Exploring the 2025 Voter’s Guide with Kim Monson

SPEAKER 01 : 0:00

I’m Rachel Maines with Crawford Media Group, and today I have Kim Munson with me, and she has a show on AM560, Monday through Friday from 6 to 8 a.m. Thank you so much, Kim, for being here today.

SPEAKER 02 : 0:12

It’s great to be with you, Rachel, and I can’t believe that we’re in election season.

SPEAKER 01 : 0:16

I know. It goes by so quickly. And this thing that you do, the Voter’s Guide, the Kim Munson Show 2025 Voter’s Guide, I mean, you do so much research. It’s so professional. Thank you so much for doing this and helping us voters out.

SPEAKER 02 : 0:29

Well, I hope, Rachel, that this will be a great tool for people as they are completing their ballot. And I’m not telling people how to vote. I make a recommendation. But my hope is that people use it as a tool to research it and to think about it and come to their own conclusions. And if they agree with me, that’s great. But I just really want it to be a tool.

SPEAKER 01 : 0:51

Well, it certainly is. And Kim, for those who don’t know, just kind of explain how you got started doing the Voter’s Guide.

SPEAKER 02 : 1:00

I think I might have been one of the first to do Voter’s Guides in Colorado. I don’t know if other states are doing them or not, but this was probably 10 years ago at least. And I would get my ballot, and it was confusing. I didn’t quite understand what I was voting on. It was extensive. You get the blue book, and it just seemed like mumble jumbo. And so I thought, I’m going to research this. Because what I was learning is that there were many times you might have your ballot question, but there was all kinds of other background information. If it had been referred to the ballot by the state legislature, there was legislation that was enacted. And I thought, I want to know exactly what I’m voting on. And that’s how it started. Right.

SPEAKER 01 : 1:47

Yeah, I mean, it is confusing. The language, sometimes you feel like you have to have a law degree or something just to understand what’s going on here. So I know there’s a lot of research. What type of research do you do?

SPEAKER 02 : 1:59

Well, obviously on the show, I always am thinking about the principles. So that’s the first thing, the principles. What’s best for the individual Coloradan or American? How does this proposal match up with our Constitution and this idea that All men are created equal with these rights from God of life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness. So if we have a ballot question that’s not treating people equally, well, that’s going to be a no. It’s pretty easy that that’s going to be a no. And that’s the case with Proposition LL. and Proposition MM, which are the two statewide questions that are on the ballot. They both are tax increases, but they say they want to increase taxes only on people that are making $300,000 or more in the case of Proposition MM. And in the case of Proposition LL, they actually, people of Colorado passed a measure in 2022 saying And I have this in air quotes. Healthy school meals for all children. Sounds good. We want kids to have healthy meals. We want to make sure our kids don’t go hungry. However, Proposition FF back in 2022 put in five new bureaucracies. And bureaucracies don’t feed kids. That’s not food on the table for kids. So they put this under the guise of… of doing something good, but in essence, it’s taking taxes via force for a government program. So in the case of Proposition FF back in 2022, they said that they were going to raise $107 million for this program. They actually collected more than that, 12 million more. And so you have those that say that businesses are greedy and businessmen are greedy. Well, businessmen, business people, unless they’re doing cronyism with the government, it’s a free exchange of value for value. But with this particular question is they took an additional 12 million above the 107 million, which was above what they said that they were going to take. Well, now Proposition LL says, can we have it all? And that’s what that one’s about.

SPEAKER 01 : 4:20

So interesting. You know, you see some of these ads on television. I’m sure you just roll your eyes because it’s really just marketing.

SPEAKER 02 : 4:26

It is.

SPEAKER 01 : 4:26

And it’s not really giving anybody real information when you see anything on the TV.

SPEAKER 02 : 4:31

It’s not. And consultants, politicians, I call them PBIs, politicians, bureaucrats, and interested parties, which we can put the consultants in there as well, from both sides of the aisle, they want to confuse the voter and And they love running these big campaigns on television and on radio, and it’s just sound bites. And it is very, very confusing. And so that’s why I do the Voter’s Guide, is so that you really know what the language is, what’s the background information, my reasoning, and my recommendation.

SPEAKER 01 : 5:03

Yes, and I want to let our listeners know you can download that right now. Yes. Just going to your website, KimMunson.com.

SPEAKER 02 : 5:09

Correct, and it’s KimMunson, M-O-N-S-O-N.com. There’s a red ribbon at the top of the website, and just click on that and put in your name and your email, and we’ll send a link so that you can download it.

SPEAKER 01 : 5:22

Wonderful. And Kim, what are some of the other things, the highlights of the Voter’s Guide?

SPEAKER 02 : 5:26

I took positions on these five, and I have this in air quotes, vibrant Denver bonds. And through with all five of those, and they sound, again, transportation and mobility, health and human services issues. But many of these things are not the proper role of government. People are hurting. They’re paying higher and higher taxes, higher and higher fees, higher and higher property taxes. And these proposals are just about $1 billion just to borrow and well over another billion to pay it back. And I would recommend no on that. And the first thing out of the box on this, Rachel, is the language is dishonest. It says, without raising taxes, may the state keep blah, blah, blah, blah. And when they say without raising taxes, what they are wanting to do with these bond questions is to extend debt. And so in essence, if you have debt that was going to go away, but then you extend it, that really is a tax increase. So if you or when you pay off your car. That payment goes away. And so if you are borrowing again, that is raising taxes. So I think it’s disingenuous right off the bat. So if you can’t be honest with me in the ballot question, why on earth would I give you almost a billion dollars that I have to pay back permission to do that?

SPEAKER 01 : 6:56

Right. You know, is there any type of reform we can do in terms of I don’t know, this is just kind of a long term question here. Reform we can do in terms of how people word the ballot questions are. I don’t even know if it’s too far gone.

SPEAKER 02 : 7:10

It’s that’s a really good question. And people have this nuancing of language is so important. And so I think what we really have to do is to shed light on it. Because of TABOR, Colorado’s Taxpayers Bill of Rights, which was an amendment that was passed by the people of Colorado in 1992, it said three things, basically. It’s all about good manners with government, or PBIs. If you want to raise our taxes, you just have to ask us. But with language, what they did is they… Wanted to note that fees would not have to be, the permission would not have to be asked for from the people if an entity wanted to charge a fee. My understanding was the conversation was, well, guys, if a library district wanted to increase fees for late books, they shouldn’t have to go to the voter. Okay. So fees were pulled out of that. Well, now what you see with this legislature is that they are redefining taxes as fees so that they don’t have to ask us about that. And so that little loophole, if you will, they’re now driving a truck through it. But still with Tabor, to incur debt, increase taxes, or keep excess revenue, as I explained earlier, on Prop FF, they have to ask us. So if you see it on your ballot, it’s a tax increase. And that protection is with Tabor. I think the other thing is, is what you and I are doing is shedding light on that language.

SPEAKER 01 : 8:46

Yeah. Thank you, Kim. I just can’t imagine all the work that you you spend on this and just understanding that. So I just want to thank you so much for helping us. It just seems like it seems hard and it just seems like a never ending task. I’m so thankful that you’ve been gifted to do this. Do you want to shed some light on some other things on the ballot?

SPEAKER 02 : 9:06

So a couple of other things. What I did was, so that’s what I took positions on. There are a lot of things on local ballots. And Colorado Municipal League did a synopsis. It’s not totally complete, but what’s on a number of different ballots throughout all these different towns and cities today. counties in the state. So I highlighted that. I put that in there so that people would know what’s on their ballot at least. And then I also included the phone numbers for all 64 county clerks and recommended if you have city council people or mayors or school boards seats that are up for election, you have a responsibility to know what those candidates stand for and so I gave some suggestions on questions and you can’t always be guaranteed that they will always tell you the truth because some candidates like to try to tell you what they think you want to hear but at least do the due diligence have that conversation and also it creates a relationship with these candidates as well so all those phone numbers are there you can contact the county clerk they’ll have the contact information for the candidates and I’d recommend that people do their homework

SPEAKER 01 : 10:24

Right. And just for our listeners to know this, you didn’t just, you know, always get into politics. This has been a thing that’s kind of and I would say God has led you this way. But just explain real quick to our listeners how this all came about, because I feel like people say, oh, you know, they could be listening like, oh, I don’t have time for that or I’m not gifted in that. But to hear your journey. And how you now have a radio show Monday through Friday on our sister station, and now you’re doing the Voter’s Guide. I think it will be encouraging to them to realize, no, we can do something, too, even just baby steps.

SPEAKER 02 : 11:00

Well, I thought all of the Voter’s Guide, all of that, I thought that was above my pay grade. When I was in high school, I wanted to be a journalist. But life takes so many twists and turns. And so it was in 2013, I ended up on a Sunday afternoon show on KLZ 560 with two other women. And it was really kind of a hobby. And we looked at each other. We said, what are we going to talk about? We talked about the Declaration, the Constitution, and Dr. Jill, an expert on Obamacare, we talked about that. Both of them stepped aside, and it was just kind of one step after another to get to this point now to be on Drive Time Radio in this big market on KLC 560. And when the good Lord nudges you, take the step. And so when you feel it, and if the door opens, just keep stepping through that door. If the door doesn’t open, it’s probably directing you someplace else. But when you hear that heart tug, which I think is the Lord, listen.

SPEAKER 01 : 12:05

Right. And don’t feel like you have to have it all together. It’s just step by step. I like that.

SPEAKER 02 : 12:10

I had a friend that gave me this quote. She said, inch by inch, life’s a cinch. Yard by yard, life is hard. And so when you’re going through a day and it seems like it’s a little hard, just remember, inch by inch, just take that next step.

SPEAKER 01 : 12:26

And one of the steps you can take as a listener is to download this voter’s guide. Just go to kimmunson.com. That’s kimmunson.com. Kim, we have a couple minutes here. Anything else you want to highlight or share?

SPEAKER 02 : 12:37

Regarding school board races, there is a great resource called transformcolorado.org. And they went through and sent surveys out with key questions that our listeners really care about. and then they logged whether or not a candidate responded or not and how they responded. If a candidate did not respond, that probably means they didn’t want to answer the question. So that Transform Colorado is a great tool, and they have most all of the school board races on that website. So check that out for school board candidates.

SPEAKER 01 : 13:11

Wonderful. And also your website, you do a lot of blogs and stuff as well as you can re-listen to the daily show on the website, KimMunson.com. It’s a great resource for the listeners as well as now you can get access to the 2025 Voters Guide. Thank you so much, Kim, for all that you are doing.

SPEAKER 02 : 13:28

Rachel, it’s such an honor to be with you.

SPEAKER 01 : 13:30

And once again, don’t forget to get the Kim Munson Show 2025 Voters Guide. Just go to KimMunson.com. That’s K-I-M-M-O-N-S-O-N.com.