Legal Challenges to Federal Power and the Fight for Election Integrity

On December 9, 2025, Kim Monson explored constitutional challenges to federal power and ongoing efforts to ensure election integrity in Colorado. Former state senator Kevin Lundberg discussed the petition to release Tina Peters and the PUC’s radical Clean Heat Plan, while constitutional scholar Rob Natelson analyzed Trump’s tariff authority and congressional attempts to encourage military insubordination.

Election Integrity and the Tina Peters Case

Start listening at 15:55 – Hour 1

Kevin Lundberg delivers a passionate defense of imprisoned Mesa County clerk Tina Peters, arguing that her nine-year sentence represents a gross miscarriage of justice. The former state senator reveals that the trial judge prevented the jury from hearing crucial evidence about Peters’ legal obligation to preserve election records. Lundberg recounts writing personally to Governor Polis requesting clemency, noting that Peters’ health has deteriorated significantly in prison due to a possible return of her cancer.

The constitutional concerns run deeper than one woman’s imprisonment. Lundberg explains how Peters discovered that the state’s “trusted build” software update would potentially destroy election records, prompting her efforts to preserve the data. Her crime, according to Lundberg, was attempting to fulfill her statutory duty as county clerk. He issues a stern warning that if anything happens to Peters in prison, Governor Polis should be held personally responsible for the consequences.

“If anything happens to Tina in prison, I believe the governor should be personally responsible for the consequences, and I don’t mean he just has to say, oh, I’m sorry. He is very well aware of what’s happening here.”

Kevin Lundberg, Former State Senator

Colorado’s Unaffordable Clean Heat Plan

Start listening at 33:10 – Hour 1

Kevin Lundberg sounds the alarm on the Colorado PUC’s newly issued Clean Heat Plan requiring a 41 percent reduction in natural gas usage by 2035. The mandate would force nearly half of Colorado homes to replace gas furnaces with heat pump systems costing tens of thousands of dollars per household. Lundberg characterizes the requirement as not merely expensive but physically impossible to achieve.

The former senator traces the regulatory overreach to the globalist environmental agenda and the cozy relationship between the PUC and regulated utilities like Xcel Energy. He explains how the PUC, originally designed to protect consumers from monopoly utilities, now functions as an advocate for those same utilities. When costs increase due to green mandates, utilities are guaranteed their profit margin, passing all expenses to ratepayers. Lundberg argues that only electing a new governor committed to reforming the PUC can reverse course.

“I actually think you’re being too kind to the Colorado Public Utilities Commission by saying it’ll simply make it more unaffordable. I think it’s going to make it impossible.”

Kevin Lundberg, Former State Senator

Holiday Driving Safety

Start listening at 63:13 – Hour 2

Jon Boesen provides critical safety advice for holiday drivers, emphasizing three key principles: stay focused, slow down, and pause at green lights. The personal injury attorney recounts witnessing two people on a Zoom call while driving during the previous week’s snowstorm. He warns that the extra adrenaline of running late reduces reaction time and increases accident severity.

For intersection safety, Boesen recommends that drivers first in line at a red light pause and look both ways before proceeding when the light turns green. Distracted or speeding drivers frequently run red lights, and T-bone collisions at intersections cause some of the most catastrophic injuries his firm handles. He also advises drivers involved in fender benders on icy roads to move vehicles to the right shoulder and exchange information away from traffic, never standing in the roadway.

“When you come up to intersections, and especially if you’re the first or the second car, and that light turns green, allowing you to proceed forward, pause. Look both ways. Make sure nobody’s distracted or going too fast and is going to run through that light because that one’s a killer.”

Jon Boesen, Attorney at Boesen Law

Constitutional Analysis of Trump’s Tariff Authority

Start listening at 73:57 – Hour 2

Rob Natelson examines the constitutional dimensions of challenges to President Trump’s tariff policies. The constitutional scholar explains the historical distinction between tariffs as taxes, requiring congressional approval, and tariffs as trade regulations, which have more flexible delegation rules. By the Founders’ definition articulated by John Dickinson, Trump’s tariffs qualify as commerce regulation since their primary purpose is trade policy rather than revenue generation.

The Independence Institute senior fellow identifies the real constitutional problem as Congress’s wholesale delegation of commerce power to the executive. Democratic Congresses passed laws allowing presidents to regulate importation without any meaningful restrictions once an emergency is declared. Natelson hopes the Supreme Court, if it strikes down the tariffs, will address this unconstitutional delegation doctrine rather than simply blaming Trump for exercising powers Congress unwisely granted.

“My problem is the traditional originalist or constitutionalist one, that we shouldn’t be shoveling all that power over to the president, that this pair of statutes actually is unconstitutional.”

Rob Natelson, Constitutional Scholar

Congressional Incitement of Military Insubordination

Start listening at 93:12 – Hour 2

Rob Natelson delivers a scathing assessment of the video released by Congressman Jason Crow and other Democrats encouraging military personnel to disobey potentially illegal orders. The constitutional historian characterizes the coordinated campaign, which includes billboards outside military installations, as an unprecedented attempt to incite insubordination since the Civil War.

Natelson distinguishes between a soldier’s right to question orders through proper channels and individual defiance of commands whose legality is disputed in courts. He notes the profound irony that progressives who spent years labeling constitutional conservatives as nullifiers and insurrectionists now actively encourage undermining federal authority when they disagree with the commander-in-chief. The scholar concludes that participating in such efforts should permanently disqualify any elected official from holding public trust.

“As far as I’m concerned, that is an absolute disqualifier for Jason Crow and anyone else who signed on to ever hold a position of American public trust again. Ever.”

Rob Natelson, Constitutional Scholar