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El Paso County sought election-security funds while the state sued over the conditions
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Rocky Mountain Voice, State, Top Stories

El Paso County sought election-security funds while the state sued over the conditions

By Jen Schumann | Rocky Mountain Voice While Colorado was preparing to challenge new federal election-security requirements in court, the election office in the state’s most populous county was moving ahead with plans to strengthen its own election security under the same grant program. Six days before Attorney General Phil Weiser sued the Trump administration over election conditions attached to Homeland Security Grant Program funding, El Paso County Clerk Steve Schleiker submitted a $79,850 proposal seeking federal money for an independent review of his office's election security. The proposal isn't for new voting equipment. It would hire an outside firm to examine the county's election operation through cybersecurity testing, penetration testing, physical-security assessmen...
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Colorado sues over Trump election rules tied to homeland security grants
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Rocky Mountain Voice, State, Top Stories

Colorado sues over Trump election rules tied to homeland security grants

By Jen Schumann | Rocky Mountain Voice Colorado joined 24 other states and the District of Columbia on Thursday in suing the Trump administration over new rules that withhold a fifth of the state's counterterrorism grant money unless Colorado shows it meets five federal election requirements. One of the five requirements asks Colorado to plan a change state rules already require. The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court in Rhode Island, where judges ruled against DHS in two similar grant disputes last year. One of those decisions is on appeal.  Colorado sued DHS, FEMA, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin and Robert J. Fenton, the senior official performing the duties of FEMA administrator. "We're suing again, and we'll win again, because the administrat...
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Colorado cut some kinship payments July 1 and told families to get certified. Some can’t.
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Colorado cut some kinship payments July 1 and told families to get certified. Some can’t.

By Shaina Cole | Contributing Writer, Rocky Mountain Voice Jody Fountain testified before the Colorado Senate Appropriations Committee on April 14 with a story about a two-year-old boy. The boy had been placed with his mother's boyfriend. It was a kinship placement, the arrangement the state prefers when a child cannot stay with a parent. The boyfriend could not get certified as a foster parent. Something in his distant past disqualified him. Years later, after Fountain adopted the boy, she read the disclosure file. Two weeks before the child was removed and put into foster care, the grandmother had called. The family had no money for food. "I can't help but think about all the children that are going to be placed in this situation as the support disappears for non-certifie...
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Southwest Colorado needs affordability, accountability and balanced representation
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Rocky Mountain Voice, Commentary, State, Top Stories

Southwest Colorado needs affordability, accountability and balanced representation

By Naomi Riess | Guest Commentary, Rocky Mountain Voice For more than three decades, I have worked with families, farmers, ranchers, property  owners, small businesses and local governments across Southwest Colorado. I have  helped people navigate land-use rules, permitting requirements, water issues and  development approvals. Through that work, I have seen how government decisions  made far from our communities can affect whether a family can build a home, whether a  business can expand and whether a landowner can continue using property responsibly.  That is why I am concerned about the direction Colorado is heading.  Families and seniors are watching the cost of housing, insurance, property taxes,  utilities, food and health care con...
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Federal audit questions nearly $54 million in Colorado Medicaid home-care payments
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Federal audit questions nearly $54 million in Colorado Medicaid home-care payments

By Jen Schumann | Rocky Mountain Voice Colorado can’t fully document millions of dollars it billed for Medicaid home care. That’s the finding of a new federal audit. The Office of Inspector General wants Colorado to return $8.07 million in federal money it says the state was not entitled to claim for personal care in a single budget year, the one ending June 30, 2024. Auditors questioned another $45.69 million and told the state to work it out with CMS. The $8.07 million is a recommended refund. The $45.69 million is a different story. It’s still under review, and CMS could recover all of it, some of it or none. Either way, nobody has ordered Colorado to repay the full $53.8 million. In the sample, auditors kept hitting records that didn’t add up. Where the care happened. H...
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Denver DSA member joined Cuba delegation now mentioned in State Department report
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Denver DSA member joined Cuba delegation now mentioned in State Department report

By Shaina Cole | Contributing Writer, Rocky Mountain Voice Forty members of the Democratic Socialists of America flew to Cuba last October. They brought school and medical supplies. They toured a hospital and a primary school. Both of the organization's national co-chairs went, along with nine other members of its governing body. One of them came from Denver. DSA's International Committee published photos of the October 2025 Cuba delegation at a primary school and hospital in Havana. (Source: international.dsausa.org) That trip is now part of a 100-page report the State Department released Monday, titled "Cuba: The Capital of 21st Century Communism." Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced it himself, writing on X that "the Cuban regime has been the leading spo...
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Colorado turns the first Trump DOJ’s own words against its Second Amendment lawsuits
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Colorado turns the first Trump DOJ’s own words against its Second Amendment lawsuits

By Shaina Cole | Contributing Writer, Rocky Mountain Voice When the Justice Department sued Colorado in May over its large-capacity magazine ban, the state went looking for ammunition of its own. It found it inside DOJ's filing cabinets. In its federal court filing on June 30, Colorado submitted a motion to dismiss that leverages two memos from Jeff Sessions, the first attorney general in Trump's first term. The state utilizes these documents to contend that the DOJ is attempting to assert an authority that its own former leadership said it should not exercise. The 2017 memo told department heads that "it is not the responsibility of the federal government to manage non-federal law enforcement agencies." The 2018 memo warned that long-term federal court supervision of state an...
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Has Trump kept his promises? You decide.
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Rocky Mountain Voice, Commentary, National, Top Stories

Has Trump kept his promises? You decide.

By Russ Minary | Guest Commentary, Rocky Mountain Voice I am tired of uninformed people and ideologues who complain that the Trump administration is not getting things done. So, here is a list of some of his accomplishments in just his second term. NOTE: I am not a Trump fanboy nor a partisan ideologue; I am a conservative who values the truth. You may dislike or disagree with Mr. Trump or certain members of his cabinet, or some of the 56 items on this list (sourced from Jeff Childers in his Coffee&Covid blog) but it provides hard details for your consideration.  I’ve read it and found it to be fairly accurate. Of course, nitpickers who like to sort the fly crap out of the pepper may find a few insubstantial things to correct. My focus is on facts and results.  Y...
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The Hidden Trust Weapon: Olly, Olly, Oxen Free!
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The Hidden Trust Weapon: Olly, Olly, Oxen Free!

By Drake Hunter | Commentary, Rocky Mountain Voice "Olly, olly, oxen free!" If you're smiling right now, you're probably remembering the same thing I am. Long before smartphones, video games, and streaming television, neighborhood kids had an amazing ability to entertain themselves. We'd ride our bikes until the streetlights came on, play baseball in empty lots, build forts out of scrap lumber, and, when the evening shadows grew just a little longer, someone would shout, "Let's play hide-and-seek!" The seeker would cover his eyes and begin counting while the rest of us scattered in every direction—behind bushes, under porches, between parked cars, anywhere we thought no one would ever find us. Of course, we weren't nearly as hidden as we imagined. Looking back, I can still ...
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Xcel says it has no affordability crisis. Its customers and regulatory filings tell another story.
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Xcel says it has no affordability crisis. Its customers and regulatory filings tell another story.

By Jen Schumann | Rocky Mountain Voice Every week, Carlos H. sits down with his bills and works out what his family can go without. Some weeks it is dinner. “I just opt out to say, hey, okay, maybe won’t be cooking up something tonight, so we can just make ends meet,” the Denver father said. Some weeks it is gas—a quarter tank instead of a full one, and the math of whether that gets him to the next payday. He has a 14-year-old daughter and a baby due in February. His electric bill runs $120 to $150 a month. A proposed Xcel settlement could push it higher. “We don’t have an affordability crisis,” Robert Kenney, president of Xcel Energy Colorado, told the House Energy and Environment Committee on April 23, arguing against a proposal to give regulators more power over how util...
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