Adam Frisch: "I will make sure that we remain energy independent"

INTERVIEW WITH DEMOCRATIC CANDIDATE TO COLORADO CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT 3 BY HECTOR PANIAGUA, ENTÉRATE LATINO.

Newsrooms El Comercio de Colorado & Entérate Latino

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Adams Frisch is aiming to defeat Lauren Boebert in the 3rd congressional district. “I’m a pro-domestic energy Democrat. This district is producing the cleanest coal and cleanest natural gas in the country. We have a climate crisis on our hands and we need to make a transition. But it will be much longer than many people think. I want to make sure we have strong, well-paying jobs in our energy sectors, both in traditional energy and in the renewable energy sector,” says Boebert. Adam Frisch: “I will make sure that we remain energy independent”.

For Frisch, keeping jobs, growing the economy, and controlling inflation are priorities. This candidate wants to achieve those goals by working on a bipartisan basis. Frisch adds, “My number one goal is to join the congressional caucus to solve problems. That grouping is made up of 29 Democrats and 29 Republicans. They pass legislation on a bipartisan basis. And they brought us the first infrastructure bill, which provided a lot of money in funding to keep people working.”

The water resource, your other priority

Frisch is concerned about the scarcity of water. “At some point there will be a discussion between the states of the account to take conservation measures. That discussion will be between fifty-two people from the state of California who are your Representatives in Congress and us the eight congressmen who represent Colorado. That is why I ask every family, every business owner, every community, who do you want to sit at that discussion table representing Colorado District 3? he concluded it.

Transcript of the interview with Adam Frisch

The interview was conducted by Hector Paniagua, journalist and editor of Entérate Latino, at the Democratic Party headquarters in Mesa County. This is a collaborative effort between our publication El Comercio de Colorado and Entérate Latino, a leading publication in Western Colorado.

Enterate Latino: This is an interview for Enterate Latino, the Spanish language newspaper. We are here with Adam Frisch. Adam good evening, how are you?

Adam Frisch: “Great to see you again Hector, Thank you.”

EL: “Thank you for taking the time for the interview this afternoon, this evening.”

AF: “Always.”

EL: “Tell me how are you going to work with Congress to protect jobs in district 3. Tell me a concrete plan, what do you have in mind?

AF: “So when I go to Congress my number one goal is to join the problem solvers caucus. And that’s made up of 29 Democrats, and 29 Republicans. And they pass legislation in a bipartisan manner. And they brought us the first infrastructure bill, which provided a lot of money in funds to keep people working. And it also brought us the first infrastructure bill, bipartisan, which brought a tremendous amount of money to our district, for roads and bridges and broadband. Sadly, Lauren Boebert voted against both of those bills. She tried to take credit for it, for those that know. She did vote against those bills. And, so, as you know, most parts of rural Colorado and rural western areas in the United States, are mostly Republican dominated. And, so, I think my bipartisan manner, and the ability to work with everybody in Congress, not make fun of them, is how I’m gonna sit down and try to work with everybody to focus on jobs. And focus on the economy and focus on trying to get inflation under control. So, a couple of things in that matter of how I’m going to work. Now let’s talk about what we want to do. Infrastructure is still important. There’s a lot of hard-working men and women in businesses in this community that send a tremendous amount of money to Washington D.C., And I think it’s really important that a Representative actually doesn’t try to stop money from coming, as our current Representative does. But he actually tries every day to figure out how to bring that money back home, and put it in the hands for the community to figure out what types of bridges need to be fixed, what type of increased health care we can have at the county level. And try to make sure that there’s well-paying jobs, for men and women, all races and all ages to make sure that the infrastructure, human as well as roads and bridges get taken care of. And this community needs more jobs. We also need to make sure that we remain energy independent as much as possible.

I am a pro-domestic energy democrat. I think it’s very very important for people to understand that. This district is producing the cleanest coal and the cleanest natural gas in the country. We obviously have a climate crisis on our hands. We need to make that transition but it’s gonna be a lot longer than a lot of people think. So I wanna make sure we have strong well-paying jobs in our energy sectors, both the traditional energy sectors as well as the renewable energy sector.”

EL: In terms of the water situation, what will you do in Congress to work, for example, states like California have adopted emergency regulations to monitor water use, is that something you think western Colorado will have to do?

AF: “You know, the water from western Colorado supplies about forty million people. Including everyone in California, and in Arizona, and in Nevada, the lower basin states. Then we have Wyoming and Colorado, Utah and New Mexico in upper basin states. And we need to figure out how to keep as much water in southern and western Colorado as possible. And at some point there’s gonna be discussion. And that discussion is gonna be fifty-two people from the state of California that are in the House of Representatives, and there’s gonna be eight of us in Colorado. And I ask every family, every business owner, every community, who do you want sitting at that table representing Colorado? The current representative doesn’t spend a lot of time in those meetings and building bipartisan relationships to make sure that the rural aspects of Colorado keep our water. And so, I think that’s really important. We have done some measures to reduce some of the demand in water, we need to continue to do that. It’s really, really, really important for our egg, and for our ranching, and for our recreation, and for western Colorado’s ecological systems that we keep as much water here in the western slope, and in southern Colorado as well.

EL: Another question, this is about weapons, are you in agreement with Lauren Boebert about gun control laws, and access to weapons. Are you on the same page with her, or do you disagree, and in what do you disagree?

AD: “No, I think in a bipartisan manner, I was really excited and was very supportive of some rational gun safety laws that were passed for the first time in twenty-six years. I’m pretty sure she was against those common sense. You know, there are a lot of people that would be very happy to have, give them the keys to a tank. And there’s a lot of people I do not want them to have a hammer. And we need to make sure that guns stay out of the hands of the wrong people. And that’s where my main focus is. That bipartisan legislation that was passed by the Senate with ten Republican senators, it had billions of dollars for mental health. And there’s no doubt that a lot of these horrible shootings that happen have to do with mental health and we need to try to figure out how to identify those people, almost always young men, to try to figure out how to make sure we reduce these horrible mass shootings everywhere. But it’s very very important that people should have access to have their guns for safety, to protect their family, protect their business, and for recreation, for hunting and target practice.”

EL: Now about abortion, would you vote for a law that prohibits abortion?

AF: “No. I am a big believer in women’s healthcare freedom, especially in reproductive rights. Our Representative Boebert, I believe, is in that community of about…there’s about eight or ten percent of people in the country that do not believe that abortion should be allowed, even in the horrible cases of rape, incest, and the life of a mother. And I don’t know what her solutions are for that, but she does not even allow those exceptions to be in place. And that is only where, again, only eight or ten percent of the country is. I just don’t think those doctor’s offices have enough room for the woman, the health care provider, and the entire government.”

EL: Now about education, western Colorado has less investment in K-12 schools, compared to schools in the front range. What are you going to do if you get elected for Congress? Teaching jobs are very low pay here.

AF: “Yeah so this is really important. First of all, I am a Para member, when Covid started I went and received my substitute teaching license for three years, and I was in the school district two or three days a week, up in the Roaring Fork Valley, focused in prek-4. Kids need to be in the classroom at all times. I did that during Covid. My wife is the president of our school board. I have a sixteen-year-old son, and a fifteen-year old daughter. I’ve been volunteering in the school district for a long time. We need to make sure that rural Colorado, western Slope, southern Colorado, have the same academic options, as those fancy resort towns and all the really nice suburbs in Denver, Colorado.”

EL: Now with immigration, would you support a bill that would grant citizenship to 10 to 11 million undocumented persons in the United States?

AF: “Yeah, I think we need to figure out, I think we need to deal with the reality of that there are ten to eleven million undocumented people here. And we need to figure how to put them in a path, the model that I’m talking about a lot, is to go back to eight or nine years ago, there was a bipartisan movement called the ‘gang of eight’, and it was four democratic senators, including Michael Bennet, and four republican senators, including Lindsay Graham, and obviously the deceased John McCain. And it was a very humane policy to try to honor those that were already here, they would need to get in line where they belong, and continue to process more funding to bring in the legal immigration. And there were also some additional allowances for egg and ranching to make sure that, especially in western and southern Colorado, we would have the labor force that we need to be one of the best producing states for beef and produce and other crops or everything else like that. So, to me, again, it’s a bipartisan manner to try to figure out how to bring people in here with humanity, while still protecting the border. It’s important that we have a strong border, but we can do it with humanity, and we obviously need to manage the ten million plus more people that are already here. And let’s figure out a way to put them in a line and make them earn their way to citizenship and I’m supportive of that.”

EL: During a campaign event, Lauren Boebert used the term or the phrase ‘taxation without representation’, when I interviewed her and I asked her that there are ten to eleven million undocumented persons in the United States who pay taxes, but are not represented at all, she said “immigrants broke our laws to come here illegally,” what do you think about that?

AF: “Well, you know we are a nation of immigrants, my grandfather and my great grandfather came here from Europe. We need immigrants to come here, we need as many legal immigrants as possible going through the system, but we need to fix our borders and make sure there’s a, again, a humane way to protect our borders and come in here. We need to manage those that are already here, they’ve woven themselves into the community, and we need to honor that. And again, we need to make sure that those that are following the legal process, get processed first for citizenship. But we need a path for citizenship for everybody that is here. And the vast majority of those people that are here, a lot of them would rather stay in their home country, they’re just leaving really really horrible situations either fleeing violence, or fleeing horrible economic oppression.”

EL: Now about DACA, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, these are the children that already have some type of permit to work here, would you support a bill that granted them citizenship?

AF: “I think again, we need to figure out a way to manage, especially those children that are already here, and we need to come up with a humane way that follows the rules, to make sure that there’s a process of transparency and clarity, to make sure that they can earn that path to citizenship. I don’t wanna send them home, even if we had to logistically do that but I think that we need to honor where they are, and bring them in, in due course, make sure they wait in line, and follow some rules to bring them in legally.”

EL: When I asked Lauren Boebert if she supports Donald Trump’s comments when he said back during his election that Mexican immigrants are rapists and criminals, she said “We have got to shut the border down, period.” What do you think about that? Do you support Donald Trump’s comments about Mexican immigrants?

AF: “No, I think his comments were horrible and racist, and xenophobic. That means they don’t like immigrants, for those that don’t understand what xenophobic means, like President Trump. I think, again, we need to have a secure border, and do it humanely, we need them economically. I’m meeting a lot of Republican business owners that are telling me all the time we need to fix the border so we can have more workforce here. But also, from a country standpoint, who we are as a social fabric? We are multicultural and we need to make sure that we honor that as well.

EL: The last question about immigration, how would you ask a U.S citizen living in western Colorado whose parents are undocumented to vote for you?

AF: “Well, listen, I’m building a coalition across gender, race, and ethnicity, and political party. And we have a Republicans for Frisch website dot com. And we have a lot of independents which are forty-three percent of the people in this district. And so again, Anglo or Hispanic or African-American, or people that are of the Tribal lands, I’m looking for every vote possible because I think I can do a very good job representing everybody in Colorado. I’m not going there to make fun of a whole different party when we need their help and trust to pass legislation in a bipartisan manner.”

EL: There are people, especially in the Republican party, that say or believe that an election can actually be altered during voting. What do you think about that?

AF: “I think the United States has some of the safest and most secure voting rules and regulations and results in the world. And I think Colorado, I believe it’s in the top five of voter security. Every election that happens in this country is fair. And 99.99% of those ballots turned in are true. And so I would honor the election results whatever they may be. I feel very strongly that we are gonna be the emotional win for the country, not just CD3 or the Democratic party. I’m not sure what my opponent Boebert feels about honoring those results when they come out and she’s on the losing side. But, we will honor them.”

EL: Lauren Boebert declined a video interview for Enterate Latino, and she only allowed three and a half minutes of an audio interview only, what do you think about that? As a Congresswoman, does she have a right to do that? Can she do that?

AF: “I think it’s an embarrassment and a direct duty. When you are elected leader, you need to stand in front of the journalism, and the press, honor the First Amendment, and make sure that you face the voters. And I’ve made it very clear, I’m willing to talk to almost anybody, anywhere, anytime. I’m happy to go to Rifle, Colorado, have a debate, happy to have her husband moderate it. I’m looking to talk to people. And as incumbent, if you are a Representative, you need to face up to your constituents, every day.

EL: Is there anything else you would like to add to the interview, sir?

AF: “No, thank you very much for all you do. I love the diversity of our district, and the diversity of the western slope. And the time I’m spending in Grand Junction has been great. As people know, they might not know this district is larger than the state of Pennsylvania. Everything from Otero County all the way up to Moffat County. And I’m very excited to represent everyone, and we’re gonna have an emotional win on November eighth. For the country and for the Democratic party. Thank you very much.”