say that, you know, it’s not always a comfortable thing for parents to send their kids to school. They are really concerned about things that are happening, things that they’re hearing. And And they are looking for a safe option. So I want to bring my friend to the stage to talk about some of the initiatives that are in the works right now to make sure we are providing a safe option for our children. And so welcome to my dear friend, Erin Lee. Hi, Erin.

SPEAKER 02 : 1:47

Hey, Priscilla. Thanks for having me.

SPEAKER 03 : 1:49

Well, I am so glad that you’ve decided to come back on and give us an update. There’s so many new updates that have been happening. But before we get into that conversation, I want to say congratulations. As my peer in the class of 2023 for Leadership Program of the Rockies, you won an amazing award. You, along with Lori Gimbelstein and Lindsay Datko, tell us a little bit about this recognition that you got.

SPEAKER 02 : 2:17

Yes, thank you. You know, this work being a unpaid executive director of a nonprofit is long. It’s tireless. It’s often thankless. And that’s the award right up there on my shelf from Leadership Program of the Rockies. And what an honor to get it alongside Lori and Lindsay, who are like fellow mama bear warriors on the education front. and protecting kids. So honored and excited to get a pat on the back every once in a while. And this is like the ultimate honor amongst my peers at LPR who are all just warriors on the front lines.

SPEAKER 03 : 2:52

Well, I just remember in 2022 and 2023 how you guys were starting up your organizations and really getting your feet under you with these initiatives around the things that you were passionate about and to see how far you’ve come. You guys never quit. You just kept going because you believed in what you were doing and protecting kids and protecting parents. which is what the name of your organization is. You are the executive director of Protect Kids Colorado. And so a lot of us in Colorado know the hard work you’ve been doing with the ballot initiative. So the three initiatives were Initiative 108, Children Are Not For Sale Act, Initiative 109, Protect Women and Girls Sports Act, and then Initiative 110, Protect Children from Irreversible Sex Change Surgery Act. So the last time you were on, you were in the middle of collecting signatures. Okay, give us the update on where we are now.

SPEAKER 02 : 3:57

Yes. And just to backtrack real quick, last time we ran initiatives when Lori Gimelschein and I had no idea what we were doing. We were just a couple of moms who were trying to circumvent the radical Colorado legislature and get some stuff done. We also ran parents right to be notified if their child has been transitioned. And we chose not to run that this time because there’s so many lawsuits that are working their way Through the courts on this, my suit Lee versus Puder was the first to reach the Supreme Court. Unfortunately, we’re not granted cert petition, I think, because the 10th Circuit just got it really wrong on how they threw out our case because all the courts are evading this. But yesterday, the Mirabelli versus Olson decision came down that California can no longer have this law that requires teachers to secretly transition kids. They have to tell parents that. So, so much happening on that front that we didn’t have to tackle it this time. I think that’s going to be decided in the courts. But these three initiatives, we just finished our six-month timeline to gather. It’s 125,000 valid signatures. And so we needed to really overcompensate. We were shooting for 180. We landed at 170,000 signatures per issue, which is over 130% of what we need. So we’re in a really good place now. We’re just waiting for the Secretary of State to validate those. They’ve got another two or three weeks before they have to return a sufficiency letter to us. So we’re just crossing our fingers and praying that we’re going to have the signatures we need to put these issues on the ballot and let the people of Colorado have a say because we ran them as three laws this year as House bills through the Colorado legislature. Two of them have already been killed. One is going to be heard on Monday, March 9th. I don’t know if this will air before then, but it’s the Protect Girls Sports Act. And unilaterally, it was Democrats that voted no. on every single one of them voted no on these issues. And it just strengthened the argument for why we the people are going to have to decide these things for ourselves. So we hope the people will have a chance to vote on these in November.

SPEAKER 03 : 5:59

Yeah, you know, this is something that we learned through Leadership Program of the Rockies. There’s two ways to get laws passed. One is through the state legislature and one is through citizens initiatives. And for those of us who are freedom loving, conservative minded individuals, we know it’s really difficult in Colorado to get really good, sensible, common sense laws. laws passed. And to think that we have Democrat legislators who are voting down these bills that would protect children is really unthinkable. But let’s talk about, I wanna go back to talk about how citizens can get an initiative on the ballot because it’s not just, oh, you show up with a ballot and hopefully you get enough signatures. This is quite a process. I wanna go over it a little bit for the listeners. So first you have to draft a proposal. And so a citizen or a group of people write a proposed law or constitutional amendment, in this case, a proposed law. and it must be a single subject issue. So first, tell me who was in the room trying to draft the language for these three initiatives?

SPEAKER 02 : 7:12

So we actually, for all three of them, we recycled laws that had already been run by Colorado legislators. So, well, with the Children Are Not for Sale Act, this was an initiative, exact same wording that was passed by a ballot measure in Arizona last year. Overwhelmingly, every single county voted, 75% of each county, even the very liberal ones, voted to pass that. So it’s a very popular law that was already passed. protecting a lot of kids. So we just recycled that. And then the girls protect girls sports act was actually run by representative Brandy Bradley starting back in 2022. She ran it three years in a row. It kept getting killed. And that’s when we said, okay, we’ll do it ourselves. If our legislators are not going to protect title nine to defend the safety and dignity of girls and their athletics and their sacred spaces, then, Then we’ll just do it ourselves. And then same thing with the Mutilation Act. That’s an emulation of the Tennessee and Missouri law that actually went all the way to the Supreme Court. And the Scrimeti case was one determining that, yes, this is constitutional law. It can be passed in the individual states. So we kind of took what had already been written to make sure we had rock solid language. But we also have Scott Gessler as our attorney on these initiatives. And he’s the former secretary of state who used to run this title board initiative process. So he’s very well versed. on how things need to fit into existing statute, the best language to get through the process. It was a grueling process. I won’t pretend that was fun. We last year filed 20 initiatives and our very adversarial title board, which is the Secretary of State and the AG, actually went so far as to say the word parent cannot be a single subject that it’s so broad colorado voters would not understand what the word parent means and that was the one of the reasons that we got rejected so we’re very blessed to have had gessler this time around and we were there’s not a lot of hiccups in the process but it is a long arduous process to get the language through

SPEAKER 03 : 9:12

before you even get to the signature phase which was even more of a lift well let’s go okay so the next step after you have your language and that’s smart because you’ve recycled you didn’t have to reinvent the wheel since step two is setting the title and the review and going through the title board. And what a lot of people don’t understand is if you’re in the state legislature, you don’t have to go through the title board scrutiny. But if you’re a citizen, they make you jump through all of these hoops. So when you what was that process like for setting the actual title?

SPEAKER 02 : 9:47

This is a great question. A lot of people don’t understand that the title is set by the title board, which is a rep from the A.G., the Secretary of State, and then Legislative Legal Services, who are the attorneys who write laws for the legislators. Legislators have an idea and they create it. They bring it to life for them. But the title, so what you’ll see on the top of the initiative and then also in the blue book and on the ballot is not the language that we wrote. It’s language that this title board it translates what our initiative actually means into their own language. And I’ll be honest, we’re not real pleased with it. This is pretty consistent in these blue states that are adversarial to child protection issues is they will manipulate language and try to confuse voters about what these initiatives really mean. So I’m glad you asked that. I want people to encourage people to actually read the initiatives themselves in your blue book, read the language as we wrote it, because how they translated it into a title is not exactly representative of what we’re doing. And our laws are one or two pages. We wanted to make them as simple as possible, that every Colorado knows exactly what this is. It’s very straightforward, and they’re clear on what they’re voting on. So encourage people to read that blue book with the actual language.

SPEAKER 03 : 11:02

Yes, we know how the title board will manipulate titles and make it sound better or worse than when it really is. Okay, the next phase was the signature collection phase. And so there is an actual formula that needs to, there’s an actual formula where you have to follow that and get the sufficient signatures. So in the state of Colorado, you must be a registered Colorado voter to sign a petition. And the required number equals 5% of the votes cast for the Secretary of State. All right. So for 2026, the initiative, that’s about 124,000 valid signatures. But you have to you can’t just get it all from one location. Right. You have to get it from all 35 state Senate districts. Talk a little bit more about the process.

SPEAKER 02 : 11:58

Yeah, so there’s two kinds of measures. There’s a constitutional measure that would actually amend the Colorado Constitution, and that requires you to get a certain amount of signatures from every Senate district. We went the statutory route, which does mean that our legislators can come behind us and overturn what we’ve done. I dare them. I dare them to overturn the will of the people in Colorado and watch them lose their seats if they try it. But that made it a little bit easier. Our signatures can come from anywhere in the state, 124 to 38 valid signatures. And this is a process that although it’s the people’s process, this is a citizen’s initiative. It has been red tape to death to the point where it’s widely known you have to have three to five million dollars to buy the signatures. The timeline that you’re given and the amount that you have to meet it’s impossible i mean it was perceived impossible to do it on a volunteer basis it’s never been done in colorado and we unfortunately didn’t get the funding we were anticipating and we had this you know come to jesus moment where we went do we do this do we do we continue to try to do this volunteer without the money to buy these signatures that’s just what you do everyone naysayed on both sides of the aisle that said you know this just can’t be done And we completely broke the system. We just threw a wrench in the entire idea of how you do this. And we did purchase a small amount just as what we call an insurance policy to make sure we had more than enough with the little money we raised. But this was 95% volunteer. And we had over 3,300 circulators with these petitions, over 500 churches, over 1,900 notaries who were doing the affidavits on these as they were completed. We just had people in every corner of the state, people who had never done this process before, who were scared, but then glad that they did it. People who didn’t know how to engage and they went, oh, this is such an easy way for me to do something. I feel hopeless. I know we have to protect kids. And it’s as easy as just taking this petition and talking to my friends. And that’s what we really started a movement and engage so many people from every walk of life all over the state. In this process, we are truly a grassroots big tent coalition. And I would argue this is a movement and we’re just getting started.

SPEAKER 03 : 14:10

Well, and shout out to my church, Brave Church, who did allow us. Thank you for having a conversation with our head pastor and getting that worked out. But like you said, this initiative, this topic is more of an 80-20 issue. I you know, to have sports that are fair and that type of thing. So the next phase is the submission and verification step where the petitions are submitted to the Colorado Secretary of State and the office conducts a random sampling, a review to check for validity. But talk a little bit more about this process where we are right now.

SPEAKER 02 : 14:58

Yeah, I’ll try to keep it simple. So we turned in on February 17th for the trafficking issue, February 20th for the other two girls and surgeries. And they have 30 days to do that validation process and they’ll take the full 30 days. So we won’t know until mid-March if we’ve hit that mark. But they sample 5,000 just random signature lines out of the 170,000 and you have to fall between 90 and 110%. So if you have 90% of what you need, between 90 and 110, they’ll do a full signature count. They’ll check every single line to make sure you have that. It’s 124, 238 is the magic number. And if you exceed 110%, then you’re automatically on the ballot. That sampling is enough. And so we’re really confident we’re going to get to that 90% mark. I know we will. We’ll at least get to that point. I’m hoping and praying that we hit that 110% and it’ll be over and we’ll be on the ballot and move forward.

SPEAKER 03 : 15:54

Awesome. Okay, so we’re going to be praying that that happens. Okay, the next step will be the ballot placement. So if certified, the initiative appears on the November general election ballot, and it will receive a final ballot number. And will that change from the number? Okay, so yeah.

SPEAKER 02 : 16:18

And we’re anticipating 134 to 136 based on the numbering system currently. We’re 108 through 110 for the signature gathering. We expect to be 134 through 136 on the ballot. Okay. Excuse me.

SPEAKER 03 : 16:36

Okay.

SPEAKER 02 : 16:37

Okay. And like you said, these are 80-20 issues. It’s frustrating that only Republicans engaged in the process because we are very much a nonpartisan effort. We welcomed everyone to support what we were doing. I don’t think of it as right versus left. It’s right versus wrong. We should not be chopping off the healthy body parts of 16-year-old girls. That is a no-brainer. And we know that when they make the ballot, people are going to vote for these. We’ve done extensive polling and focus groups and Like these are very wildly popular issues that will pass.

SPEAKER 03 : 17:10

So the final step in this whole process, Erin, is the voter decision. And so it’s a simple majority, 50% plus one is required. So- That’s not too bad.

SPEAKER 02 : 17:24

It’s not bad. And even, like I said, the New York Times two years ago said that this was an 80-20 issue. So if 80% of Democrats are in favor of protecting girls’ sports, I think we’re in good shape. Now, Colorado is about as crazy as it gets. We have what I call a willful ignorance and apathy problem where the vocal minority of people who are passing these insane unconstitutional child harm laws, anti-parent, anti-family laws, anti-school choice laws. They don’t represent the majority of people, but we have got to educate each other about these issues and encourage each other to actually show up and vote because an absence of voters is what leads to these things not being successful. We’ve got to tell our neighbors, hey, even if you don’t vote for a candidate, go vote to protect kids. Like circle that little bubble and turn it back in. It’s that easy. We can take back our state if you’ll just submit your ballot in November.

SPEAKER 03 : 18:21

If you’re just tuning in, my guest today is Erin Lee. She’s the Executive Director of Protect Kids Colorado and the warrior mama behind the three initiatives that we are going to get on the November ballot. But Erin, it hasn’t been a smooth journey for you. As you mentioned, there was some opposition, not only from the left. We can anticipate that. But some people, even on our side of the aisle, weren’t completely supportive. Would you like to talk a little bit about that?

SPEAKER 02 : 18:53

Yeah. Well, this has not been an easy five-year journey for me. This is personal. I talked about on the last episode that My daughter was secretly transitioned and sent down this path of irreversible medical harm at 12. She was taught about puberty blockers and double mastectomies and encouraged to pursue them by teachers. So that’s why I engaged. It’s been bizarre how speaking out has brought so much heat that people were really resistant to this, but I’m definitely seeing a cultural shift. that more and more people are going, you’re right, that is wrong. I’m not mad at you for talking about it anymore. We should be addressing this. But yeah, you know, I think we again, we broke the system. We threw a wrench in how this is typically done. And there are organizations on both sides that have just accepted that you buy your signatures. That’s just what you do. And so I understand why people were so skeptical of our ability to be successful on a volunteer basis. I think it’s a threat. I think it’s a threat to funding. I think it’s a threat to the process. That’s not our intent. Our intent is to give people a way to engage and to fix the problem, to actually protect kids and just solve the problem and be done with it. But it was shocking to me to have pushback from both sides. I didn’t expect that. I thought I don’t operate that way. I want all efforts like this to be successful. I think we can work in harmony with each other. And I hope that we’ve, you know, kind of changed their mindset now that we have been successful. I understand why they were skeptical, but I hope that moving forward, we’ll have full support from everyone on the conservative side and Democrats.

SPEAKER 03 : 20:25

Yeah, well, we need to have support all the way around. We need to have an abundance mentality where we’re constantly supporting each other for common sense solutions to our community. It’s one of the rights that we talk about, the right to petition our government. And, you know, we’re not living in a time right now where we need to be oppositional about these types of bills. We need to be all in supporting and it has nothing to do with who gets the credit or who gets the benefit. You know what I mean? Like to your point. So I think it’s critical. You know, God was with you. with this. God was touching the hearts of so many people across Colorado to volunteer to get these signatures done. And I watched the videos of where you were rolling up into the Secretary of State’s office, up the elevator with the rolly carts and I was like, yay. And we have got to celebrate that. We’ve got to support you. Doesn’t matter who gets the credit. We’re all working together because it takes a village to get something like this Herculean effort done. And you’re right. I hope that it is a strong message. to people out there who may have a different opinion about the process of getting the stem but this is exactly the way it should be done we the people if our if our elected officials are not representing us then we go back to we the people taking charge of how we are being governed and um i hope many many more people are encouraged by what you did to say, you know what, we’re going to bypass the state legislature because, you know, I mean, we’re looking at bills where they’re going to, they’re thinking about legalizing prostitution, right? And we’re, and these are people, A, endorsed by the teachers union, okay? Yep. Where are you getting young people who want to do this as a career? Well, they’re groomed at a very young age. And we know that young people who are either in the foster care system or a special education, they’re easy targets. for an industry that will sexualize them um so i i would agree i think that definitely needs to be the message going forward so um while you’re waiting to hear aaron like what are what are the things that you’re doing you’re doing a lot of um interviews or like what are how are you passing the time now my goodness yes well just to your point this these issues are such a unifier

SPEAKER 02 : 23:05

And it’s our hope that candidates, Republican, Democrat, I don’t care, that sane candidates will use these as part of their platform to be able to not just drive people out to vote for them. They call that the down ballot effect. But to strengthen their campaign, I think this really will show people’s true colors. If you support what’s on the ballot, that’s common sense child protection measures that then you’re proving to the people of Colorado you can be trusted and that you care about these issues that have been stigmatized. For a long time, I’ve been told the social issues don’t matter. You’re controversial. We need to focus on where we can win, where we can unify with Democrats and pass common sense tax legislation. And it’s like, no, these things do matter. Things like this affect families all over the state every day, and we should all care about them. And I’m just hopeful that these will be unifiers for people across the board and across the state. But I took a big, long nap after we turned in all these petitions. I didn’t sleep at all the night before we were working up until turn in. Then I got my body just shut down. So I’m trying to recover from what was a massive six-month undertaking. There’s a reason it’s never been done before. It was a lot of work. But what’s really encouraging is that I’m already hearing from other blue states that have similar laws on the books that have legislatures that won’t pass common sense legislation who are saying, show us what you did. Give us the playbook. How can we do this in our state? It’s only about half of the states that have this process. the citizens ballot measure a lot of the founding states on the east coast don’t even have this option they’re really bound by what their legislators are doing so we’re fortunate to have this in colorado and i’m hopeful that we’re going to roll this out to washington oregon nevada california or other states like we are the blueprint for i know there was a book called the blueprint i have it on my shelf about how the democrats flip the state well i’m giving them the red print this is how we take our states back Through we the people not relying on our elected officials to do it for us. And so a lot of that, a lot of coaching other states, a lot of supporting parents. You know, we our lawsuit went all the way to the Supreme Court on secret school transition. And I kind of became a beacon for all the parents who are going through this, whose kids have been harmed. in public schools who’ve been transitioned, who’ve been sexualized, who’ve been trafficked. And I do a lot of work supporting parents just with the resources that when you Google this, there’s nothing out there to support parents. And that’s actually why one of the reasons I started Protect Kids Colorado is to give parents a resource in a place where when they’re desperate, they have a parent who’s been through it, who can hold their hand and give them resources and help them walk that walk and make educational decisions for for their kids and navigate the legal system and expose in media what’s going on in their schools. So a lot of that. And then we have the 1312 lawsuit. So speaking of bad laws, the worst law in the history of any state ever, House Bill 1312 that compels all of our speech. And Protect Kids is currently in litigation against the state of Colorado to overturn that law. And I have a feeling we’ll be successful.

SPEAKER 03 : 26:12

I hope so because Colorado is worth fighting for. Name your website so people can go and support you because you need financial support to help the organization to run. Yes. Yes.

SPEAKER 02 : 26:24

It’s protectkidscolorado.org. And we most certainly need funding right now in this court of public opinion battle in the, in our adventure up until the November ballot, we’re going to need flyers, commercials, marketing, just to make sure people know they need to get out and vote on these. So we welcome all financial support and anyone who wants to join the team of volunteers and just be out there spreading the message. We’re 3,300 strong and growing and, So we encourage people to sign up to volunteer as well. It’s protectkidscolorado.org.

SPEAKER 03 : 26:56

Well, we know the left is going to come out in full force with lies, with smears. They’re going to have a lot of money. They hate what we’re doing. And as believers in Christ, we know that this is a spiritual warfare against our families and against our children. And when I see all of these bills that are attacking the innocence of children, it just tells me we’ve got to be on our knees praying for our state and praying for the people to turn out and vote in November in favor of these three ballot initiatives. So Aaron, thank you so much for being the one that God has chosen. You are a faithful servant doing this work. You answered the call and I just really appreciate it. And for my listeners, Excalibur Classical Academy is not going to be keeping secrets from you. And we’re not going to bring books into the library that are inappropriate. So there are great options. And, you know, I’m just going to always partner with you, Erin, and support you. And I’m going to encourage people to support the work that you’re doing and the rest of us who are like-minded. So thank you so much for your time today. And we’ll be in touch. To my listeners, thank you so much for tuning in and catch me next time. And remember, educating the mind without the heart is no education. So seek wisdom, cultivate virtue, and speak truth.

SPEAKER 01 : 28:28

Thanks for tuning in to Restoring Education in America with Priscilla Rahn. Visit PriscillaRahn.com to connect or learn how you can sponsor future episodes to keep this message of faith, freedom, and education on the air.