Julie Gonzales is giving a challenge to U.S. Sen. John Hickenlooper in seeking the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate in the June 30 primary. The state senator from Denver, with roots in Huerfano County, campaigned in Alamosa over the weekend at a statewide candidates forum and reception.
Alamosa Citizen editor Chris Lopez caught up with Gonzales at Milagros Coffee House following her meeting with Valleywide Health CEO Jania Arnoldi and SLV Behavioral Health CEO Victoria Romero on the topic of rural healthcare.
Here is a transcript of the 30-minute interview, edited for clarity and length, that hits on the topics a U.S. senator representing Colorado would face at a federal level. The conversation picks up on what Gonzales left Arnoldi and Romero with, and that’s her challenge to Hickenlooper and her feeling that “bold change” in Colorado’s U.S. senatorial representation is needed given this moment in the nation’s history.
Alamosa Citizen: What you were saying there at the end about the senator (Hickenlooper) as a centrist Democrat versus your thinking now that in Colorado, in the country, we need bold change. Talk about that because that seems to be what has pulled you into this particular race?
Sen. Julie Gonzales: Absolutely. I will say that there was a time and a place for centrist incrementalism, but when we are facing real deep challenges, crises related to water, our healthcare, economy, I’m sorry, biting around the edges doesn’t cut it. When people are working harder than ever just to make ends meet and you feel like you are just expending tremendous amounts of energy to just try to keep afloat, it’s called treading water.
My sense is we ought to advance solutions that meet the scale of the challenges that confront us, and it’s why I think that our values here in Colorado are clear. Colorado voters expect Democrats who govern and lead with the conviction of those values to build an economy that works for everyday people and not just for the ultra billionaires and their corporate lobbyists. They expect the ability to see a doctor without going bankrupt, and they expect to be able to care for their loved ones in their most precious moments. It’s why I believe in Medicare for All. It’s why I believe in universal child and elder care, and it’s why I believe that we ought to really ensure that our economy is working for everyday people and not just for the Bezoses and the Musks and the Zuckerbergs of the world.
AC: In the country today, in Colorado today, there are a myriad of issues that you can talk out, look at, and need to solve. What in your mind right now would be the two, three, maybe biggest issues? What’s at the top of your list?
Sen. Gonzales: Yeah. I would say that it is a hallmark tactic of authoritarians to try to flood the zone and to try and disorient people so that they become so overwhelmed that they disengage, they disconnect, and they just say, well, just not going to read the news anymore. And instead, I actually think that the work that the media does to educate and inform and to remind people about what is taking place in their community is so critically important. Community is the antidote to authoritarianism. That being said, we’re witnessing censorship, we’re witnessing, gosh, Don Lemon just last month was arrested and jailed. That is disconcerting. What I would do in the U.S. Senate is to start by advancing policies that really impact everyday people, right? Make it easier to join a union, sign on to the PRO Act (Protecting the Right to Organize), advance Medicare for All, and really strip the profit motive that exists currently at every single aspect of the healthcare system, advance the solutions that meet the scale of the crises that confront us.
AC: Let me ask you about a couple of current topics, current issues that Colorado’s dealing with in the State Senate, the legislature, and federally in Congress. The Colorado River Compact itself. Explain for me your understanding of what separates the lower basin states and the upper basin states and where you think the solutions are when it comes to that particular compact.
Sen. Gonzales: Absolutely. Well, I will just start off by saying that my perspective when it comes to water is informed by the land that my family has had water rights to, access to since, I want to say, 1905 over in Huerfano County. And when the Spring Fire hit back in 2018, we thought that our land was going to burn. By the grace of the wind changing direction, it didn’t. But three years later, there was a mudslide that washed out the ditch that provides our family and six other families with access to our water. And as we’re looking now at that ‘use it or lose it’ aspect of our water law, we’re really, as a family trying to figure out, OK, what are we going to do for the upcoming water season. And so both as an individual, as a family, but then when you zoom out and you look structurally at the fact that the water negotiations that are ongoing related to the compact were written in an era that was not constrained and challenged by the climate crisis, it really asks fundamental questions as to are we going to continue to prioritize profit? Are we going to prioritize people and the land itself? And so for me, the way that I think about this, look, I appreciate that those conversations are ongoing, but if the states and if the upper basins and the lower basin don’t come to consensus and agreement, the federal government will be forced to step in and I believe that the people directly impacted should be the people to find that consensus and to take a lead.
AC: Whether it’s the Rio Grande or the Colorado River or the Republican River, we seem to be in an era where municipalities that rely on the river systems for drinking water versus agricultural rural markets that rely on the water for crops, for cattle grazing, for sheep grazing, and there’s a limited water supply. How do we balance the priorities of the municipalities, the metro areas and the rural markets that we live in? How do you create that balance because both sides have legitimate concerns?
Sen. Gonzales: I would say that I represent northwest and downtown Denver, and so I think a lot of folks often assumed that I would just simply follow the lead of Denver. But also given my roots in Huerfano County and growing up on ranches and understanding what it is to survive drought raising cattle, I know what that looks like firsthand as well. I remember my dad having to go and try to manage when he was going to move cattle from pasture to pasture and then when the drought got so bad they had to sell. I’ve seen that play out.
What I’ll be clear about is that adding in new industries that seek to utilize massive amounts of water with no regulation, data centers, right? There’s one that’s going up in my community, and that is going to cause severe impact for the community. It’s 500 feet away from where people live. And if we start to allow these data centers to operate unchecked, incredible, massive consequences for our water and our economy. And so my sense is given that is how we have leaders who are willing to not just say, well, who are willing to not only just ask what is the highest and best economic use, but what is the highest and best use for people for our economy and for our planet in a way that manages not only the current situation, but for future generations as well.
AC: This raises an interesting question. You are now a state senator, you’re campaigning to be a U.S. senator. Is it the state government or the federal government that should regulate artificial intelligence? Because you’re having these disagreements and the federal government and congressional members will argue that you have a patchwork system if it’s regulated at the state level.
Sen. Gonzales: I’d say Colorado was the first state in the country because the federal government had not taken meaningful action. And so in the absence when Congress isn’t going to agree on what day of the week it is, much less find meaningful protections to protect consumers from the harms and dangers of artificial intelligence, I’m proud of the work that Colorado did to say, ‘Hey, if you get discriminated against by a human, we already have those regulations and remedies in statute, and here’s what those remedies ought to be if you are discriminated against by some AI bot.’ Let’s set what that floor ought to be. Now, the Trump administration and certainly the leadership in the U.S. Senate, the current, both Sens. Hickenlooper and Bennet had said, ‘No, no, no, let’s do it at a federal level,’ cool. Where’s the bill? Where is the action?
In the meantime, we’re seeing the harms on day-to-day, week-to-week, incredible data coming out about the harms of algorithms on young people, on teenagers facing suicidality, facing body dysmorphia, all of these harms. Seeing the ways that jobs are being replaced by artificial intelligence. Set those parameters. And that’s a huge area of work. But what I will also say is that I’m not taking corporate PAC money. I’m not personally invested in Google and Microsoft and Apple stocks. And so you can be sure that I will be clear in who guides my policymaking and my decision making on this issue, and that’s listen to the people, not to the corporate lobby and not to the AI developers. I ain’t going to take a single dime from Palantir.
AC: Let me ask you about power, global warming, energy. What in your mind is the right mix for energy generation in this century? What sources of power do you support or not support?
Sen. Gonzales: I am really proud of the ways that Colorado has taken the lead, right? It goes back to the Ritter (Gov. Ritter) days to say, ‘We need to build a green economy. We need to build the solar, the wind, the water future in order to let go of the fossil fuels that cause such harm to our planet.’ We’re living the consequences now, right? I mean, we’re all seeing the lack of snowpack. We saw the windstorm that kicked up in Pueblo. We’ve seen the fires erupt, Marshall Fire, days after Christmas, right? Fire season is now year ’round. Climate crisis is here. And so to me, we have to build that right mix of solar, of wind, of geothermal. And to me, I’ve supported legislation to help provide transition for the folks who are working in the oil fields, for folks who are working in the coal plants, so that they are also benefiting from that shift in the economy as well to those clean green jobs.
AC: These small towns that you’re visiting, Alamosa the biggest. What’s your take on small towns now that you’ve come here a few times. What’s your take on small towns in terms of what their future is and how do they maintain a future?
Sen. Gonzales: I’ll just share a story, and maybe this connects back to your last question as well, but I was having this conversation with a dear family friend and my older brother actually, and we were talking about – oh, because to me, Alamosa is not a small town, Gardner is a small town – and we were talking about what could economic development look like in Gardner? And my brother says, oh, well, we should put a … and he was throwing out ideas and we were throwing out ideas. And then my friend, she says, ‘No Gardner needs a gas station. You think anybody’s going to have electric vehicles here today? No. We need, yeah, build an electric vehicle charging station for the folks who have that ability, but today we need a gas station. That’s what we need.’ We’ve talked about it, but where we all agreed was on housing. We can’t find a place to live and even a small town like Gardner. And how do we build an economy that incentivizes people to stay and that you don’t have to leave in order to find a job that can pay you enough to make ends meet?
AC: There are small towns all over Colorado. How do they have any there, there. And how do you change that equation in today’s world? These communities don’t even generate enough property tax or sales tax to sustain themselves to pay for basic services. So how do they maintain themselves?
Sen. Gonzales: I’m trying to figure out how far back I want to go. How much time you got?
AC: Well, I think you have urgency. We’re 25 years into the new century. We see everything we just talked about. Everything out there that’s happening and you have these people living in these small towns that are hanging on. I’ve got five minutes by the way.
Sen. Gonzales: Here’s what I would say. When I read Virginia Sanchez’s ‘Pleas and Petitions’ about the territorial legislators, the spinal territorial legislators and their challenge to try to fight for dignity and respect, when again, the tax base did not sustain. And there was a real sense of ambivalence that I came away with a better understanding that the Valley has always, I think since our territorial days, has always been seen as, OK, yeah, but do the balance sheets add up. But when you look at it, there are riches that can’t be measured in a balance sheet and there is a value that cannot be measured in a property tax statement.
I think that people who make the affirmative decision to live in small towns, have inherent value and dignity and worth and shouldn’t be forced to make impossible decisions. But what our economy for too long has said is ‘figure it out.’ Or you can always move to Pueblo, and if you can’t figure it out in Pueblo, you can always move to Springs (Colorado Springs). And if you ain’t got it there, move to Denver. And if Denver don’t work out, there’s always Chicago. And that to me is such a missed opportunity. And I’ll tell you a story, and I’ll close with this. Years ago we did a study on private prison utilization here in the state of Colorado, and there was an entire bus full of people that came from Burlington, bus full of people, proportionally, that’d be like hundreds of people, maybe thousands from Denver. And they came and they said, ‘Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Don’t shut down the private prisons that would kill our town.’ Well, they’d also had a lot of those communities specifically on the eastern plains. They sold their water and they became, their entire economy depended on those private prisons. And I said, ‘Look, I get it.’ Why do I get it? I grew up, my family, my uncles worked at the private prison. And then when that private prison shut down, they moved to Walsenburg. I know what that is. I’ve lived that. I’ve seen it in my family. So that study came out. They said, ‘Hey, here’s what the cost of benefit would be.’ Just this past week we had supplemental budget decisions. And one of the questions was, ‘Should we expand the utilization of private prison beds?’ Because even though crime is going down, prison population is going up. Do we have a big fight coming up with the Department of Corrections to say, ‘make that make sense.’ But what that then means is if we are utilizing private prisons and if we’re not figuring out how to not address recidivism, then that means we have fewer dollars for education, for healthcare, for housing, transportation, for all other basics. And so to me, it is all interconnected to me having that recognition. And at the federal level, when we are witnessing this administration strip our social safety net, force rural hospitals, rural healthcare providers, teachers to do more with, I’m sorry, bubble gum and duct tape, in order to provide tax cuts to billionaires, our priorities are upside down.
AC: And that’s why you want to see that leadership change?
Sen. Gonzales: Why I think that, ‘Thank you Senator Hickenlooper for your service,’ but no is not enough. Go have the conversation, be sand in the gears if nothing else.
AC: Well, what would you do in the current situation where we see the president building up military might in Iran? How can a U.S. senator stand in front of that? What would we see from you today if you were in Washington, D.C., and that scene unfolding with Iraq?Sen. Gonzales: I would remind our president that we do not have a king. That use of force decisions must be authorized by Congress. That there are three branches of government and that we don’t want Greenland, we want healthcare. We don’t want military aggression in Iran, in Cuba, Venezuela. We don’t want bombs. No, you know what? People want an end to the madness of tariffs. Even the Supreme Court yesterday agreed. Now he says, well, I’m just going to use some other justification that’ll take another year. I’m sorry. Make the madness stop. That to me is the path ahead. Colorado deserves leadership. Who will stand up and say it out loud.