Rocky Mountain Voice

Menu

Colorado Accountability Project

Colorado prison beds could run out by 2026 and lawmakers face hard choices
No Comments
Colorado Accountability Project, Approved, Commentary, State

Colorado prison beds could run out by 2026 and lawmakers face hard choices

By Cory Gaines | Commentary, Colorado Accountability Project Spidey sense is tingling on the jail population … I had a reader mention something I thought worth sharing. Colorado has a problem. Our jail’s are nearing capacity. On top of that, we’re struggling to find people willing to guard them.A Corrections1 link is first below. It’s a copy (without the paywall) of a Denver Post article detailing how a Colorado budget analyst for the legislature’s Joint Budget Committee said we’re going to run out of beds for men in prison as early as 2026. Quoting with link intact: “Colorado’s prisons will run out of beds for men in the next fiscal year unless significant changes are made to either reduce the prison population or increase capacity, a state analyst projects in a n...
Read More
Watch closely: The PUC sunset hearing could reshape Colorado energy policy
No Comments
Colorado Accountability Project, Approved, Commentary, State

Watch closely: The PUC sunset hearing could reshape Colorado energy policy

By Cory Gaines | Commentary, Colorado Accountability Project Watch for the PUC sunset hearing. Not only will it be a chance to weaken local control, DORA wants less transparency for them.I will be watching and posting (from what my state senator B Pelton said, it should be late February or early March), but I wanted to put a bug in your ear to watch for the Public Utilities Commission's sunset hearing in front of the Senate Transportation and Energy Committee.As I wrote [last week], there are rumblings about changing the mission of the PUC to perhaps grease the skids for state-level siting of renewables.The PUC sunset hearing will be the time that they do this, but there are other things I've heard. I wrote back last year about a CFOIC article showing the Department o...
Read More
What CPR left out of Colorado’s BLM oil and gas lease auction coverage
No Comments
Colorado Accountability Project, Approved, Commentary, State

What CPR left out of Colorado’s BLM oil and gas lease auction coverage

By Cory Gaines | Commentary, Colorado Accountability Project Bureau of Land Management recently held an auction for oil and gas leases in Colorado and, per the CPR story linked below, no one bid. Quoting with link intact: “On Thursday, the Bureau of Land Management auctioned off leases on more than 20,000 acres of public land in Colorado for oil and gas drilling. The land, divided into 23 parcels, was offered at the minimum starting price, just $10 an acre, and could be leased indefinitely once oil and gas starts flowing. But during the sale: crickets. Not a single parcel received a bid, and only two companies had even registered for the sale.” If you read the article, you’ll note a lot of space given over to environmentalists who crowing about the lack o...
Read More
Meet the fellows: Who’s advising Colorado lawmakers
No Comments
Colorado Accountability Project, Approved, Commentary, State

Meet the fellows: Who’s advising Colorado lawmakers

By Cory Gaines | Commentary, Colorado Accountability Project Meet the Fellows themselves (part 2) I want to wrap up the last of the posts on the Legislative Fellows by putting up the answers I got after sending them questions.If you want to see the earlier newsletters about the Fellows, the first link below will take you to the last newsletter where I showed what work was publicly available at that time. In that newsletter you'll find links to go back even further.Screenshot 1 shows you the questions I sent to all the Fellows. These were general questions I wondered about. Screenshots 2a-2c were particular questions put to Fellow Max O'Connor, FellowsDhivahari Vivek and Samantha Lattof, and Leena Vilonen respectively. The ...
Read More
When gun storage becomes public health policy in Colorado
No Comments
Colorado Accountability Project, Approved, Commentary, State

When gun storage becomes public health policy in Colorado

By Cory Gaines | Commentary, Colorado Accountability Project Guns and public health: Safe Starts at Home program The Anschutz Family Foundation recently gave a grant to CU Anschutz and its associated schools to develop a program called Safe Starts at Home.I linked to the press release I saw first below.Quoting from the press release with links intact:"The program [Safe Starts at Home] began in response to requests from several Colorado counties and was developed by the Injury and Violence Prevention Center (IVPC) and the Firearm Injury Prevention Initiative (FIPI). The IVPC and FIPI teams packaged research on effective household safety practices to prevent firearm and overdose injuries and deaths, and developed training for these county staff who v...
Read More
Behind AG Weiser’s taxpayer-funded lawsuits against President Trump: Big claims, bigger costs
No Comments
Colorado Accountability Project, Approved, Commentary, State

Behind AG Weiser’s taxpayer-funded lawsuits against President Trump: Big claims, bigger costs

By Cory Gaines | Commentary, Colorado Accountability Project Is AG Weiser’s taxpayer-funded Trump Resistance (TM) campaign not as successful as he’d like you to think? ****EDIT as of 1/7/2025. I had some readers on FB mention the link didn’t work. Just in case I added a link that should work below the original Progressive Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser has gobbled up lots of our money to fund his Trump Resistance (TM) campaign. Gotta make sure to show those bona fides to his progressive Democratic base. Makes one wonder what his pivot will look like if he wins the primary. Hell, I wonder if he’ll even bother. I remember thinking that surely Jena Griswold would lose to Pam Anderson last Secretary of State election, but Griswold’s handy win clearly ...
Read More
Unelected Colorado board tightens landfill methane rules statewide
No Comments
Colorado Accountability Project, Approved, Commentary, State

Unelected Colorado board tightens landfill methane rules statewide

By Cory Gaines | Commentary, Colorado Accountability Project The Air Quality Control Council (AQCC) passes strict new regulations on landfill methane emissions. I wanted to update an earlier story about the unelected AQCC mulling rules about methane emissions for landfills. Per the Sun article linked at bottom, last month the 9 member board (with only 6 of them voting) finalized rules for landfills around the entire state.You read that right. 6 people on a Zoom meeting made decisions for you. 6 people who you cannot vote out.Since it’s a Sun article by advocate Michael Booth, there is ample space given to environmentalists with a couple words from those that disagreed tossed in, all of which I’ll leave for you to read over, but there are a couple details noteworthy en...
Read More
Colorado ratepayers foot the bill for the “Just Transition”
No Comments
Colorado Accountability Project, Approved, Commentary, State

Colorado ratepayers foot the bill for the “Just Transition”

By Cory Gaines | Commentary, Colorado Accountability Project Who gets stuck with the bill for the “Just Transition”? You. There’s a lot of detail in the Sun article linked below about various communities and how they feel as if Colorado’s “Just Transition” for coal-fired power plants isn’t too just for them.I don’t blame them. With a vote and the swipe of a pen, Colorado Democrats have hamstrung communities that were built around coal-fired power plants in the name of their arbitrary climate mandates. Quoting the article:“Colorado’s push to close all its coal-fired power plants by 2031 — to reduce greenhouse gas emissions — is creating a major economic threat to communities that have relied on jobs and taxes from those plants and the mines that feed them.”*I will leav...
Read More
Who funds Colorado’s legislative fellows and how much influence do they have?
No Comments
Colorado Accountability Project, Approved, State

Who funds Colorado’s legislative fellows and how much influence do they have?

By Cory Gaines | Colorado Accountability Project Meet the Fellows SB25-309, linked first below, has lofty and not-unreasonable goals. Quoting the bill’s fiscal note:“The bill authorizes the Legislative Council Committee to approve agreements between the Legislative Council Staff (LCS) director and nonpartisan organizations to place nonpartisan legislative policy fellows in LCS. Any agreement approved by the committee must ensure that the director retains supervisory authority over fellows, and also specify that any work created during the fellowship remains the property of the General Assembly.”The concept is simple. We all have our areas of expertise and education, and we are all ignorant outside of those areas. Our legislators are no exception; they’re not super men...
Read More
Judicial outcomes are shaped long before cases reach the courtroom
No Comments
Colorado Accountability Project, Approved, Commentary, State

Judicial outcomes are shaped long before cases reach the courtroom

By Cory Gaines | Commentary, Colorado Accountability Project A leopard doesn’t change its spots, Polis’ judicial board stuffing shows he doesn’t either. I thought a follow up on an older Sun article (see the first link below) would be in order. Let’s go back before going forward. The 2023 Sun article details how Polis has stuffed judicial appointing boards with Democrats and Unaffiliateds that (in a startling coincidence) donate to Democrats. I wanted to share an update on the Sun’s numbers from 2023, now that we’ve had about 2 1/2 years more of Polis under our belts. I also wanted to look beyond simply the State Supreme Court nominating commission that the Sun examined. The second link below is to the state’s website for Judicial Nominating C...
Read More