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Colorado’s unelected energy board moves to give Xcel control over your appliances
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Colorado Accountability Project, Approved, Commentary, State

Colorado’s unelected energy board moves to give Xcel control over your appliances

By Cory Gaines | Commentary, Colorado Accountability Project, Substack Low energy, low carbon, and higher upfront cost energy codes are now complete I have written in the past about our state's model energy code.** Per the quote (with link left intact) coming from the link at bottom:"The Model Low Energy and Carbon Code, which is required by state law HB22-1362, becomes Colorado’s new minimum energy code on July 1, 2026. Any municipality or county that updates any of its building codes after that date must adopt the model code, or a code that will achieve greater energy efficiency and pollution reductions."That second sentence there is the operant one. Get ready to have this code forced upon your locality as soon as they update their building codes post 7/1/2026.I'll leave it to ...
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Colorado’s Air Quality Control Commission hearings show how small business voices are shut out
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Colorado Accountability Project, Approved, Commentary, State

Colorado’s Air Quality Control Commission hearings show how small business voices are shut out

By Cory Gaines | Commentary, Colorado Accountability Project, Substack Government regulations differentially harm small businesses AND private businesses I wrote a newsletter (see the first link below if you want the context) a bit back about testifying in front of the Air Quality Control Commission (AQCC) about how unelected boards are not how our state should run. I did end up testifying* and I wanted to share the testimony of a gentleman who preceded me because what he said struck me as important. The gentleman's name is Jeff Kendall and he is the CEO of Bruin Waste, a private, family-run business on the Western Slope which picks up trash and operates some landfills. His testimony starts in the recording of the hearing (linked second below) at the 1:03:55 mark. I won't...
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Don’t buy The Sun’s spin: TABOR isn’t the reason Colorado’s roads are failing, it’s lawmakers’ misplaced priorities
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Colorado Accountability Project, Approved, Commentary, State

Don’t buy The Sun’s spin: TABOR isn’t the reason Colorado’s roads are failing, it’s lawmakers’ misplaced priorities

By Cory Gaines | Commentary, Colorado Accountability Project The Sun's Gigafact check tries, but fails spectacularly. The Sun has been doing yeoman's work lately to get the progressive talking points on our state's budget and TABOR out there. Their Gigafact check linked first below is a great example.In answer to the question, "Has the condition of Colorado’s roads worsened under TABOR?", their response is a resounding YES.Let me pull some non-contiguous quotes. As a quick aside, the amount of text below is about 50% of the entire text in the fact check, a point I will return to shortly."The percentage of state roads in Colorado rated “poor” by the Federal Highway Administration has risen from 8% to 24% since the agency began collecting data in 1994, two years after the Taxpayer’...
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When gun rights depend on the judge: New study reveals disparities in DVPO cases
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Colorado Accountability Project, Approved, Commentary, National

When gun rights depend on the judge: New study reveals disparities in DVPO cases

By Cory Gaines | Colorado Accountability Project Disparities in court orders for DVPO's Federal law prohibits the possession or purchase of firearms for certain people who have domestic violence protection orders (DVPO). Some states go further and require anyone who is subject to such an order to relinquish their firearms for the duration of the order. The study linked first below takes a look at the results of a Washington State law (which is one of the states which requires a respondent in a DVPO case to relinquish their firearms) and compares the outcomes of court cases to race. Quoting the abstract: "Historically, U.S. laws and institutions have privileged White men with firearm access over minoritized individuals, but little is known about whether racial disparities...
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Senator Sullivan’s “just another form” gun law remark goes unchecked by media as sheriffs warn of crippling costs
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Colorado Accountability Project, Approved, Commentary, State

Senator Sullivan’s “just another form” gun law remark goes unchecked by media as sheriffs warn of crippling costs

By Cory Gaines | Commentary, Colorado Accountability Project Senator Sullivan's dismissive rhetoric goes unchecked by the liberal media Let me start with a quote from Post "reporter" Nick Coltrain's article linked at bottom. "SB-3 does prohibit the sale of many semiautomatic weapons -- unless the purchaser has completed a firearm education course. The bill was heavily amended while it made its way through the legislature and Sullivan now describes it as a 'permit-to-purchase' law. People who follow the law haven’t lost access to anything in recent years -- and won’t under this law, Sullivan said. But laws need to change as society changes, he said. Sullivan likened the new gun laws to the shift toward widespread adoption of seatbelts in cars a few generations ago. It didn’t ha...
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Littleton proves citizen power still matters in Polis’ Colorado
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Colorado Accountability Project, Approved, Commentary, Local

Littleton proves citizen power still matters in Polis’ Colorado

By Cory Gaines | Commentary, Colorado Accountability Project Littleton voters get a say because they wouldn't have it any other way. The City of Littleton tried to stuff a Polis-inspired density mandate down the throats of their residents late last year. Residents did exactly what they should have: they went to the city council meeting in numbers and told them their thoughts on the measure. The city council wisely decided to postpone the measure pending a group of residents putting gathering signatures and putting it up on the November ballot. There is more detail in the Complete article linked at bottom, but the part I want to focus on here is the Littleton voters and what their actions mean for you (and not just with regard to density). Pay attention to what your lo...
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Why educational choice matters more than ever in Colorado
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Colorado Accountability Project, Approved, Commentary, State

Why educational choice matters more than ever in Colorado

By Cory Gaines | Commentary, Colorado Accountability Project Educational Choice Makes Education Better I saw the op ed below in Complete recently and wanted to share. It details a movement in education that I was not aware of: microschools.A couple of non-contiguous quotes help explain."Microschools are small learning communities typically serving less than 50 students, but which may have as many as 150. These schools are usually privately funded and launched by parents or educators to offer unique programs that address a specific need or demand in their communities. Low student-to-teacher ratios prioritize giving individual attention to each student."and "Driven by a desire for change, most microschools do not adhere to the standard educational model. It is most common for mi...
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Colorado’s infrastructure report reveals more about politics than potholes
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Colorado Accountability Project, Approved, Commentary, State

Colorado’s infrastructure report reveals more about politics than potholes

By Cory Gaines | Commentary, Colorado Accountability Project ASCE leans on the Colorado Fiscal Institute and the Economic Policy Institute to understand TABOR? The Complete Colorado article linked at bottom details a recent report by the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) which gave our state an overall C- rating on infrastructure. Quoting the article, "The ASCE report evaluates 14 categories of the state’s infrastructure, assigning a letter grade to each of the categories: Aviation, dams, rail (B-), bridges (C+), energy, public parks, wastewater (C), drinking water, solid waste, storm water, transit (C-), levees, schools, and roads (D+)." Sounds about right. The article goes on to detail some issues with the report. One of these is how the report misunderstands ...
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New Era Colorado exploits budget crisis to push higher taxes
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Colorado Accountability Project, Approved, Commentary, State

New Era Colorado exploits budget crisis to push higher taxes

By Cory Gaines | Commentary, Colorado Accountability Project New Era Colorado Using CO's budget crisis to push a graduated income tax. I wanted to share a tweet I saw from Free State Colorado recently. The tweet is linked first below if you want to see the original (and/or follow them on Twitter--which you should if you're not following them some other way). If you don't have twitter, the subject of the tweet is how progressive policy organization New Era Colorado is pushing for a "graduated" income tax and using current Federal policy + the state's budget problems as justification. Free State Colorado put up pictures of an email that New Era sent out on Aug 6th encouraging their followers to write in an email encouraging what they call a graduated income tax in Colorado. I...
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Media fig leaves and selective lawsuits: the Colorado story you’re not hearing
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Colorado Accountability Project, Approved, Commentary, State

Media fig leaves and selective lawsuits: the Colorado story you’re not hearing

By Cory Gaines | Commentary, Colorado Accountability Project Journalistic fig leaves and defunding public media. It is common in news reports on defunding public media to have the reporter say some version or another of "conservatives accuse public media of political bias". You're welcome to your own thoughts on the matter, but I personally believe these accusations are grounded in reality. I present you a CPR article (linked at bottom) to show you why. It's an article about how some Colorado House Democrats went on a tour of the ICE facility in Aurora and their concerns/accusations. You'll see plenty of Democrats talking about their perspective on what they saw, on ICE, etc. To give you a sense of the gravity of some of the accusations, I provide you the following qu...
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