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ICE detention cases are surging in Colorado. The DOJ keeps losing the legal fight.
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Rocky Mountain Voice, State, Top Stories

ICE detention cases are surging in Colorado. The DOJ keeps losing the legal fight.

By Shaina Cole | Contributing Writer, Rocky Mountain Voice Five people filed habeas corpus petitions challenging their Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention in all of Colorado federal court in 2024. One hundred five filed in 2025. Through June 15th of this year, 722 have filed, and the pace has held at more than 150 a month since March. Every one of those cases carries attorney fee exposure when the government loses. Of the cases resolved on the core detention question so far — spanning late 2025 and 2026 — Colorado judges granted the petition 248 times. Only one judge, Chief Judge Daniel Domenico, has ruled for the government on the merits — and he has done so repeatedly. And the same Justice Department that keeps losing keeps defending the legal theory behind the cases....
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Colorado rebuilt how it votes twice. Its federal plan never caught up.
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Colorado rebuilt how it votes twice. Its federal plan never caught up.

By Jen Schumann | Rocky Mountain Voice Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold has called the state's switch to mail-in voting a transformation of democracy. The federal election plan Colorado keeps on file describes an election system mostly built around precinct polling places. Both come from the state. One appeared in a 2023 news release celebrating the 10th anniversary of Colorado's vote-by-mail law.  The other appears in Colorado's official Help America Vote Act State Plan, which has not been updated since 2008 despite two major changes to how Coloradans vote and register. The issue surfaced through a HAVA complaint filed in February by Highlands Ranch resident Michael Cahoon and Wisconsin election researcher Peter Bernegger. At the May 11 hearing, they we...
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Colorado is cutting funding for its poorest students. The tool meant to replace it was suspended.
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Colorado is cutting funding for its poorest students. The tool meant to replace it was suspended.

By Shaina Cole | Contributing Writer, Rocky Mountain Voice In Colorado's smallest school districts, the ones tucked into rural towns, two state programs direct extra money each year to districts based on how many students live in poverty. They are not a lot, but they are specific. They are meant for those kids. And they are going away. The state is winding down two programs that have directed about $12 million a year to schools serving Colorado's highest concentrations of low-income students. One program was already repealed when the new fiscal year started. The other drops to half its current level July 1 and is eliminated in FY 2027-28.  The tool the state built to replace how it counts and funds at-risk students was suspended five weeks ago, after two years of data col...
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Name-calling inside the GOP is helping Democrats win
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Name-calling inside the GOP is helping Democrats win

By Shirley Bauer | Guest Commentary, Rocky Mountain Voice For Review: What Is a “Shirley’s Swirly”?  “Shirley’s Swirly” (noun): An action using water to symbolically swirl bad thinking down a drain. It applies to a person, ideology, or organization that needs their “stinkin’ thinkin’” adjusted. No physical harm to any human or animal is ever involved.  Why This Swirly Exists  I started “Shirley’s Swirly” because of the growing attacks on Republicans in office. Those attacks haven’t slowed — they’ve intensified. Groups like RINO Watch, along with people calling themselves “Republicans” seem to enjoy smearing fellow Republicans more than focusing on winning against the Democrats. So today’s “...
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Wolf opponents ask federal officials to revisit Prop 114 after Keshel report challenges 2020 result
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Wolf opponents ask federal officials to revisit Prop 114 after Keshel report challenges 2020 result

By Jen Schumann | Rocky Mountain Voice The fight over Colorado wolves has landed in a federal review process. Opponents of wolf reintroduction are asking federal officials to reconsider Colorado's wolf program after submitting a report that claims Proposition 114 did not actually pass. Colorado Conservation Alliance filed the report June 5 with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service during a federal review of Colorado's gray wolf program. Michael Clark, chairman of Colorado Conservation Alliance and CEO of Petrox Resources, signed the submission. The filing takes aim at a message Clark says Coloradans have heard for years. "The message has been both constant and assertive, Colorado's wolf program is 'the will of the people' because Proposition 114 passed," Clark wrote to U.S. F...
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The Self-Control Weapon: Don’t Pull the Plum Yet
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The Self-Control Weapon: Don’t Pull the Plum Yet

By Drake Hunter | Commentary, Rocky Mountain Voice Little Jack Horner sat in a corner, eating his Christmas pie. He put in his thumb, pulled out a plum, and said, "What a good boy am I." Most of us learned that nursery rhyme as children and never gave it another thought. But through the lens of Jesus, Little Jack Horner tells a familiar story. Jack sees something he wants, reaches for it, takes it, and congratulates himself for getting it. That sounds a lot like us. We live in a world of immediate gratification. We want answers now, comfort now, success now, relief now, and pleasure now. Yet one of the greatest lessons Jesus teaches is that strength is often found in waiting. You see, before Jesus preached a sermon, healed a disease, or called a disciple, the Spirit led hi...
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Lee Habeeb: “Storytelling is urgent work”
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Lee Habeeb: “Storytelling is urgent work”

By Shaina Cole | Contributing Writer, Rocky Mountain Voice Lee Habeeb is coming to Castle Rock this month, and he's not telling anyone what he's going to say. "A good storyteller always likes surprising the audience," he told RMV. He did offer one detail. The crowd at RMV's Freedom Fest will hear a song they all know and love. They just won't know the story behind the man who wrote it. Not until Habeeb tells them. Habeeb speaks on the main stage Saturday, June 27 at RMV Freedom Fest at the Douglas County Fairgrounds in Castle Rock. What his grandfather taught him Some lessons get taught at the dinner table. Habeeb's grandfather taught his in a courtroom gallery, watching strangers become citizens. "My grandfather made me go to these immigration ceremonies to see first-ha...
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The election analyst Newt Gingrich trusts has a word for 2020, and it isn’t “stolen”
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The election analyst Newt Gingrich trusts has a word for 2020, and it isn’t “stolen”

By Jen Schumann | Rocky Mountain Voice Stolen is the wrong word. Seth Keshel says so himself. And Keshel is a retired Army intelligence captain who has spent nearly six years tagged in headlines as an election denier and a conspiracy theorist. Ask him the obvious question—was the 2020 election stolen—and he says no. He says something else. "I don't believe the elections are stolen. I believe that they're rigged," Keshel said. "And that's what Newt Gingrich believes too." Keshel, a former Army captain of military intelligence and Afghanistan veteran, built a second career reading election returns the way he once read a battlefield. His book, The American War on Election Corruption, reached No. 1 in three Amazon categories this spring and carries a foreword by former House ...
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Eleven Colorado lawmakers on the ballot first reached office through appointment
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Eleven Colorado lawmakers on the ballot first reached office through appointment

By Jen Schumann | Rocky Mountain Voice Every Coloradan who feels ignored at the Capitol can take comfort in this: they have not one but two people assigned to listen. Your House member splits attention among roughly 92,500 residents. Your senator, among about 171,800. As ballots arrive across the state this week ahead of the June 30 primary election, some of those lawmakers earned their seat with less than 50 votes, and one with only 10—from a committee.  Among the names appearing on those ballots are 11 current lawmakers who were never elected to the seats they now hold. Some were selected by vacancy committees after lawmakers resigned. One was ultimately appointed by Gov. Jared Polis after a vacancy committee failed to submit paperwork before a statutory deadline. ...
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From dope dealer to hope dealer: Detroit pastor Lorenzo Sewell brings message of redemption to Colorado
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From dope dealer to hope dealer: Detroit pastor Lorenzo Sewell brings message of redemption to Colorado

By Shaina Cole | Contributing Writer, Rocky Mountain Voice He walked into church on April 18, 1999, with a bruised brow, money in his pocket, and murder on his mind. By the time he walked out, Lorenzo Sewell had given his life to Christ. That same day he went to his drug boss and quit. That day, and that decision, is the foundation of everything Sewell has built since.  The senior pastor of 180 Church in Detroit will bring his story of redemption and his message of civic faith to the RMV Freedom Fest, where he will speak on the main stage and give the invocation at the Mountain Majesty Gala on Saturday, June 27. A student of the street Sewell grew up on Detroit's east side in a home marked by abuse and instability. His father is in prison for murder. At age eleven, ...
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