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Private Dollars, Public Rivers: Who Is Really Restoring Colorado’s Streams?
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Rocky Mountain Voice, State, Top Stories

Private Dollars, Public Rivers: Who Is Really Restoring Colorado’s Streams?

By Shaina Cole | Contributing Writer, Rocky Mountain Voice Colorado’s rivers are usually talked about as public assets. Debates tend to revolve around access, ownership, and enforcement. Far less attention is paid to a simpler question: who actually pays for the work when rivers need fixing? A recent Common Sense Institute report examines that side of the equation, focusing on stewardship and private investment while building on the group’s earlier work on law and history. Many Colorado landowners have invested in restoring rivers and streams, and the results don’t stop at their boundaries. Work Most People Never See River restoration doesn’t really have a finish line. The report estimates restoration and upkeep costs typically range from $300,000 ...
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After the pardon: The constitutional question Colorado courts now face
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Rocky Mountain Voice, State, Top Stories

After the pardon: The constitutional question Colorado courts now face

By Jen Schumann | Rocky Mountain Voice President Donald Trump’s pardon of Tina Peters did not end her case. It changed it. What now sits before Colorado’s courts is no longer a question of guilt or innocence, nor even whether Peters should remain imprisoned while her appeal moves forward. The unresolved issue is more fundamental than that: whether the state still has authority to proceed in light of a federal pardon. It is the question attorney Peter Ticktin says Colorado can no longer set aside. Federal pardon issued by President Donald Trump for Tina Peters A pardon that altered the legal landscape Ticktin, who represents Peters, said in an interview with RMV that the federal pardon fundamentally changed the legal posture of the case. ...
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Federal Civil Rights Complaint Accuses Cherry Creek Schools of Race-Based Discipline and Retaliation
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Rocky Mountain Voice, Local, Top Stories

Federal Civil Rights Complaint Accuses Cherry Creek Schools of Race-Based Discipline and Retaliation

By Shaina Cole | Contributing Writer, Rocky Mountain Voice Federal civil-rights complaints over equity policy are no longer confined to a single district in Colorado. Durango Public Schools is facing civil rights complaints, while a separate federal lawsuit challenges the state’s anti-discrimination law under House Bill 25-1312. A federal civil-rights complaint now puts Cherry Creek School District under scrutiny over allegations of race-based discrimination and retaliation. In its press release, America First Legal says Cherry Creek has “branded student misconduct ‘culturally appropriate’ and blocked discipline based on race,” claiming the district has replaced equal treatment with an unlawful double standard. Alleged Double Standard in Student Discipline ...
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Republicans Should Just Say No To Josh Hawley’s Crusade Against Data Centers
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Rocky Mountain Voice, Commentary, National, Top Stories

Republicans Should Just Say No To Josh Hawley’s Crusade Against Data Centers

By Booker Lightman | Guest Commentary, Rocky Mountain Voice The Data center boom is creating a political conundrum for Republicans, or so Politico would have you believe. For while President Trump and the large majority of Republican elected officials are in favor of data centers, Josh Hawley, Marjorie Taylor Greene, and Thomas Massie stand in opposition to the Trump administration.  These are the same names that are always being praised by the media for their “bravery” in “standing up” to Trump. It’s not hard to see why.  Most Congresspeople get little attention outside their districts, but if a Republican Congressman speaks out against Trump, suddenly he or she is the darling of a mainstream media apparatus that would love nothing more than to set the Right...
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Why two House bills on medical transition procedures produced different votes
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Rocky Mountain Voice, National, Top Stories

Why two House bills on medical transition procedures produced different votes

By Jen Schumann | Rocky Mountain Voice The U.S. House passed two bills this month aimed at restricting federal involvement in medical transition procedures for minors. They used different enforcement tools. And they produced different voting coalitions. One bill passed without a single Republican voting against it and drew limited Democratic support. The vote on the second bill was closer, with some crossover support and a number of members listed as not voting. Republican Rep. Gabe Evans (CD-8) backed the funding restriction but rejected the felony approach. The difference lies in how each bill was written to be enforced. Two bills, two approaches H.R. 498, the Do No Harm in Medicaid Act, is a funding bill tied to how Medicaid dollars are used. It bars M...
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Bonded in Battle — The Prayer That Holds Us Together
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Rocky Mountain Voice, Devotional, Top Stories

Bonded in Battle — The Prayer That Holds Us Together

By Pastor Drake Hunter | Commentary, Rocky Mountain Voice “Pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests.”  ~ Ephesians 6:18 ~ As I write this, Sherrie and I are celebrating 38 years of marriage, and my thoughts turn not to the easy moments, but to the battles we’ve fought—and the quiet strength that has carried us through every one of them. As many of you know, we are in the middle of one of our toughest battles. The hospital lights hum above us, machines click and beep with precision after two major brain surgeries, now weeks spent surrounded by hospital walls with great uncertainty. Still…it was our honest, Spirit-led prayer that carried us through the uncertainty of Glioblastoma Stage IV Brain Cancer. Holding Sherrie’s hand, pra...
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The warning before SPEED: How an ongoing Colorado wolf dispute shaped the permitting debate
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Rocky Mountain Voice, State, Top Stories

The warning before SPEED: How an ongoing Colorado wolf dispute shaped the permitting debate

By Jen Schumann | Rocky Mountain Voice Before Congress voted to overhaul the nation’s permitting process, a Colorado lawmaker had already issued a formal warning that federal law was being set aside in the rush to move forward. On December 13, 2024, Rep. Lauren Boebert sent a detailed letter to then–Interior Secretary Deb Haaland arguing that Colorado’s wolf reintroduction plan triggered federal jurisdiction and could not legally proceed without updated federal Resource Management Plans and a proper National Environmental Policy Act review. She asked the Department of the Interior to press pause on any additional wolf imports until those federal duties were met. More than a year later, the House passed the Standardizing Permitting and Expediting Economic De...
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“This is the team”: Michael Knowles at TPUSA AmFest on holding a coalition together
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Rocky Mountain Voice, Commentary, National, Top Stories

“This is the team”: Michael Knowles at TPUSA AmFest on holding a coalition together

By RMV Editorial Board The opening night of AmericaFest did not unfold as a unified rally. Disagreements among speakers played out in real time, reflecting a broader conservative fracture now visible nationally and within state parties, including in Colorado. Michael Knowles articulated what the evening had already revealed. “In the absence of our generation’s political peacemaker,” he said, “we find ourselves in the latest right-wing civil war.” https://www.youtube.com/live/hcBd0whz8ec?si=osLqunNpf8BDHrdl Knowles did not frame that civil war as scandal or betrayal. He treated it as a structural failure. Conservatives, he observed, are independent-minded by nature. They argue. They splinter into factions. That part is not new. What is new is the absence...
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Protect Kids Colorado Pushes to Fund Signature Drive as Ballot Timeline Tightens
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Rocky Mountain Voice, State, Top Stories

Protect Kids Colorado Pushes to Fund Signature Drive as Ballot Timeline Tightens

By Shaina Cole | Contributing Writer, Rocky Mountain Voice Ballot deadlines are closing in, and organizers with Protect Kids Colorado have begun pushing harder on fundraising and volunteer outreach connected to three citizen-led ballot initiatives slated for the 2026 election. The proposals deal with medical interventions for minors, girls’ sports and sex-based spaces, and penalties for child sex trafficking — areas campaign leaders say have evolved over time through legislation, court decisions, and regulatory guidance rather than direct statewide votes. The three proposals are being circulated separately — so voters would weigh in on each one individually if they make the ballot. Organizers have acknowledged that legal and political challenges are likely, particularl...
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