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Colorado House panel advances immigration bill after hours of testimony
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Rocky Mountain Voice, State, Top Stories

Colorado House panel advances immigration bill after hours of testimony

By Shaina Cole | Contributing Writer, Rocky Mountain Voice After hours of testimony that moved between legal arguments, the House Judiciary committee advanced a sweeping immigration bill Tuesday. House Bill 26-1276 passed the committee on a 6–5 vote. The "Protect Safety of Individuals Who Are Immigrants" bill, sponsored by Reps. Elizabeth Velasco and Lorena García, focuses on how state and local entities interact with federal immigration enforcement through information sharing, task-force reporting, detention oversight and the use of public resources. Velasco told the committee the bill grew out of what sponsors saw as gaps in existing law. "This bill was written in response to issues…as well as growing concerns that we are seeing across Colorado and the nation," she said. That includ...
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Governed by ideology: Colorado’s silent revolution against top-down overreach
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Rocky Mountain Voice, Commentary, State, Top Stories

Governed by ideology: Colorado’s silent revolution against top-down overreach

By Laureen Boll | Guest Commentary, Rocky Mountain Voice Since late December 2025, we've all been witness to the Iranian people rising in extraordinary defiance against an oppressive regime. Sparked initially by economic collapse but quickly evolving into broad demands for freedom and an end to clerical rule, these nationwide protests have seen millions take to the streets in what many describe as the most intense challenge to the Islamic Republic since the 1979 revolution. The regime's response has been savage: security forces unleashed massacres, particularly in early January 2026, with credible estimates from human rights groups putting the death toll in the tens of thousands. Iranians have made the ultimate sacrifice in this fight against a religious ideology that no longer aligns with...
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Colorado’s assault on families: TABOR, parental rights and the bills lawmakers killed
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Christian Home Educators of Colorado, Approved, Commentary, State

Colorado’s assault on families: TABOR, parental rights and the bills lawmakers killed

By Colleen Enos | Commentary, Christian Home Educators of Colorado In the United States of America, we cherish our freedoms. We have the freedom to protect our families, to practice our faith, to educate our children, and to live in safe communities. Coloradans want to experience those freedoms in our state, too, not just as an ideal in our country. We want truth, justice, and the American way. The American way of limited government and keeping our own money is at risk with the constant attack against the Taxpayer Bill of Rights (TABOR). Homeschool families' ability to educate their own children becomes increasingly difficult as the state of Colorado takes additional resources away from us. SB26-135, State Public K-12 Education Funding, wants to circumvent TABOR restrictions and proposes k...
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Atmos Energy Seeks Biggest Gas Rate Hike In 25 Years For Colorado Customers
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The Herald Times, Approved, State

Atmos Energy Seeks Biggest Gas Rate Hike In 25 Years For Colorado Customers

By Special to the Herald Times | The Herald Times Public Utilities Commission urging customers to share their perspectives on the proposal. RBC | According to a press release from the Colorado Public Utilities Commission (PUC), Atmos Energy Corp. has filed an application proposing a 28% average increase to the “base rate” portion of monthly natural gas bills for its Colorado customers. The proposed hike is the largest single increase in the company’s base rates in the last 25 years and would boost Atmos’s annual “base rate” revenues by approximately $17.56 million. Atmos states the additional revenues are sought to increase profits for shareholders (known as “Return on Equity,” or ROE) and to recover the cost of infrastructure investments made since ...
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Planned Outages And Policy Goals Fuel Concerns About Colorado Energy Future
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Complete Colorado, Approved, Commentary, State

Planned Outages And Policy Goals Fuel Concerns About Colorado Energy Future

By Jon Caldara | Commentary, Complete Colorado I’ve lived in Colorado since 1970. And you know what Colorado had back in 1970? High winds blowing down the Front Range. I moved to Boulder in 1984 and have been there ever since. And you know what Boulder has had all that time? A freakin’ lot of high winds. I remember as a college kid walking around the CU campus after windstorms, stepping around uprooted trees and massive broken branches that made the sidewalks impassable. I’ve seen rooftop shingles go flying off Boulder buildings, signs ripped down, and semi-trucks overturned. All of which is to say that for the last 55 years I have personally witnessed a crap-ton of high winds in our mountain state. But only in the last few months have I witnessed our ...
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Colorado Lawmakers Reject ICE Oversight Bill After Bipartisan Pushback
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The Colorado Sun, Approved, State

Colorado Lawmakers Reject ICE Oversight Bill After Bipartisan Pushback

By Taylor Dolven and Olivia Prentzel | The Colorado Sun Local police chiefs opposed the bill. Two Democrats voted with Republicans to reject it. Colorado lawmakers rejected a bill Tuesday that would have required state and local police to intervene when federal immigration agents use excessive force. The bill would have also prohibited state and local police officers from hiding their identities, subjected federal officers to state criminal and civil penalties and required police officers to attend training on immigration enforcement. Two Democrats — Rep. Chad Clifford of Centennial and Rep. Cecelia Espenoza of Denver — joined the Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee to kill House Bill 1275 after hours of testimony against it from police...
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Colorado Energy Mandates Drive Rising Costs And Reliability Concerns
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Complete Colorado, Approved, State

Colorado Energy Mandates Drive Rising Costs And Reliability Concerns

By Complete Colorado Staff | Complete Colorado In a recent episode of Independence Institute’s* energy podcast, PowerGab, hosts Jake Fogelman and Amy Cooke argue that ‘green’ energy mandates are driving up Colorado energy prices and threatening grid reliability, while environmental groups and progressive media outlets try to obscure the role renewables play in rising utility costs. A major topic of the show is a proposal allowing, among other things, Colorado Springs Utilities to delay retirement of the Ray Nixon coal plant if shutting it down on schedule would harm reliability or impose unreasonable costs. As the hosts note, the plant remains essential, supplying about 25% of Colorado Springs’ electricity, while replacement generation has proven far more expensive than ...
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Colorado law allows probation for child sex assault: A third attempt to require prison time
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Rocky Mountain Voice, State, Top Stories

Colorado law allows probation for child sex assault: A third attempt to require prison time

By Jen Schumann | Rocky Mountain Voice Correction: This story originally identified Sen. Marc Snyder by the wrong first name. His name is Marc, not Chris. We regret the error. Editor’s update: The Senate Judiciary Committee is scheduled to take up SB26-111 today at 1:30 p.m. Coloradans can watch live here. Seventy percent of people convicted of sexually assaulting a child in Colorado walk out of court on probation. Not prison—probation. Current law allows judges to impose probation for some child sexual assault convictions, and in certain cases prison is not required unless there are repeat offenses. SB26-111 would require prison time for anyone convicted. The bill has failed twice. A third attempt this year Reps. Brandi Bradley and Regina English have b...
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The grassroots upset: How 3,320 volunteers pushed three child-focused measures onto Colorado’s ballot
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Rocky Mountain Voice, State, Top Stories

The grassroots upset: How 3,320 volunteers pushed three child-focused measures onto Colorado’s ballot

By Jen Schumann | Rocky Mountain Voice Three citizen-led ballot initiatives—focused on youth medical procedures, girls’ sports and child trafficking penalties—are now officially headed to Colorado’s November 2026 ballot, a result supporters say wasn’t supposed to happen. That final step came this week, when Propositions 109 and 110 were certified, joining Proposition 108 after a campaign that gathered more than 500,000 signatures statewide. For Erin Lee, executive director of Protect Kids Colorado, the moment lands as something bigger than a successful petition drive—it’s the end of a campaign many didn’t think would get this far. The campaign they said couldn’t work Asked about the process, Lee called it “the hardest, most impossible thing” she’s ever taken on. She s...
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Polis Backs New AI Framework To Replace Controversial 2024 Law
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The Denver Gazette, Approved, State

Polis Backs New AI Framework To Replace Controversial 2024 Law

By Marianne Goodland | The Denver Gazette A group that has been working on artificial intelligence policy has reached an agreement on a framework that would replace the regulations adopted by Colorado legislators two years ago. The agreement has the backing of Gov. Jared Polis, who reluctantly signed the AI law in 2024. The agreement reached by the Colorado AI Policy Work Group is meant to repeal and replace the 2024 law, whose sponsors said would protect consumers and residents from algorithmic discrimination but which critics called heavy handed and unworkable. A multi-billion dollar technology company, which recently decided to leave Colorado, cited the new regulations on artificial intelligence as a cause of concern, comparing the “state-level over...
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