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The American Dream still depends on rewarding hard work
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Rocky Mountain Voice, Commentary, State, Top Stories

The American Dream still depends on rewarding hard work

By Gabe Evans | Guest Commentary, Rocky Mountain Voice When our founding fathers signed the Declaration of Independence, they envisioned a nation that could stand the test of time. A United States of America that not only encouraged freedom and independent thought, but that structurally safeguarded it. They believed in a nation defined by liberty, opportunity, personal responsibility, and an enduring love of country.  Today, 250 years later, we are living the future they imagined.  Our nation is known globally as the land of opportunity, where the American Dream thrives and is achievable for anyone who has the resolve to pursue it. That sense of promise is deeply personal to my family and I, as it is what led my Abuelo Cuauhtemoc Chavez — who was born in Mexico — to ...
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Principles over popularity: Lessons from the Declaration of Independence for Douglas County Schools
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Rocky Mountain Voice, Local, Top Stories

Principles over popularity: Lessons from the Declaration of Independence for Douglas County Schools

By Laureen Boll | Guest Commentary, Rocky Mountain Voice Douglas County School District (DCSD) board members will be deciding later this year whether to resume formal collective bargaining with the Douglas County Federation (a local affiliate of the American Federation of Teachers), and a primary deciding factor will be the results of a survey of teachers and staff.  This follows union pressure earlier in 2026 and comes after years of the federation advocating for a return to a contract model. The political composition of the DCSD school board has shifted back and forth over the decades, reflecting the community’s own evolving priorities. In 2012, a reform-minded board allowed the long-standing collective bargaining agreement (CBA) to expire, moving the district to operat...
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Nick Shirley’s message to Colorado: Follow the money. Knock on the doors.
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Rocky Mountain Voice, State, Top Stories

Nick Shirley’s message to Colorado: Follow the money. Knock on the doors.

By Jen Schumann | Rocky Mountain Voice Nick Shirley spent Saturday night walking the Freedom Fest audience through the questions that have taken him from hotels near Denver International Airport to empty daycare centers in Minnesota and apartment complexes in Aurora. Interviewed by Jeff Hunt, co-host of the Jeff and Bill Show on Denver's 710 KNUS, Shirley spent less time talking about what he uncovered than how he uncovered it. Colorado was one of the first places he looked Long before a Minnesota daycare investigation made him nationally known, Shirley found himself in Colorado after repeatedly hearing migrants at the southern border mention the same destination. Denver. He came to look.  "You guys are from Latin America? It's cold in Denver," he remembered asking....
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Money didn’t win Colorado’s primary. The ground game did.
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Rocky Mountain Voice, Commentary, State, Top Stories

Money didn’t win Colorado’s primary. The ground game did.

By Rocky Mountain Voice Editorial Board One of Colorado's biggest races still isn't settled. Two days after the polls closed, the Republican primary for governor had not been called. Victor Marx led Barb Kirkmeyer by about 2,000 votes statewide—39.86 percent to 39.43 percent, with Scott Bottoms third at 20.71 percent—in the Secretary of State's Thursday morning count. Marx's edge, 2,181 votes out of more than 500,000 cast, sits just outside Colorado's mandatory recount range, which trips at half a percentage point.  On the Democrat side, the race was settled. Attorney General Phil Weiser defeated U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet, 56.71 percent to 43.29 percent. Colorado doesn't finish voting when the polls close. And neither do Colorado's campaigns. The real story from Tues...
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Tenth Circuit strikes down DOJ detention theory, ruling affects Colorado courts
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Tenth Circuit strikes down DOJ detention theory, ruling affects Colorado courts

By Shaina Cole | Contributing Writer, Rocky Mountain Voice Rigoberto Santillan Quiroz entered the United States without inspection in 2006.  ICE arrested him at a traffic stop on November 2, 2025 and initiated removal proceedings on the ground that he entered without admission or parole.  His federal habeas petition, filed in the Western District of Oklahoma, became Quiroz v. Mullin.  On June 30, the Tenth Circuit ruled in his favor, covering six states and striking down the theory behind 722 such petitions filed in Colorado in 2026 through June 15. What the court decided Judges Federico, Bacharach, and Ebel produced a 48-page unanimous opinion, with Federico authoring.  The government's theory rested on §1225(b)(2)(A) of the Immigration and National...
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Colorado’s dirty voter roll: Getting on is the easy part
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Rocky Mountain Voice, Commentary, State, Top Stories

Colorado’s dirty voter roll: Getting on is the easy part

By Mike O’Donnell | Guest Commentary, Rocky Mountain Voice I’ve spent the last few months digging deeply into the Colorado voter roll from all sorts of different angles and although politicians of a certain party and their supporters are quick to parrot that Colorado exemplifies the “gold standard” of election integrity, that very definitely does NOT appear to be the case after a close examination of Colorado’s voter roll, the rightful starting point for any such assessment of the quality of election integrity in this or any other state. A closing line from the Eagles' 1976 hit song ‘Hotel California’ seems to be the most appropriate way to summarize the apparent philosophy behind the approach taken by Colorado’s legislature and the current Secretary of State when it comes to the...
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Colorado primary delivers a warning conservatives shouldn’t ignore
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Rocky Mountain Voice, State, Top Stories

Colorado primary delivers a warning conservatives shouldn’t ignore

By C. J. Garbo | Guest Commentary, Rocky Mountain Voice What happened in Colorado’s 1st Congressional District should get everyone’s attention. Democratic socialist Melat Kiros just defeated Diana DeGette, a 15-term Democratic incumbent who has represented Denver for nearly three decades. This was not a conservative beating a liberal. This was the activist left defeating the Democratic establishment from inside its own party. That matters. The Democratic Party increasingly has no effective guardrails against its most radical elements. The fringe is no longer staying on the fringe. It is organizing, primarying incumbents, capturing safe seats, and moving ideas once considered extreme into the party’s mainstream. That is dangerous for the country because democratic sociali...
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How one volunteer connected the dots at RMV’s Freedom Fest
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How one volunteer connected the dots at RMV’s Freedom Fest

By Jen Schumann | Rocky Mountain Voice After Freedom Fest ended, Pueblo resident Randy Thurston was still talking his way through the weekend. Not in order. One speaker reminded him of another, and a story from Saturday connected to something he had heard Friday. He was not replaying the event. He was still putting it together. "I still don't know how she pulled it off," he said, meaning Rocky Mountain Voice founder Heidi Ganahl. "I don't know how she even had that vision and then the ability to manifest it. Do you know what it took to get everybody there on the weekend before the Fourth of July? That in itself was impossible." A little later, after talking through several of the presentations, he came back to it again. "Any one of these speakers, I would've driven a thousa...
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Energy Secretary Chris Wright makes the case for data centers, and admits they’re not for everyone
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Rocky Mountain Voice, National, Top Stories

Energy Secretary Chris Wright makes the case for data centers, and admits they’re not for everyone

By Shaina Cole | Contributing Writer, Rocky Mountain Voice U.S. Secretary of Energy Chris Wright sat down on stage at Douglas County Fairgrounds and told a Colorado crowd that the data centers many of their neighbors are fighting will help cure cancer. Wright, the former Liberty Energy CEO turned 17th U.S. Secretary of Energy, joined Heidi Ganahl for an onstage interview at RMV Freedom Fest on June 27.  Most of the conversation covered familiar Wright territory: oil prices, the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, Iran.  But when Ganahl turned the conversation to data centers, Wright gave a more layered answer than the typical political pitch, one that conceded real tradeoffs while still landing firmly on the side of building. The comments come as Colorado works throug...
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Pride changed. I didn’t.
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Rocky Mountain Voice, Commentary, State, Top Stories

Pride changed. I didn’t.

By Valdamar Archuleta | Guest Commentary, Rocky Mountain Voice As the world wraps up another June, filled with rainbows and unicorns, I, as a gay Republican, reflect on 30 days of what always ends up being unproductive conflict. And once again, I prepare to face the inevitable question: “How can you be a gay Republican?” Well, it’s pretty easy. Donald Trump was the first American President to take office supporting same-sex marriage. He was also the first President to wave a rainbow on the campaign trail before being elected. Which, he did right here in Colorado. Sure, this can just be tossed up as political lip service, but Trump went further. In 2019, President Donald Trump introduced the “Ending the HIV Epidemic: A Plan for America” initiative. At the same time, his adminis...
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