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Colorado lawmakers move to sidestep Supreme Court ruling on therapy speech
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Sey Anything, Approved, Commentary, State

Colorado lawmakers move to sidestep Supreme Court ruling on therapy speech

By Jennifer Sey | Commentary, Sey Everything The Colorado legislature is attempting to sidestep the Supreme Court ruling with a new "conversion therapy" lawsuit bill The U.S. Supreme Court ruled on March 31, 2026, in Chiles v. Salazar (8-1 decision, with Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson dissenting) that Colorado’s 2019 ban on “conversion therapy” for minors violates the First Amendment’s free-speech protections as applied to talk therapy. (I wrote about it here.) The Supreme Court’s ruling said the Colorado law was unconstitutional because it constituted “viewpoint discrimination.” The Supreme Court made it clear that talk therapy is protected speech, not “conduct.” But Colorado refuses to accept the Supreme Court’s ruling. Instead, the insane state that I l...
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Follow the money faster: New tool unlocks Colorado spending data in minutes
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Colorado Accountability Project, Approved, Commentary, State

Follow the money faster: New tool unlocks Colorado spending data in minutes

By Cory Gaines | Commentary, Colorado Accountability Project I have mentioned (and used) the TOPS system, our state’s online checkbook register, multiple times. It’s a great way to see who our state is paying and for what. I noticed recently (within the last 6 months) that the people who run it made it significantly harder to use: I’m not sure why, but at some point they made it so you can only go month by month.** I had a reader kindly volunteer his time and skill at computer programming to come up with a way to automate TOPS searches so I, and now you since the program is public, don’t have to click and wait month by month to find what we need. The program this person came up with lives online and is linked first below. They titled it a TOPS scraper. It’s pretty i...
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Colorado bills spark concern over parental rights and religious freedom
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Christian Home Educators of Colorado, Approved, Commentary, State

Colorado bills spark concern over parental rights and religious freedom

By Colleen Enos | Commentary, Christian Home Educators of Colorado Colorado is becoming much more antagonistic towards families and people of faith. Our leadership appears to place more importance on ideology, secrecy, and crime when introducing and debating bills. The last few weeks have been an example of that mindset. The legislative session crossed the halfway mark in mid-March and is racing towards the finish line of May 13. SB26-018, Legal Protections for the Dignity of Minors, passed out of committee on March 25 and is headed for second and third reading in the State House this week. The most problematic section of the bill was stripped out in the Senate, but the secrecy provision for minors who request a name change for reasons including conforming to their new ...
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El Paso Co. found a way to cut undeliverable ballots and clean voter rolls—Colorado leaders looked away
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Rocky Mountain Voice, Commentary, State, Top Stories

El Paso Co. found a way to cut undeliverable ballots and clean voter rolls—Colorado leaders looked away

By Bob Cooper, COIFFE Director | Guest Commentary, Rocky Mountain Voice A $50,000 statewide solution was offered—and ignored—while Colorado processed more than 323,000 undeliverable ballots in a single year, costing over a million. This story should get your attention and maybe even make you angry if you care about election integrity issues—or simply about wasting taxpayer dollars in every county in Colorado. Get this: El Paso County has been implementing a common-sense voter roll maintenance process, a true “Gold Standard” process, to reduce election costs and clean up the “dirty,” bloated voter rolls. There is potential for this improved process to save thousands of dollars in election costs every year for every county in Colorado. To help the state implement this, El...
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20 Years Probation For Sexual Assault On a Child
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Jeffco Kids First, Approved, Commentary, Local

20 Years Probation For Sexual Assault On a Child

By Ben Brickweg | Commentary, Jeffco Kids First A Jeffco father and attorney answered our call to help fill the courtroom for the Chloe Castro sentencing (Jeffco Schools social worker who admitted to sexual assault on a child by one in a position of trust—her own IEP special needs student). This is what he shared on social media when he returned home. I was in the Jefferson County Courthouse earlier this afternoon, and the world doesn’t make sense anymore. I watched a school social worker admit to sexual assault of a student and get sentenced to probation with zero prison time. I don’t spend time in court. I’m a transaction guy. People hear “lawyer” and assume I live in a courtroom, but that’s not my world. Maybe in another life I would have been good at it, but not this o...
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Outside money floods Lakewood’s zoning fight—but voters aren’t budging
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Colorado Accountability Project, Approved, Commentary, Local

Outside money floods Lakewood’s zoning fight—but voters aren’t budging

By Cory Gaines | Commentary, Colorado Accountability Project I wanted to offer some interesting updates on Lakewood’s zoning fight. I would also say that if this issue is near to your heart, and you’ve not yet, you might consider subscribing to the Lakewood Informer--an outlet that’s done incredible work covering this issue. In broad terms, as of the last update, a group of citizens pushing back on Lakewood City Council’s zoning mandates had successfully gotten enough signatures to put zoning on the ballot so residents of Lakewood could have a say on the issue.* Interestingly, per the second link below a blog entry for the Kim Monson radio show, the measure has drawn quite a bit of monied and big-name opposition, including that from out of state! Quoting from that l...
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Colorado Bill Could Undermine TABOR Protections Redirecting Billions Away From Taxpayers
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Complete Colorado, Approved, Commentary, State

Colorado Bill Could Undermine TABOR Protections Redirecting Billions Away From Taxpayers

By Nash Herman | Commentary, Complete Colorado Senate Bill 135, legislation that could permanently end the refund of overcollected tax dollars, as well as radically raise revenue limits under Colorado’s Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights (TABOR) amendment, just received a new fiscal note predicting an even bigger blank check for the legislature than before.  This follows the updated revenue forecast presented to the Joint Budget Committee (JBC).  Let’s see what changed.  Budget hole gets bigger Legislative analysts predict that this year’s “budget shortfall” will be approximately $1.5 billion, based on the March 2026 Economic and Revenue Forecast.   While that means a haircut to General F...
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NEPA’s unintended consequences: How a well-meaning law became a barrier to progress
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GregWalcher.com, Approved, Commentary, National

NEPA’s unintended consequences: How a well-meaning law became a barrier to progress

By Greg Walcher | Commentary, GregWalcher.com In 1970 when President Nixon presented to Congress “Reorganization Plan No.3,” no one foresaw the eventual result – some of history’s greatest environmental successes, and a virtual stranglehold on economic progress. America’s air and water are far cleaner today, automobiles emit virtually nothing, and many formerly polluted lands have been cleaned up. But the cumbersome procedures required for federal permitting have also led to delays, higher costs, and often killed projects and jobs permanently. Those impacts were never part of the plan. Nixon signs NEPA into law, January 1, 1970 EPA was created by executive order, bringing under one roof dozens of programs from multiple departments. Simultaneously, Congress passed a...
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Speak up or step back: Why critics say Coloradans must engage with CPW now
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Colorado Accountability Project, Approved, Commentary, State

Speak up or step back: Why critics say Coloradans must engage with CPW now

By Cory Gaines | Commentary, Colorado Accountability Project Depending on where you get your news, you are probably by now aware that the CPW Commissioners, in a meeting that I’ve heard referred to as a “shit-show” by more than one person, voted to accept a petition by a monied, out of state group. If you missed it or want to hit the high spots again, I put a FencePost article on the meeting. That is the first link below.This vote came over the recommendations against the petition by their own director and other CPW employees.Why? From where I stand the reason’s pretty simple: the CPW Commissioners have been (by design from the governor’s office) “captured” by animal rights and environmental groups.This is not just an impression I have pulled out of thin air. Over and over w...
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Denver’s growth dilemma: More housing, less breathing room
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Rocky Mountain Voice, Approved, Commentary, Top Stories

Denver’s growth dilemma: More housing, less breathing room

Neil Wolkodoff | Guest Commentary, Rocky Mountain Voice In the past, residents enjoyed Denver for a positive lifestyle and outdoor recreational activities. That was the past; is the push to control housing changing that for the worse? Regrettably, the answer is yes. Let’s start with the overzealous and yet misplaced idea that affordable housing, which increases density, is positive. You are correct: large, four-story apartment complexes now occupy nearly every large, vacant lot or former grocery store. The first issue is that adding density to a climate with limited airflow because of being in a basin is bad for health. More people, increased density and personal greenhouse gases, heat and waste increase. Has this made a difference? The health issue is that air quality affec...
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