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BEHC, the Frequency.

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Hey, good morning, Boulder Valley Frequency Listeners. It's June 26th. Happy Friday. In this week's bonus episode, Shea Castle is speaking with Pete Sallas, a longtime contributor to the Democratic Party in Boulder County, and why he's made the decision to leave the party after 54 years. Just a reminder: if you haven't voted yet, you need to drop off your ballot at a 24-hour location by 7 p.m. on June 30th. And while I have your attention, I want to quickly say thank you so much for listening. We really appreciate it. Our numbers are growing. Please tell your friends and family. Please subscribe. And also shoot us an email at boulderfrequency at gmail.com and let us know what you want to hear on the show. Have a great weekend, everyone.

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I have been integrally involved in the Democratic Party for 54 years, and I am no longer a Democrat.

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So starts the conversation with Pete Sallas, a lifelong active member of the political party that for years has dominated local government and more recently has come to control much of the state. Sallas has joined the majority of Coloradans in being politically unattached. 51% of registered voters in the state are not members of either major party. In the June 30th primary elections, for the first time ever, more ballots went to unaffiliated voters than to Democrats or Republicans. Solas was not just a card-carrying Democrat. He was heavily involved, volunteering for campaigns and championing Dem candidates and causes. He helped elect the first ever person of color to a countywide office in Boulder County. Solas himself ran for county commissioner twice. Two other attempts were made to join state houses in Wyoming and Colorado. Solas did hold elected office twice during his long political career. First as a city council member in Cheyenne, and again as a school board member for the Boulder Valley District.

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Almost all of my adult life, I've been a party worker, a precinct committee person. I've run campaigns, I've worked on campaigns, I've contributed money.

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Solas traces his activism back to high school and college. The Vietnam War was raging. Farm workers were organizing for better pay and working conditions. And in Colorado, a generation of Chicanos were coalescing around the idea of a shared Latin American identity.

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If you don't like what's going on, then get involved. My thought is, you know, I'm not just going to talk it, I'm going to do it. So I run.

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Now, Solace is doing the exact opposite of what he's preached and practiced for more than half a century. This month, Solace updated his voter registration and resigned as precinct organizer and member of the executive committee for the Boulder County Democrats. The divorce with Dems has been a long time coming. It wasn't one incident that pushed him over the edge, he said, but rather decades of inaction and inequity.

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And in fact, live those values that they preach around equity and inclusion. Unless you live in an area where people of color are dominant. And even in those areas, power and money speaks. If you have no money, you have no power, whether you're a person of color or not. The influence peddlers take control. So the party talks about change, they want diversity and inclusion. But really systemically, the policies in place really make it hard or challenging, if not almost impossible. It's become increasingly clear to me that the way the current system is set up, living those principles as a party is not been happening.

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Solace knows that system well. Getting on the ballot as a candidate takes time and money. Young people and working people tend to have less of both, limiting the diversity of who runs for office. Endorsements from current elected officials also create a tricky situation for newcomers. Preference is often given to insiders or loyal members of the party who have paid their dues. The message communicated implicitly and explicitly to upstart candidates, Sala said, is wait your turn.

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And this person said, Oh no, I can't do that. So-and-so is already endorsing so-and-so. And for me to get involved and have to run it would be uh the term that that person used was political suicide. Because then they then they get on the bad side of these people who have influence.

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Another issue that sticks in Solace Craw is the use of vacancy committees to appoint people to elected office. In recent years, between one quarter and one-third of lawmakers in the state capitol initially earned their post via appointment, according to media analysis. The groups that pick who fills empty seats can be small, fewer than two dozen, and at most up to 100 people. Once appointees become incumbents, there are few challenges to their power. Take this year's primary ballot. Two-thirds of Democratic races in Boulder County were uncontested.

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When vacancies occur, we should have an election. And I hear these arguments, oh, well, you know, people quit. We can't just let that seat stay open. If 25% of our legislators are quitting, that says something about who we're putting in those offices. What kind of commitment are we getting and why are they doing it? People don't like to hear this, particularly, you know, in progressive Boulder County, the progressives, but they're so willing to keep the status quo, unwilling to change because it works. People be damned, this system works for them. They're not going to change it unless there's some unless there's enough public pressure to do so. And that public pressure has to be led by local officials, have to be led by local parties, and the local parties aren't going to do it. They're all caught up in let's get out the vote, let's, you know, organize things. And people are not going to be excited about doing the same old, same old. That's why the percentage of unaffiliated voters has been growing.

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A 2025 poll found about half of unaffiliated voters in Colorado used to belong to a political party. And 86% said they intentionally chose their registration status rather than being made unaffiliated through automatic voter registration. Solace joining the ranks of the politically untethered challenges the dominant narrative that unaffiliated voters are less politically engaged and more moderate. Neither could be said of Solace, nor is that what he wants people to take away from his leaving the party.

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But to really look inside your own conscience and decide we can no longer just give blind allegiance. There are some young people involved. And there are some young Democrats involved, a few people of color, young people. I'm not going to tell them to stop doing that work. I saw a young woman last week and was getting involved. And I said, well, you know, stay there. They need people like you, is what I told. I said, because you still have a fresh viewpoint and you haven't been tainted by the hypocrisy or the cynicism. And I tell people, well, you know, if you feel that you need to stay involved, do the work, learn. If there are ways you think you can make change, do that. However, be realistic about what it is you're doing. People are being asked to support candidates. People are being asked to support the party. And what I'm asking people to do is to really think about it. What is the benefit in terms of our community? Where are your principles when it comes to issues of inclusion and equity? And are those principles that people hold, do they line up with what's going on with the party and the system as we know it?

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In many ways, Salas' trajectory has followed that of the man who sparked his political awakening, albeit more slowly. Corky Gonzalez went from registering Latinos for the Democratic Party in 1950 to renouncing his membership in 1966. He formed a new political party, Congreso de Atlan, to unite the Mexican-American vote. Around the same time Salas was becoming politically engaged, the Colorado Rasa Unida Party was formed from the movement Gonzalez helped begin. Salas has himself formed nonpartisan groups to engage Latino, Hispanic, and Chicano voters. That's work he might return to, he said.

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I would rather be unaffiliated than feel like I'm complicit in what I see as a system that is not equitable and carries a lot of hypocrisy with it. I only have so many years left. And I've put in a lot of time. I feel vested.

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What's not in his immediate future is launching a new political party. He doesn't even expect to vote all that differently moving forward, but says he will never again support a candidate that isn't committed to real systemic change.

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Yeah, I'm not trying to start a movement, right? That that's not where I'm at. I'm saying, yes, it's it doesn't work here. You have to be involved because there's a lot of other work that can be done. And there are people in our community who could use bright young minds helping to solve some of the issues that the politicians struggle to deal with. From a civic engagement perspective, I encourage people to be engaged, maybe not through the party, but that doesn't mean they can't be engaged. It doesn't mean they can't have a voice. It doesn't mean they can't impact what's going on in our community. And oftentimes their impact is more meaningful outside of a political structure.