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Tag: 75th Colorado Legislature

HB 26-1246: Protecting Coloradans from rising power costs and a broken system
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Rocky Mountain Voice, Commentary, State, Top Stories

HB 26-1246: Protecting Coloradans from rising power costs and a broken system

By Rep. Ken DeGraaf | Guest Commentary, Rocky Mountain Voice Editor's update: House Bill 26-1246 is scheduled to be heard in the House Energy & Environment Committee today, Thursday, March 12, 2026, at 1:30 p.m. in the Old State Library. Coloradans may listen live at leg.colorado.gov/agenda/committee/202622308545820. Colorado is facing a turning point in energy policy. For years, families and businesses across our state have watched their electricity bills rise while our landscapes are increasingly carved up by massive transmission projects stretching from horizon to horizon. Forests, prairies, farms, and communities are being cut apart in the name of electrification and “grid modernization.” Meanwhile, the people paying the price are the very citizens the system is su...
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Colorado’s quiet revival: A custody provision lawmakers stripped is back in SB26-018
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Colorado’s quiet revival: A custody provision lawmakers stripped is back in SB26-018

By Shaina Cole | Contributing Writer, Rocky Mountain Voice When Colorado lawmakers removed custody language from a transgender-related bill in 2025, the fight appeared to cool — or at least move out of view. It didn’t last. Jan. 14 marked the formal introduction of Senate Bill 26-018, backed in the Senate by Katie Wallace and Chris Kolker and carried in the House by Meg Froelich and Lorena García. No Republicans signed on. The bill was assigned to Senate Judiciary, chaired by sponsor Chris Kolker. Lead sponsor Katie Wallace has emphasized education and family policy in discussing the measure, drawing on her background on the Jefferson County School Board. The proposal revives a custody standard lawmakers stripped from a similar bill last session after pub...
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Behind the zero: What Colorado’s opening day didn’t say about the true cost of lawmaking
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Behind the zero: What Colorado’s opening day didn’t say about the true cost of lawmaking

By Jen Schumann | Rocky Mountain Voice “Governor Polis told us we should please work together,” Sen. Janice Rich said Wednesday, recounting a recent exchange as she stood on the Senate floor during opening session. Inside the chamber, legislative leaders spoke about shared goals and economic pressure on families. What didn’t make it into the speeches, according to Rich, was where many of the real financial consequences of those bills are already hiding. Rich, the Senate Minority Whip and vice chair of the Statutory Revision Committee, said the optimistic tone often masks how legislation actually moves once the gavels come down—particularly in how costs are presented, debated and ultimately shifted onto taxpayers and local governments. “They say they want to work...
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How Colorado laws are really made: What Rep. Matt Soper says voters rarely see
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How Colorado laws are really made: What Rep. Matt Soper says voters rarely see

By Jen Schumann | Rocky Mountain Voice The Colorado legislature is about to gavel in for another 120-day sprint, and with it comes a flood of bills most Coloradans will never see until the consequences land.  What many don’t see is how quickly ideas move, who pushes them forward—and why outcomes can feel disconnected from public input. Few lawmakers are positioned to explain that gap as clearly as Matt Soper, now the longest-serving Republican in the House and widely regarded inside the building as the caucus “dean.” With term limits constantly churning the legislature, Soper has watched the same policy ideas cycle through multiple sessions, often repackaged and moving faster each time. “There’s the textbook version of how a bill becomes a law that everyone...
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The RMV stories readers didn’t scroll past in 2025
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The RMV stories readers didn’t scroll past in 2025

By RMV Editorial Board This list wasn’t built in a meeting. It formed over time, story by story, as readers decided what was worth stopping for. What follows are the 25 RMV stories that held attention in 2025—and didn’t let go. Looking across the year’s top 25 stories revealed patterns, which we reflect on at the end. 1. School unions gave $11K to Jeffco candidate who admitted to a sealed juvenile sexual offense RMV reported that a Jefferson County school board candidate privately acknowledged a sealed juvenile sexual offense while receiving financial support from education unions. The story documented information voters did not have before ballots were cast and raised questions about disclosure, trust, and institutional accountability in school leade...
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Fix It or Fund It: Inside the $361 million standoff over Colorado’s unfunded mandates
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Fix It or Fund It: Inside the $361 million standoff over Colorado’s unfunded mandates

By Jen Schumann | Rocky Mountain Voice Colorado counties say they’re done footing the bill for laws they didn’t fund. Citing a 1991 statute and more than $361 million in unfunded mandates, the Fix It or Fund It coalition is asserting that if the state won’t pay, local governments won’t comply. Mesa County Commissioner Bobbie Daniel didn’t set out to launch a statewide revolt. Two years ago, she created a spreadsheet to track state mandates that came without funding. The goal was to help department heads navigate budgeting headaches. But that quiet act of accounting has since grown into something far louder—a bipartisan movement spanning more than 36 counties, with local governments now invoking state law to declare state mandates “optional.” “We started this whole unfunded mandate...
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Colorado’s laws put parents on the sidelines — and kids at risk
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Colorado’s laws put parents on the sidelines — and kids at risk

By Heidi Ganahl | Commentary, Rocky Mountain Voice Colorado politicians have been busy passing laws that put government between parents and kids. From mental health and gender identity to abortion and what’s taught in the classroom, the message is clear — parents don’t get a say. Families across our state are raising the alarm, sharing stories of confusion, heartbreak, and harm.  It’s time we take a hard look at what these laws are doing to our children. Mental health without parents HB19-1120 opened a door most parents didn’t know existed. Kids 12 and up can start therapy without a parent’s consent and often without a heads-up. Picture a seventh grader talking through depression or identity questions while mom and dad are kept out until there’s a crisis. The only guara...
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Minority Leader Pugliese resigns from House: “I want more than anything to follow God’s path”
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Minority Leader Pugliese resigns from House: “I want more than anything to follow God’s path”

By Jen Schumann | Rocky Mountain Voice Rocky Mountain Voice received a resignation letter late Sunday night from Rep. Rose Pugliese (El Paso County), announcing she will step down as Colorado House Minority Leader and from her District 14 seat effective Sept. 15. Pugliese, who rose to the top Republican leadership post in her first term after Mike Lynch’s 2024 resignation, wrote that her faith guided her decision. “If you wanted peace, you had to follow God’s path. I want more than anything to follow God’s path. I needed to understand what that path was for me in this time of my life,” she said. She explained that the message came during a homily after the special session, when she prayed for clarity. Her letter describes a painful end to that session. “The last day of Special Ses...
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Uncompensated care meets 340B: Colorado’s numbers force a reckoning
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Uncompensated care meets 340B: Colorado’s numbers force a reckoning

By Jen Schumann | Rocky Mountain Voice Colorado now requires hospitals to open their books, but the reports still don’t show how 340B savings are used or how much uncompensated care is migrant-related. That gap has turned Colorado into a proving ground for reforms that define the patient, disclose the spread and require hospitals to prove the savings reach care. Colorado’s uncompensated care surge UCHealth says it is drowning under the weight of migrant care, reporting $17 million in uncompensated costs in just three months last year. Denver Health added another $10 million in the same surge, and a Common Sense Institute analysis put the metro total for emergency care at $48 million by late 2024, averaging $2,931 per encounter.  Colorado’s own ledger underscores the scale....
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The special session leaves Polis with a $783M deficit — here’s how he can fix it without new taxes
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The special session leaves Polis with a $783M deficit — here’s how he can fix it without new taxes

By Russ Minary | Guest Commentary, Rocky Mountain Voice Governor Polis recently called—and lawmakers have now concluded—a special session aimed at addressing the estimated State budget deficit of $1.2 to 1.6 BILLION. That means that every man, woman and child in CO has to pay $208 more this year. That’s in addition to all of the other current local, county, state, sales and special district taxes they are already paying. But kids don’t pay taxes; adults do. I think CO taxpayers and citizens already pay enough in taxes. While lawmakers passed roughly $300 million in tax changes during the session, the ball is now in Gov. Polis’ court. He has been given authority to sign the bills and make deep spending cuts, up to $300 million, to close the remaining $783 million gap. Rather than a...
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