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Tina Peters convictions upheld, sentence thrown out and case sent back to Mesa County court
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Rocky Mountain Voice, State, Top Stories

Tina Peters convictions upheld, sentence thrown out and case sent back to Mesa County court

By Jen Schumann | Rocky Mountain Voice Tina Peters remains convicted—but the case that made her a national figure isn’t over. A Colorado appeals court upheld every conviction against the former Mesa County clerk Thursday, while also throwing out her sentence and ordering resentencing after finding the trial judge improperly weighed her speech about election fraud. The court laid it out over 78 pages—and shut down almost every major argument Peters brought forward. Judges rejected her claim that a presidential pardon could wipe out state convictions. They also rejected her argument that she was acting under federal authority. The convictions stayed. But the sentence didn’t. The ruling leaves Peters’ criminal convictions fully intact while reopening one of the m...
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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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Federal order puts Colorado’s mail ballot system on a collision course
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Rocky Mountain Voice, State, Top Stories

Federal order puts Colorado’s mail ballot system on a collision course

By Jen Schumann | Rocky Mountain Voice The way Colorado runs elections hasn’t changed—but a new federal order could force it to. The order would have federal agencies assemble a nationwide list of verified U.S. citizens and share it with state election officials. States could then choose to send their own voter lists to the U.S. Postal Service about 60 days before an election. If they do, ballots would be limited to the names on those lists. In Colorado, that framework could fundamentally change how elections work. Colorado’s system leaves very little room to miss your chance. Ballots go out to every active voter—even those who register just days before Election Day. And for anyone who doesn’t, same-day registration still allows them to walk in and vote right up until po...
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Colorado Legislative Malpractice
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Rocky Mountain Voice, Commentary, State, Top Stories

Colorado Legislative Malpractice

By Michael Hancock | Guest Commentary, Rocky Mountain Voice When Ideology Replaces Stewardship, the Patient Doesn’t Recover — It Declines There is a reason malpractice carries such moral weight in medicine. A physician is entrusted with the care of a patient. When that trust is violated—through negligence, arrogance, or ideological blindness—the consequences are not abstract. They are physical, measurable, and often irreversible. What we are witnessing in Colorado today is a different form of malpractice. Not medical, but legislative. The patient is the state itself—its economy, its infrastructure, its fiscal health, and ultimately, its people. And the pattern is becoming increasingly difficult to ignore: policies enacted not in service of long-term stability, but i...
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The Plain Truth Behind Voter ID, the SAVE America Act and Election Integrity
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Rocky Mountain Voice, Commentary, National, Top Stories

The Plain Truth Behind Voter ID, the SAVE America Act and Election Integrity

By Russ Minary | Guest Commentary, Rocky Mountain Voice “People who love sausage and respect the law should never watch either being made.” (Mark Twain) Congress has been dithering on a number of issues that impact legal, law-abiding US citizens and taxpayers. House and Senate reps from both parties are dragging their feet for various reasons. One issue under consideration is the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act or the SAVE America Act. If passed, this bill would require two major things: 1) that individuals must provide documentary proof of U.S. citizenship when registering to vote in federal elections, and 2) states must remove noncitizens from their official lists of eligible voters. FACT: Members of Congress routinely provide a valid form of ID before they can vote....
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When “Protecting Seniors” Meets Fiscal Reality: A Self-Inflicted Crisis
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When “Protecting Seniors” Meets Fiscal Reality: A Self-Inflicted Crisis

By Rep. Ken DeGraaf | Guest Commentary, Rocky Mountain Voice Any legislator who has opened their inbox lately has seen the urgent appeals: AARP warning that Colorado’s Senior Homestead Property Tax Exemption is under threat. The message is emotionally compelling—and fundamentally correct. Eliminating or weakening the exemption would amount to a tax increase on seniors, many of whom live on fixed incomes after decades of contributing to their communities. But what those emails don’t say is just as important as what they do. Because the current threat to the exemption did not emerge in a vacuum. It is the predictable result of a broader shift in Colorado’s fiscal philosophy—one that AARP itself has helped advance. A Record of Priorities—And Who Gets Left Behind If the curr...
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Grassroots or guided? Inside the ‘No Kings’ protests in Colorado
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Grassroots or guided? Inside the ‘No Kings’ protests in Colorado

By Shaina Cole | Contributing Writer, Rocky Mountain Voice A large crowd gathered at the Colorado State Capitol on Saturday before marching through downtown Denver — the third installment of a movement its organizers describe on their national website as a grassroots uprising, "spreading from small towns to city centers and across every community determined to defend democracy." Denver was one of many across the state.  Demonstrators hold signs and flags during a “No Kings” protest in Berthoud, Colorado. No Kings has promoted itself consistently as decentralized and leaderless since it launched in 2025, built on the energy of ordinary Americans acting on their own. State records, financial filings, and an internal organizing document tell a more complicated...
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Denver in Decline
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Rocky Mountain Voice, Commentary, Local, Top Stories

Denver in Decline

By Tom Anthony | Guest Commentary, Rocky Mountain Voice My great grandpa excavated Federal Blvd and Colfax with mules and a scraper, his dad having been on the third wagon train into Denver in 1858. For many years I owned and developed Denver property out of the commitment: "Sustainable Cities People Love," my company motto.   On that purpose line I also took on the fight to remove the Shattuck Radioactive Site from south Bannock Street and get I-70 buried through the Elyria neighborhood, next to Swansea Elementary School. These were multi-year volunteer projects seen by many as impossible, and I made enemies. The City took targeted zoning actions against me that bankrupted my company and took my home.  Since I left Denver, a city that consistently vot...
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Colorado collected $3.1 billion in marijuana taxes. Here’s how much actually reaches schools.
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Rocky Mountain Voice, State, Top Stories

Colorado collected $3.1 billion in marijuana taxes. Here’s how much actually reaches schools.

By Shaina Cole | Contributing Writer, Rocky Mountain Voice When Colorado voters said yes to legal marijuana back in 2012, schools were a big part of the pitch. More than a decade in, the state has collected over 3.1 billion dollars in tax revenue. So where does it all go? That number still carries a certain weight. It suggests a level of impact that would be visible in classrooms across the state. But when the dollars are traced through the system, then stacked up against what it actually costs to run schools, the effect looks different. Not invisible. Just smaller than people tend to expect. A closer look at what schools receive In the 2024 to 2025 fiscal year, Colorado collected about 231.1 million dollars in marijuana tax revenue, according to the state’s nonp...
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