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Rosen: Eco-radicals push watermelon socialism, not science
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Rosen: Eco-radicals push watermelon socialism, not science

By Mike Rosen | Denver Gazette I recently stumbled on one of my all-time favorite movies on TV. It was the 1965 film of Boris Pasternak’s Doctor Zhivago, starring Omar Sharif and Julie Christie. So, I watched the whole thing for 10th time. One particular scene stands out. After his service as a doctor in the Russian Army during World War I, Zhivago returns to his family who’d been living with his in-laws, in Moscow. By this time, the Russian Army had disintegrated, the Czar had been overthrown and the Bolsheviks had taken control following the 1917 Revolution. Arriving at the elegant townhome of father-in-law Aleksander Gromeko, a retired professor, Zhivago is confronted by a burly women in military garb; an overbearing communist official who, addresses him as “comrade” and annou...
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House approves $44B budget, GOP spending cut efforts rejected
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House approves $44B budget, GOP spending cut efforts rejected

By Marianne Goodland | Denver Gazette Colorado state House legislators on Wednesday debated and advanced a $44 billion spending plan for the next fiscal year. They also approved 63 "orbital" bills designed to change state law in order to balance the state budget. As introduced, the fiscal year 2025-26 budget stands at $43.9 billion, including $17 billion in general funds and $14 billion in federal dollars. General funds are the discretionary dollars, derived from individual and corporate income taxes, as well as sales and use taxes. Cash funds make up the rest, about $12.8 billion. Lawmakers' biggest hurdle is closing a $1.2 billion general fund shortfall, driven by higher-than-expected Medicaid costs and a structural deficit. The first act of the House was to rout...
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‘I can’t do business in Denver now’: Developers flee as climate mandates bite
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‘I can’t do business in Denver now’: Developers flee as climate mandates bite

By Mark Samuelson | Denver Gazette While Colorado is earning praise from climate advocates for its new mandates to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, developers and their economists are giving D and F grades to the state and its capital city, blaming the regulations for a noticeable decline in some projects. Representatives for developers and property owners are flagging new data showing a marked drop-off in investments and revenues from commercial projects in Colorado. That decline, they said, follows directly on the heels of Colorado's adoption of some of the nation’s boldest carbon-reducing strategies. The regulations include the Energize Denver ordinance, adopted unanimously by the Denver City Council in 2021. The ordinance seeks to reduce carbon emissions from larger commercial...
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Gazette editorial board: Palmer Lake recall effort shortsighted, could derail opportunity
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Gazette editorial board: Palmer Lake recall effort shortsighted, could derail opportunity

The Gazette editorial board | Denver Gazette The quaint Tri-Lakes town of Palmer Lake is a gem Coloradans cherish- its serene lake, charming shops, and tight-knit community make it a Front Range treasure. Sadly, a storm brews over a proposed Buc-ee's travel center at 1-25 and County Line Road, sparking a recall effort against Trustees Shana Ball, Kevin Dreher, and Dennis Stern. This push, fueled by an outside activist club - the leader of which compared trustees to the "Taliban" - risks needlessly fracturing an otherwise peaceful village.  Palmer Lake's leaders deserve a chance to navigate this opportunity, not a divisive ouster.  With Buc-ee's promising economic uplift, the town should leverage it wisely. Recall campaigns typically sow discord where dialogue could...
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Faculty reform underway at Air Force Academy to meet Secretary Hegseth’s directive
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Faculty reform underway at Air Force Academy to meet Secretary Hegseth’s directive

By Jerilee Bennett | Denver Gazette The Air Force Academy superintendent is proposing to cut civilian faculty positions without hiring uniformed instructors to replace them — a change that could eliminate some majors.  The proposal floated in internal meetings and communications is intended to increase the percentage of military service members among the faculty up to 80% and bring the percentage of civilians down from about 37% to 20%. The internal communication listed Superintendent Tony Bauernfeind's goals for reducing the staff overall, lowering the civilian representation and reducing the number of faculty members with doctorates to the minimum viable for accreditation. He would like to see changes in place by the coming fall semester, the note said.  The Ac...
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Gazette editorial board: CO drivers footing the bill for transit dreams amounts to highway robbery
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Gazette editorial board: CO drivers footing the bill for transit dreams amounts to highway robbery

The Gazette editorial board | Denver Gazette A lot of motorists aren’t crazy about driving our crumbling and congested traffic corridors. But only a handful actually hates motor vehicles. Unfortunately, that unrepresentative handful is overrepresented in our state legislature and the Governor’s Office. In some city halls, too. And they’d like nothing more than for the rest of us to quit driving and ride a bus or light rail, instead. Or ride a bike. Which explains those empty bike lanes you see squeezing cars and trucks aside on busy transportation thoroughfares and neighborhood streets. It also helps to explain the abysmal condition of Colorado’s highways, bridges and other basic transportation infrastructure. It’s getting worse by the day. Although the powers that be wouldn...
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Democrats launch legal assault on TABOR: Will the courts undo the will of Colorado voters?
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Democrats launch legal assault on TABOR: Will the courts undo the will of Colorado voters?

By Marianne Goodland | Denver Gazette In 2011, a coalition of 33 individuals and groups, including current and former lawmakers, county commission and other elected officials and school districts, sued the state of Colorado, challenging the constitutionality of the Taxpayer's Bill of Rights. A decade later, the lawsuit was dismissed on a technicality: the lawsuit, the federal courts indicated, had the wrong plaintiffs. A state Democratic lawmaker who was part of the legal team in Kerr v. Hickenlooper (later Kerr v. Polis) is now sponsoring a resolution to try again, but with some important differences. Rep. Sean Camacho, D-Denver, sponsored House Joint Resolution 1023, which would require the General Assembly to sue over TABOR's constitutionality in state district court. The...
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Colorado judges made campaign contributions despite rules prohibiting the practice
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Colorado judges made campaign contributions despite rules prohibiting the practice

By DAVID MIGOYA | Denver Gazette More than a half dozen judges in Colorado — each of them specially appointed and paid to oversee a divorce case since 2019 — has made at least one political campaign contribution while serving in that capacity despite a prohibition against the practice and an affirmation to uphold it, The Denver Gazette has found. Colorado’s Code of Judicial Conduct explicitly bars anyone serving as an appointed or private judge, as they are sometimes called, from making the contributions, the same exclusion that applies to full-time sitting judges and senior judges who fill in part-time. The private judges handle civil cases, nearly all divorces by high-end couples, away from the courthouse and the public, and their salaries and expenses are paid fo...
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Hillman: Fiscal tailgating put Colorado in the ditch
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Hillman: Fiscal tailgating put Colorado in the ditch

By Mark Hillman | Denver Gazette Headlines from the state Capitol might cause a reader to believe Colorado is in a deep recession. Legislators say they must cut more than $1 billion in spending to balance the 2025-26 budget. Still, state government has $687 million more to spend than last year in a $19 billion budget. So why all the histrionics about a budget “crisis”? Because Colorado lawmakers practice fiscal tailgating. Tailgating on the highway is dangerous because when drivers travel too fast and follow too close to the car ahead, the tailgating driver doesn’t have time to react if the lead driver unexpectedly brakes or swerves. Fiscal tailgating is much the same. Lawmakers spend money as fast as it comes in, then when the economy slows, they face much harder choices th...
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Colorado Republicans call on Polis to block police officer’s killer from early-parole program
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Colorado Republicans call on Polis to block police officer’s killer from early-parole program

By Ernest Luning | Denver Gazette The four Republican members of Colorado's congressional delegation are calling on Gov. Jared Polis to prevent a man convicted of killing a Denver police officer in 2005 from joining a program that could lead to his early release. Polis' office, however, said the governor has no role in the process and accused the GOP lawmakers of grandstanding around a "heinous crime." In a letter dated March 21 led by U.S. Rep. Gabe Evans, a former state lawmaker and Arvada police officer, Evans and U.S. Reps. Lauren Boebert, Jeff Crank and Jeff Hurd asked Polis to join them in urging the executive director of the Colorado Department of Corrections to reject an application by Raul Gomez-Garcia to participate in a program that allows certain inmates to l...
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