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Colorado Voters to Decide More Than a Dozen Ballot Measures Including Tax Hikes, Immigration and Youth Sports
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Axios Denver, Approved, State

Colorado Voters to Decide More Than a Dozen Ballot Measures Including Tax Hikes, Immigration and Youth Sports

By John Frank | Axios Denver Colorado voters will decide more than a dozen ballot measures this November, from remaking the state's tax system to banning gender-affirming surgery for minors. Why it matters: Beyond the candidates, voters will have a direct say on major changes to taxes, immigration, criminal justice and other hot-button issues. State of play: The marquee measure would scrap Colorado's flat 4.4% income tax in favor of a graduated system that would raise taxes on those making $500,000 or more a year. Legislative fiscal analysts estimate the Democratic-led measure would generate an additional $2 billion a year, with the money reserved for education, health care and early child care. The other side: A countermeasure backed by ...
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Colorado Supreme Court Rejects Xcel Bid to Fast-Track Ranchland Dispute
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The Colorado Sun, Approved, State

Colorado Supreme Court Rejects Xcel Bid to Fast-Track Ranchland Dispute

By Mark Jaffe | The Colorado Sun Xcel tried to condemn a 550-foot strip of Cheyenne County ranchland to connect two wind farms to a substation. The landowner objected to the route. Xcel Energy’s bid to have the state Supreme Court weigh in on a dispute with a Cheyenne County landowner over a 550-foot right-of-way to connect wind farms to the Goose Creek substation was rejected by the court Monday. In a brief unanimous decision, the court denied the utility’s attempt to have the state’s highest court overturn a Cheyenne County district judge’s ruling that Xcel Energy did not have the power to use eminent domain to acquire the right of way. Xcel Energy argued that the case raised serious statewide issues on the future of clean energy policy in Colorado...
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Bermúdez: Colorado voters become a test case for Democrats’ transgender long game
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Rocky Mountain Voice, Commentary, State, Top Stories

Bermúdez: Colorado voters become a test case for Democrats’ transgender long game

By Alejandro Bermúdez | Guest Commentary, Rocky Mountain Voice As national LGBT activists prepare a decade-long campaign to reshape public opinion on transgender issues, Colorado voters will face two major questions this November: whether biological males should compete in female sports and whether minors should undergo transgender-related surgeries. According to The Washington Times, members of the Democratic National Committee’s LGBTQ caucus recently acknowledged that Republicans are preparing to make transgender policies a major issue in the 2026 campaign, especially those involving children, medical interventions and women’s athletics. Rather than retreat, activists are pursuing a longer strategy modeled on the campaign that transformed public opinion on same-sex marriage. ...
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Colorado’s contract reports were off by as much as $2.1 billion. The next is due Sept. 30
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Rocky Mountain Voice, State, Top Stories

Colorado’s contract reports were off by as much as $2.1 billion. The next is due Sept. 30

By Shaina Cole | Contributing Writer, Rocky Mountain Voice By Sept. 30, Colorado's Department of Personnel and Administration is due to produce its annual tally of contracts covered by the state Procurement Code — the number awarded, the initial dollar amounts recorded, and the share that went to service-disabled veteran-owned small businesses.  The last three tallies were wrong by hundreds of millions to billions of dollars, the state auditor has found. And this year, the department has said it does not plan to send the report to lawmakers at all. The Office of the State Auditor laid it out in Report 2556P, a performance audit of the state's contracting goal for service-disabled veteran-owned small businesses, released in May.  The audit's stated purpose was to f...
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Colorado Trucking School Faces Shutdown as Feds Tighten CDL Standards
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CBS Colorado, Approved, State

Colorado Trucking School Faces Shutdown as Feds Tighten CDL Standards

By Sarah Horbacewicz | CBS Colorado A federal agency coalition called for at least 270 commercial truck-driving training schools across the country to shut down on Monday, amid reports of fraud. The U.S. Department of Transportation announced that 110 CDL training schools were being ordered to shut down over a lack of English proficiency.  The agency also recommended shutting down more than 160 additional schools over unsafe training practices. At least one Colorado school was among those. As the founder of truck rescue company Mountain Recovery, Charlie Stubblefield says some of the drivers he encounters have trouble understanding basic instructions about their trucks, raising questions about how well some commercial drivers are being trained before getting behin...
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Federal Judge Pauses Boulder County Gun Ban Case Pending Supreme Court Ruling
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Colorado Politics, Approved, State

Federal Judge Pauses Boulder County Gun Ban Case Pending Supreme Court Ruling

By Michael Karlik | Colorado Politics A federal judge agreed on Friday that she would await the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in an upcoming Second Amendment case before she addresses the constitutionality of similar gun ordinances in multiple Boulder County jurisdictions. Rocky Mountain Gun Owners, the National Association for Gun Rights, and several individual Coloradans filed suit in 2022 over local firearms ordinances that generally prohibited the sale, transfer, and possession of large-capacity magazines and semi-automatic guns deemed “assault weapons,” with some variation. As defendants, they named the town of Superior, the cities of Louisville and Boulder, and Boulder County. In July 2025, U.S. District Court Judge Nina Y. Wang clarified which claims could ...
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Poll Finds Socialists Now Outnumber Republicans Among Denver Voters
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The Denver Gazette, Approved, State

Poll Finds Socialists Now Outnumber Republicans Among Denver Voters

By Nicole C. Brambila | The Denver Gazette More Denver voters identify as socialists than Republicans, continuing a three-year rise that comes on the heels of Democratic Socialist Melat Kiros’ upset primary victory over longtime U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette. Seventeen percent of Denver voters now identify as socialists, up from 12% last year and 11% two years ago, according to a new Colorado Polling Institute (CPI) poll. Just 15% of voters identify as Republican. The shift follows Kiros’ June victory over DeGette, a 15-term incumbent, by 13.4 percentage points or more than 21,100 votes, in the Democratic primary. The poll also depicts an electorate broadly positive about Denver: Most voters believe the city is headed in the right direction and nearly f...
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Montana Looks To Colorado’s Flat Tax Legacy As Colorado Debates Progressive Alternative
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Complete Colorado, Approved, State

Montana Looks To Colorado’s Flat Tax Legacy As Colorado Debates Progressive Alternative

By Nash Herman | Complete Colorado While Montana is poised to learn from the flat tax success stories of Colorado and other Western states, the push for a progressive income tax in Colorado threatens the very policies that made the state successful in the first place.  Some history  Colorado and Montana both implemented progressive individual income taxes in the 1930s during the Great Depression.   However, Colorado was one of the first states to join the “flat tax revolution” when it implemented a single flat rate of 5 percent for all incomes in 1987.  Then, through rate cuts at the turn of the century and Independence Institute-led Propositions 116 and 121 in 2020 and 2022, Colorado lowere...
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Gaines: Will Jena Griswold fail upward again?
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Colorado Accountability Project, Approved, Commentary, State

Gaines: Will Jena Griswold fail upward again?

By Cory Gaines | Commentary, Colorado Accountability Project I well remember how I felt when Jena Griswold got her second term as Secretary of State. She ran against a Republican who, though eminently qualified not to mention competent, was about as plain-Jane as they come. She was boring. Oh, and she said all the right things for Trump-avoidant voters about elections and voting machines.And yet, Jena won handily. When I woke to those election results I kept asking myself how Jena continues to fail upwards. It is a mystery to me. I get party line voting, something many engage in and parties depend on, but even at that how does Jena Griswold survive primaries and contests with people who are obviously better?I read the story linked below about Griswold recently which brought...
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Colorado made registration more expensive. Now it punishes drivers who fall behind.
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Rocky Mountain Voice, Commentary, State, Top Stories

Colorado made registration more expensive. Now it punishes drivers who fall behind.

By C. J. Garbo | Guest Commentary, Rocky Mountain Voice There is something almost perfectly governmental about Colorado's growing obsession with expired license plates. First, make an unavoidable part of ordinary life increasingly expensive. Then act surprised when more people struggle to pay for it. Then impose late fees on the people who fall behind. Then send police out to fine them again. And finally, call the whole thing "compliance." Across Colorado, law enforcement agencies have been escalating their efforts against motorists with expired registrations. Denver has conducted repeated enforcement campaigns. Colorado Springs and surrounding agencies have organized regional crackdowns. Police departments speak of zero tolerance. Drivers can face registration cos...
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