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Author: Jen Schumann

What Xcel promised regulators and what customers were told before Dec. 17 shutoff warnings
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Rocky Mountain Voice, State, Top Stories

What Xcel promised regulators and what customers were told before Dec. 17 shutoff warnings

By Jen Schumann | Rocky Mountain Voice Coloradans are being asked to prepare for the chance of a planned outage on Dec. 17. The company’s public alerts tell people to watch the map. The filings tell a fuller story about thresholds, timelines and who is supposed to be in the loop when a shutoff is on the table. That framework was not created overnight. It was built through years of filings with the Colorado Public Utilities Commission (PUC) and formally approved in 2025. As of Dec. 16, the documents already on record allow for a clearer picture of what Xcel committed to regulators and what customers were actually told as the wind event approached. Dec. 17 was not an improvisation Public Safety Power Shutoffs (PSPS) are not ad hoc emergency decisions. They are a s...
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The Bill of Rights was written to limit power. One civics lesson explains how.
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Rocky Mountain Voice, State, Top Stories

The Bill of Rights was written to limit power. One civics lesson explains how.

By Jen Schumann | Rocky Mountain Voice “I observed… the more public provisions were made for the poor, the less they provided for themselves, and of course became poorer. And, on the contrary, the less was done for them, the more they did for themselves, and became richer,” Ben Franklin. Bill of Rights Day is often marked with references to free speech, due process and other familiar rights. Less attention is paid to the reason those protections exist at all: to place clear limits on government power. That question sits at the center of a handwritten civics lesson now being shared among homeschool students, one that walks through how the Constitution was designed to restrict government authority, including economic decision-making. Susie Dean, a homeschool civic...
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What Colorado redacted from a federal prison letter—and why it matters
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Rocky Mountain Voice, State, Top Stories

What Colorado redacted from a federal prison letter—and why it matters

By Jen Schumann | Rocky Mountain Voice The state confirmed it received a request from the Bureau of Prisons regarding the transfer of former Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters to federal custody. What the public has not been allowed to see is why the federal government made it in the first place. Colorado released a copy of the Bureau of Prisons letter earlier this month, but only after heavily redacting its substance. State officials said releasing the withheld information would be “contrary to the public interest.” The redactions removed nearly every explanation the federal government provided for why it sought custody at all. An unredacted version of the same letter, reviewed by Rocky Mountain Voice, tells a more complete and more consequential story. ...
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Trump announces full pardon of Tina Peters in Truth Social post
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Rocky Mountain Voice, National, Top Stories

Trump announces full pardon of Tina Peters in Truth Social post

By Jen Schumann | Rocky Mountain Voice President Trump posted on Wednesday that he is granting a full pardon to former Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters, who has served 14 months of a nine year prison sentence.  He announced it in a Truth Social post late in the afternoon.  Trump criticized Democrats in the post, saying violent crime has gone unaddressed while election-related cases moved forward after 2020. “For years, Democrats ignored violent and vicious crime of all shapes, sizes, colors, and types,” Trump wrote. He added that violent criminals “who should have been locked up were allowed to attack again.” Trump said Democrats instead chose to go after people who pushed for election security, writing that they “chose instead to prosecute anyone ...
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Kansas case and new immigration report deepen scrutiny of Colorado’s stance on SAVE
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Rocky Mountain Voice, National, Top Stories

Kansas case and new immigration report deepen scrutiny of Colorado’s stance on SAVE

By Jen Schumann | Rocky Mountain Voice A Kansas mayor’s felony voting case is renewing national attention on how noncitizens end up registered to vote and what states can do to prevent it. The issue is gaining urgency as federal agencies expand the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements program, known as SAVE, while Colorado and several other states reject federal data-sharing efforts even as federal law requires them to maintain accurate voter rolls. A Kansas case shows the stakes of mistaken registration The case driving the discussion is unfolding in Coldwater, Kansas, where Mayor Jose “Joe” Ceballos-Armendariz, a noncitizen, has been charged with voting in at least three elections. The state’s case rests on Kansas election statutes that classify noncitizen voting as...
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Caught between two governments: Whistleblower says Colorado’s DEI system collides with a federal ban
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Rocky Mountain Voice, State, Top Stories

Caught between two governments: Whistleblower says Colorado’s DEI system collides with a federal ban

By Jen Schumann | Rocky Mountain Voice When managers in the Colorado Department of Agriculture (CDA) logged into their Nov. 6 virtual meeting, the agenda read like a standard operational update. But on the list sat two items that created angst: the statewide EDI/Colorado for All report due in December and the launch of a 2026 Inclusive Leadership cohort.  Those initiatives, part of Colorado’s expanding equity and inclusion system, set the stage for a clash with a different set of requirements now coming from D.C. The moment in the meeting Rich Guggenheim, the program manager who oversees plant certification inspections for Colorado’s nursery and seed industries, signs off on several USDA pest survey grants. When Inclusive Leadership came up, he ...
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A fee by any other name? Colorado’s climate charge faces a constitutional reckoning
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Rocky Mountain Voice, State, Top Stories

A fee by any other name? Colorado’s climate charge faces a constitutional reckoning

By Jen Schumann | Rocky Mountain Voice Colorado’s climate fee law, SB24-230, is now at the center of a constitutional fight, but the lawmakers and advocacy groups that once championed its goals have offered no explanation as the legal questions mount. SB24-230 took effect in July and is expected to pull in more than $175 million next year from oil and gas producers. Lawmakers insist those charges are "remediation fees," meant to cover environmental damage they say comes from drilling. Advance Colorado views the structure differently. Executive Vice President Kristi Burton Brown stated, “That’s not the standard. A real ‘fee’ has to fund a service being received by the person paying. ‘Fees’ are not designed to be penalties for industries the state doesn’t favor, and no ...
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Colorado schools win landmark settlement protecting female athletes
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Rocky Mountain Voice, Local, Top Stories

Colorado schools win landmark settlement protecting female athletes

By Jen Schumann | Rocky Mountain Voice In a move that reshapes how school athletics operate across the state, School District 49 and seven partner districts have secured a landmark settlement with the Colorado High School Activities Association. The agreement formally protects biological sex policies for sports, locker rooms and overnight travel, and it removes CHSAA from the center of Colorado’s most charged debate over fairness, privacy and Title IX. The December 4 settlement also allows the districts to continue full participation in sanctioned activities without penalty. District 49 described the outcome as a decisive step in restoring equal opportunity for girls and strengthening the role of local school boards in setting policy. “CHSAA deserves credit for doing t...
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“The DOJ can take a hike”: Jena Griswold rejects federal demand for voter data
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Rocky Mountain Voice, State, Top Stories

“The DOJ can take a hike”: Jena Griswold rejects federal demand for voter data

By Jen Schumann | Rocky Mountain Voice Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold escalated her standoff with the Trump administration this week, rejecting a request for the state’s full, unredacted voter file. “We will not comply with the Trump Department of Justice’s request for Coloradans’ sensitive voting information. The DOJ can take a hike; it does not have a legal right to the information. Colorado will not help Donald Trump undermine our elections and hurt the American people.” On December 1, the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division asked the state to enter an agreement to share complete voter data, including names, dates of birth, residential addresses and full driver’s license numbers or the last four digits of Social Security numbers. Griswold said she provided only the publ...
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