Rocky Mountain Voice

Menu

The Colorado Sun

Presidential primary ballots will start being mailed to Colorado voters today. Here’s what to know.
No Comments
Approved, State, The Colorado Sun

Presidential primary ballots will start being mailed to Colorado voters today. Here’s what to know.

By Sandra Fish | Colorado Sun Ballots will start being mailed to voters today for Colorado’s March 5 presidential primary, listing options from former Republican President Donald Trump on the GOP ballot to “noncommitted delegate” on the Democratic ballot. But votes for some of the candidates listed might not count. Four of the seven Republican presidential candidates on Colorado’s Republican presidential primary ballot have ended their campaigns, though none have notified the Secretary of State’s Office they are no longer in Colorado’s contest. And the U.S. Supreme Court could rule that Trump isn’t eligible to be on Colorado’s ballot because of his attempts to overturn the 2020 election. The court heard arguments in that case last week, and the justices appeared ...
Read More
Denver cuts services in response to the migrant crisis that’s costing the city $180 million
No Comments
Approved, Denver Metro, Local, The Colorado Sun

Denver cuts services in response to the migrant crisis that’s costing the city $180 million

By Jennifer Brown | Colorado Sun Denver will cut hours at recreation centers, end in-person vehicle registration renewals and eliminate spring flower beds to save $5 million this year, a response to the migrant crisis that is expected to cost the city $180 million.  Mayor Mike Johnston on Friday blasted Congress for failing this week to pass a $118.3 billion bill aimed at stopping the flow of illegal entry at the southern border and making it easier for migrants who enter legally to get work permits.  About 40,000 migrants, mostly from Venezuela, have arrived in Denver over the past year, and more than 3,500 are living in city-funded hotel rooms. Thousands took bus rides to other American cities after arriving in Denver, and an unknown number are trying to stay in the ci...
Read More
U.S. Supreme Court doubts whether states can bar presidential candidates from running for office in hearing Colorado’s Trump ballot-access case
No Comments
Approved, National, The Colorado Sun

U.S. Supreme Court doubts whether states can bar presidential candidates from running for office in hearing Colorado’s Trump ballot-access case

U.S. Supreme Court justices raised concerns about letting state courts make a decision that could have national consequences. Justice Amy Coney Barrett put it plainly: “It just doesn’t seem like a state call.” By Jesse Paul | Colorado Sun U.S. Supreme Court justices on Thursday aggressively challenged whether states can disqualify a presidential candidate from running for office under the so-called insurrection clause in the Constitution as they heard arguments in the Colorado case seeking to disqualify Donald Trump from running for reelection.  A lawyer from Trump’s reelection campaign said the question is decisively “no” because the clause, in Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, is ultimately evaluated by Congress — and only after a candidate has been elected. ...
Read More
Coloradans agree social media is bad for youth mental health. Now lawmakers want to do something about it.
No Comments
Approved, State, The Colorado Sun

Coloradans agree social media is bad for youth mental health. Now lawmakers want to do something about it.

A bill introduced in the state legislature would put regulations on social media platforms to help limit how much time teens spend scrolling By John Ingold | Colorado Sun As a senior at East High School in Denver, Melina Collier is fluent in social media. TikTok most frequently. Snapchat to message with friends. Instagram for idle scrolling. But while she and her friends definitely know what they are doing on the apps, that doesn’t mean they always feel in control of them — or that they think the platforms are good for them. Collier gave the example of content on the apps specifically targeted at teenage girls that purports to promote health and fitness but in reality sends a message of body-shaming. “It’s supposed to be body positivity,” Collier said, “but it ends up being ...
Read More
In April, discounted internet will end for 250,000 low-income households if Congress doesn’t act
No Comments
Approved, National, The Colorado Sun

In April, discounted internet will end for 250,000 low-income households if Congress doesn’t act

The Affordable Connectivity Program will stop accepting newcomers Feb. 7. Advocates hope Congress will extend funding. By Tamara Chuang | Colorado Sun The federal subsidy to reduce internet bills for nearly 250,000 Colorado households is winding down and funding is set to run out by April. But the first deadline is Wednesday at 10 p.m. when local internet providers must stop accepting new customers. “We will take applications to the very end,” said Brieana Reed-Harmel, broadband manager at Loveland Pulse, the city’s municipal internet service. “They are still trickling in little by little every day.” Loveland Pulse currently has about 500 low-income customers enrolled in the federal Affordable Connectivity Program, or ACP, a $14.2 billion program that launched two years ago to ...
Read More
Colorado lawmakers seek to boost condo development by reducing lawsuits over construction errors
No Comments
Approved, State, The Colorado Sun

Colorado lawmakers seek to boost condo development by reducing lawsuits over construction errors

Condos are seen as a key way to ease Colorado’s housing affordability crisis, but changing the state’s so-called construction defects laws has been a political third rail By Jesse Paul | Colorado Sun In a bid to spur condominium construction in Colorado, a group of state lawmakers introduced a bill Monday aimed at reducing lawsuits over construction errors by narrowing when they can be filed and by giving builders and homeowners an avenue to make repairs faster and without going to court.  Senate Bill 106, the so-called construction defects measure, is a major part of the affordable housing debate at the Colorado Capitol this year.  Proponents of easing Colorado’s construction defects laws, including Gov. Jared Polis, see the change as a way to persuade...
Read More
Rep. Boebert earns temporary restraining order against her ex-husband, Jayson
No Comments
Approved, State, The Colorado Sun

Rep. Boebert earns temporary restraining order against her ex-husband, Jayson

The order applies to the Republican congresswoman and the couple’s three minor children. A hearing is scheduled for Thursday to make the order permanent. By Sandra Fish | The Colorado Sun U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert asked for and received a temporary restraining order Friday against her ex-husband, Jayson Boebert. The order also covers three of the former couple’s four sons.  In requesting the order, the Republican congresswoman filled out a checklist alleging incidents ranging from name calling and harassing phone calls to “abusing children in household” between 2022 and Friday. The most recent incident alleged in the chart was Friday, when the congresswoman claimed there was an instance of “threat by damage to property.” Lauren Boebert indicated on the form that police w...
Read More
Colorado is so behind on processing food assistance benefits that it’s under a federal corrective action plan
No Comments
Approved, State, The Colorado Sun

Colorado is so behind on processing food assistance benefits that it’s under a federal corrective action plan

By Jennifer Brown | The Colorado Sun Colorado is so slow at processing applications for food assistance that it ranks in the bottom five states and is now under a corrective action plan with the federal government. While some counties in the state are meeting federal requirements, others are far behind, which means Colorado’s average processing times for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, are among the worst in the country.  Arapahoe, Denver and Weld counties are processing more than 90% of new applications within required timeframes, but El Paso and Jefferson counties, for example, are seeing success rates around only 50%, according to data obtained by The Colorado Sun.  When it comes to processing renewals on time, Pueblo and El Paso counties ar...
Read More
Unaffiliated voters can cast ballots in Colorado’s GOP primaries this year, federal judge rules
No Comments
Approved, State, The Colorado Sun

Unaffiliated voters can cast ballots in Colorado’s GOP primaries this year, federal judge rules

By Sandra Fish | The Colorado Sun Unaffiliated voters – who make up the largest share of the Colorado's electorate – will still be allowed to participate in the state’s Republican primaries after a federal judge Friday rejected the Colorado GOP’s latest attempt to exclude them. Chief U.S. District Court Judge Philip A. Brimmer found the GOP failed to prove that Colorado’s law allowing unaffiliated voters to cast ballots in partisan primaries violates Republicans’ constitutional rights. He also wrote that the party “presented no evidence suggesting that Colorado’s semi-open primary system causes candidates to moderate or change their policy stances on specific issues.”  The decision may be appealed, though it’s not clear there’s enough time for an appeal to be settled before t...
Read More
1,000 criminal cases may have relied on faulty DNA Testing at Colorado Crime Lab
No Comments
Approved, State, The Colorado Sun

1,000 criminal cases may have relied on faulty DNA Testing at Colorado Crime Lab

Colorado’s Joint Budget Committee in January approved a $7.5 million to deal with the fallout of an ongoing probe into a former CBI forensic scientist By Brian Eason | THE COLORADO SUN Colorado district attorneys worry that over 1,000 criminal convictions may have relied on dubious evidence due to “anomalies” discovered in DNA testing by a former Colorado Bureau of Investigation forensic scientist. The Joint Budget Committee last month approved a $7.5 million addition to this year’s state budget to deal with the immediate fallout. And the taxpayer costs are likely to grow, budget documents show. “That’s extremely concerning, and clearly quite a liability for the state,” said Rep. Emily Sirota, D-Denver, a JBC member. Department officials told the JBC the money would onl...
Read More