An Interview with Congressman Jared Polis
24 May 2017
Policy Issues
Against the backdrop of a Republican majority in the House, how much influence can you as a Democrat, or House Democrats overall, have on influencing policy? There so many issues that are bipartisan, and to be an effective legislator, I work across the aisle. I passed the Email Privacy Act to protect the privacy of emails from government search without a warrant. I passed a bill to extend the boundaries of Rocky Mountain National Park in Grand County, and there are a number of bipartisan efforts that are underway. That being said, it’s also an opportunity for Democrats to stand in resistance and in opposition to the extreme, divisive elements of the Trump administration. So that’s the other opportunity to communicate that alternative vision and to serve as a rallying point for marginalized Americans like people of color, the LGBT community and the immigrant communities, to show that we stand in solidarity with them. As the lead Democrat on the education committee, you’re on record as opposing much of what Betsy DeVos and the Trump administration have proposed. Where is your disconnect from them in education? I’m very worried that we have a Secretary of Education who doesn’t seem to believe in our public schools and doesn’t seem to have anything to say about making college more affordable. Those are the two things I hear from constituents every day: We need to work to improve our neighborhood schools, our schools of choice, and make college more
If there’s one attribute that members of Congress generally share, it’s not a particularly high level of intelligence, it’s not a particularly high level of experience prior to serving, it’s stamina.Isn’t one of the issues that you can’t apply for citizenship until you’re 18? There’s a general frustration because no one in this group can actually apply for citizenship. I brought a DREAMer to the State of the Union—Oscar, a young man from Longmont—and what’s frustrating to him is that people ask, “Why don’t you just become a citizen? Why don’t you just go through the process?” Well, it turns out there is no process to become a citizen if you’re undocumented here. There is no process to normalize your status if you’re a DREAMer. Oscar, and so many other undocumented residents of our country, would love nothing more than to go through whatever path we put in front of them to become citizens. Whether it means learning English, whether it means taking a test, whether it means paying a fine, they would line up to do that. And when we talk about immigration reform, it’s simply talking about a process to allow people to emerge from the shadows, get right with the law and someday earn citizenship. And they would get in line today behind those who have been doing the legal immigration process. At least there would be a line. Today there is simply no line to get into. There’s not even a process to citizenship? Not even a process. There is absolutely no process. They would have to be readmitted. In many cases you have parents of American children, like Jeanette Vizguerra, who I visited. Up until recently, she was hiding out in the basement of a church in Denver even though she actually has a path to normalization. She has a pending U-visa application as a victim of a crime. She will likely get permanent status, but until she gets it, she is at risk of eventual deportation and being ripped away from her children. What about Trump’s wall—will it be built? The good news is that the wall will not be built. During the campaign President Trump promised that Mexicans would pay for the wall. I would hope that most thoughtful Americans realize that the Mexicans weren’t about to pay for a wall. And if President Trump wants a wall, he’ll have to force American taxpayers to pay for it, and that’s not a very popular proposition with Speaker Ryan or [Senate Majority Leader] Mitch McConnell. What you will likely see instead of a wall is some modestly increased funding for border security, which isn’t a bad thing. We can make some improvements with our border security preventing the flow of drugs into our country, the flow of arms from the U.S. to Mexico. Yes, there will likely be a photo-op wall somewhere that you will be able to go and take a picture in front of, but it will not be a wall across anything close to the entire southern border. You made an interesting comment at the Boulder town hall about the wall essentially ceding the Rio Grande River to Mexico. That’s right. And there’s the question of where you would even put the wall. If you put it on our side of the border, you would cede the Rio Grande to Mexico, Mexico is not going to give permission on their side of the border. From an engineering perspective, it can’t be in the middle, so you will not see a wall across that border. You will see a photo-op wall. I’m fully bracing myself for the fact that after President Trump poses by this little wall, a good 40 percent of the American public will think there actually is a wall between Mexico and the United States, even though there isn’t. That’s really the danger of this modern age we live in of false “facts” and propaganda. One of the acid tests for this administration was repealing and replacing the Affordable Care Act. What will happen with the ACA? As of now, the first attempt to repeal the Affordable Care Act and replace it went down, and it is a failure because the replacement plan Republicans came up with was simply worse by all accounts. It would kick 24 million people off insurance. It would raise rates 15 to 20 percent for those who were lucky to keep their insurance. Republicans and Democrats both said this isn’t better, this is worse. And that’s why it went down. Hopefully Republicans will be willing to work with Democrats and come up with common-sense improvements to make health care more affordable. My benchmark will always be threefold and a test to look at any suggestion in the healthcare space: Does it expand coverage? Does it make health care more affordable? Does it maintain or grow the quality of health care? If any idea, big or small, passes that test, I will support it and if it fails that test I would oppose it.
There’s a two-front war on climate science. On one front is the general war on science… but there’s also a targeted war on specific kinds of science, namely climate science and stem-cell research.Similar to this is Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ view on marijuana, either recreational or medicinal, as a gateway drug. Right. The attorney general is stuck in a 1960s Reefer Madness mentality, and without regard to science, without regard to the evidence, he has a personal vendetta against marijuana. It’s perfectly appropriate for an attorney general not to condone marijuana use, just as it might be not to condone smoking. But you have to look at how these things impact society. By all accounts, a legal, regulated system for marijuana not only can help reduce underage use, not only generates tax revenue, not only deals a blow to the cartels, but also can be an important way to improve the public health by having these discussions in public and above ground. Look at the success we’re having in reducing tobacco-smoking rates since the 1950s. Had cigarettes been illegal we likely wouldn’t have had that same success. We’ve been able to have a national discussion about the carcinogenic effects and the effects on pregnant women, and we’ve been tremendously successful in reducing smoking rates. I think we can also be successful in having that national discussion on the health impact of marijuana over the next several decades. When it’s illegal you simply can’t even have that discussion. A huge policy debate is looming on Trump’s proposed 2018 budget. How will this play out? The good news is that presidents don’t get to set the budget. In Article I, Section 1 of the Constitution, Congress has the power of the purse, and Trump’s budget, like the budget of previous presidents, will fall on deaf ears in Congress. That doesn’t mean that Congress won’t feel the same need to make tough cuts because of the military spending increases; they will. But I’m confident that many of those programs that the president zeroes out, like the National Endowment for the Arts, like PBS Kids, like Meals on Wheels, will hopefully be restored by Congress, if not up to their prior levels, at least to a level that those programs can continue to function. One concern is when a huge cut—to the EPA, for example—is asked for, any smaller reduction may be a victory for the opposition, but it’s still a reduction. Trump is asking for a 34-percent EPA cut and it will likely be less than that. But in the case of the programs that are zeroed out, yes. For example, President Trump is talking about zeroing out AmeriCorps. AmeriCorps did amazing work during our flood recovery—hundreds of people came, digging out mud and helping people. They do work at our schools every day, in our youth centers. If they were zeroed out it would be an enormous setback for the entire social-service sector.
International Issues
A major issue to you is Syrian refugees. What should the U.S. be doing? When you look at the humanitarian crisis in Syria, caused by both Assad and the various rebel groups including ISIS, it demands a humane response from the West. A big part of that response has to be providing a way for people fleeing that violence to find safety, in refugee camps or through permanent refugee status in different western countries. The answer to those mass civilian slaughters through chemical or conventional means is to help people find a way to get out and avoid being caught between Assad and ISIS. That’s why I’ve repeatedly called on President Obama, and now President Trump, to allow our reasonable fair share of refugees as other western countries have done, along with making sure that they’re fully vetted and can contribute to this country. Trump has taken a more bellicoseposition internationally than President Obama. Didn’t the cruise missile attack on Syria raise issues regarding the War Powers Act? Yes. President Trump did not consult Congress with regard to the strike in Syria; in fact he did it the day Congress left town. A president, for an attack on a nation-state, should have to consult Congress before engaging in that type of activity. So that’s different, for instance, than the use of authority under the Authorization for Military Authority in the bombing of an ISIS terrorist training facility in Afghanistan, which is permitted by Congress. A strike on Syria is not permitted by Congress. So there’s that legal argument there. But there’s also the argument of whether it works, whether it accomplishes anything. What was the goal, and did it accomplish it? At this point Congress hasn’t even been briefed on it. Whether we will, I can’t say. Congress wasn’t briefed or consulted at all prior to the event or after the bombing. Another hot-button topic is the Trump-Russia connection. The House investigation is back on. How do you see this investigation unfolding? There are at least three separate ongoing investigations into the connections of the associates of Donald Trump and potentially the President himself with Russian oligarchs and Russian intelligence agents for purposes of manipulating the results of the last presidential election. There’s an FBI investigation, there’s a Senate Intelligence Committee investigation and there’s a House Intelligence Committee investigation. The best way to have full and transparent accounting for the American people would be to have an independent, nonpartisan commission, and I’ve sponsored a bill that would do that. I hope that there will be increasing public pressure such that Republicans stop standing in the way of the full accounting the American people deserve with regard to whether there was any collusion between associates of the president, or potentially the president himself, and foreign powers during the last election. In the absence of that, I still have some degree of confidence that these three processes we have in place will get to the bottom of the matter. Where there’s a lot of smoke, we just have to see where those actual fires are. If Trump or his associates are found to have conspired with the Russians or other foreign powers, what action should be taken? Well, I think it’s highly likely at this point that there will be some associates of Trump that had some role in the campaign that will be brought up on criminal charges. What we don’t know is what did the president know, what did the president direct, did he know it, what did he do, and those all remain to be seen. This is why we really, truly need an independent commission, but at the very least, we owe a full accounting to the American people of how high that level of involvement went with regard to collusion. How do you compare this to Watergate? It’s a much bigger scandal. I mean, what happened is much bigger, and there was no excuse. Watergate was terrible and wire-tapping is inexcusable, but collusion with a hostile foreign government rises to an even higher level. Again, we simply don’t know at what level that occurred, and there’s a lot of smoke and a lot of mysterious meetings with Russians, a lot of undisclosed meetings with Russian agents. We just have to see where that all leads. But certainly there’s a lot out there that would cause a reasonable person to think that some illegal act occurred.Final Reflections: Now and the Future
You represent a politically diverse Congressional district. Your recent town hall in Boulder was very supportive. Town halls in Loveland and Fort Collins followed. How were they different? Well, they weren’t. A lot of people don’t realize how vast a Congressional district I’m honored to represent. It goes all the way up to the Wyoming border, it goes out west past Vail, it goes down south, southern Jefferson County, even Park County, Bailey. So it’s a big district and it’s a diverse district with rural areas, mountain areas, and suburban areas and our two premier college towns, Fort Collins and Boulder, so people have diverse opinions. I try to faithfully represent my values and am always happy to explain and discuss and defend why I believe things. I’m always thrilled to receive input from across the ideological spectrum into what we can do better. My constituents are certainly not shy in that regard.
