Rocky Mountain Voice

Tag: Colorado Attorney General

Colorado Sues Trump Administration Over Medicaid Funding for Gender Transitions for Minors
The Denver Gazette, Approved, State

Colorado Sues Trump Administration Over Medicaid Funding for Gender Transitions for Minors

By Thelma Grimes | The Denver Gazette Colorado on Wednesday filed yet another lawsuit against the Trump administration — this time to stop a new rule that prohibits Medicaid dollars from paying for transgender transition services for minors. The question of transgender services has increasingly become a core election matter in Colorado. This November, residents will vote on two measures that implicate the question. Phil Weiser, the attorney general and Democratic gubernatorial candidate, announced that Colorado joined a coalition of states challenging the Trump administration’s “attempt to prohibit states from using federal Medicaid funds for gender-affirming healthcare for low-income minors or some young adults.” Last month, the Centers for Medicare and Medicai...
Colorado AG Candidate Michael Allen Calls for Full Audit After His Confidential Voter Data Was Accessed
KOAA News, Approved, State

Colorado AG Candidate Michael Allen Calls for Full Audit After His Confidential Voter Data Was Accessed

By Alasyn Zimmerman | KOAA News Allen is running against Sec. of State Jena Griswold to become Colorado's next Attorney General this Nov. EL PASO COUNTY, Colo. (KOAA) — Fourth Judicial District Attorney Michael Allen, who represents El Paso and Teller counties, claimed his information was among 59 confidential voters accessed after information was wrongly made public earlier this month. The Colorado Secretary of State's office announced last week, an update to the state's "Find My Voter Registration" site made 133,000 confidential voters information public, 59 of those were accessed by someone. The voter details include the following: full name birth year voter ID registration status party affiliation residential address Allen is r...
Gun rights and Phil Weiser: an answer that stops at Heller
Colorado Accountability Project, Approved, Commentary, State

Gun rights and Phil Weiser: an answer that stops at Heller

By Cory Gaines | Commentary, Colorado Accountability Project Does current Attorney General (and candidate for governor) Phil Weiser know there’s been more gun control decisions past Heller? After reading about a curious statement AG Weiser made during the 8/27 gubernatorial debate. That debate in full is linked below. The remarks I reference relate to gun control and begin at about the 52:40 mark in the video when candidate Weiser was asked (quoting from the transcript): “Any laws the legislature has passed you disagree with, and does the state need to go further?” Candidate Weiser goes on to equivocate for some time before pausing and allowing one of the moderators to come back with a follow up, get an actual answer to the question. “And I’ll give you 30 seconds,...
Weiser’s Blueprint: The costs the plan leaves out
Rocky Mountain Voice, State, Top Stories

Weiser’s Blueprint: The costs the plan leaves out

By Shaina Cole | Contributing Writer, Rocky Mountain Voice Phil Weiser's Colorado Blueprint is full of numbers.  It reports the almost $900 million his office recovered in opioid settlements. It counts the more than $184 million in AmeriCorps funding he sued to recover, and the nearly $32 million his office won from the e-cigarette maker JUUL.  It measures the problems he wants to solve down to the dollar, from the $11.4 billion it says Coloradans lose each year to congested highways and deteriorating roads to the $36.5 billion it credits to outdoor recreation and the adjacent hospitality and travel industries. What the 109-page plan almost never does is say what Weiser's own proposals would cost. The Democrat attorney general, running for governor, proposes a ...
Colorado Joins Lawsuit Challenging New Federal Mail Ballot Safeguards Ahead of Midterms
Colorado Politics, Approved, State

Colorado Joins Lawsuit Challenging New Federal Mail Ballot Safeguards Ahead of Midterms

By Thelma Grimes | Colorado Politics Colorado, along with 25 other states, filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Postal Service to challenge a new rule that seeks to restrict the mailing of ballots to American citizens in an eligible voters list. Colorado relies heavily on the mail-in ballot system. As do several states. The U.S. Postal Service recently laid out how it would implement the order, but time is running short to impose major changes with some states beginning to send mail ballots to voters in just a few weeks. A few days ago, the conservative majority of the Supreme Court had cleared the way for President Donald Trump’s executive order, which mandates the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to create those lists — to be give...
Colorado Gets $615 Million in Meta Child Safety Settlement, but Polis Says Parents Remain Essential
The Denver Gazette, Approved, State

Colorado Gets $615 Million in Meta Child Safety Settlement, but Polis Says Parents Remain Essential

By Thelma Grimes | The Denver Gazette The parent company of Facebook and Instagram will pay hundreds of millions of dollars to Colorado, part of an $18 billion multistate deal, in which the company also agreed to adopt extensive child-safety changes to its operations. The settlement ended a trial over teen social media addiction and settled claims filed by nearly every state. It resolved a pivotal case years in the making that sought to hold the tech giant accountable for the role its platforms played in allegedly undermining children’s mental health. The effort targeted features designed to hook young people’s attention. If approved by the court, the deal will stop an avalanche of litigation by states against Meta, although the company still faces lawsuits from indivi...
Judge Finds Key Provision Of Colorado Detention Law Conflicts With Federal Authority
The Center Square, Approved, State

Judge Finds Key Provision Of Colorado Detention Law Conflicts With Federal Authority

By Joelle Webb | The Center Square (The Center Square) - A Trump-appointed federal judge has ruled in favor of a private prison company in its legal battle against a new Colorado law requiring more health and safety inspections for immigration detention facilities.  The lawsuit, brought in June to the U.S. District Court in Denver, was initiated by the GEO Group. The private for-profit prison company alleged that a new Colorado law that went into effect this month conflicts with its contract with the federal government. The law is House Bill 26-1276, which requires an increase of inspections for federal immigration detention facilities in the state. Though there are plans to build more immigration detention facilities in the stat...
Three laws, one result: A federal suit says Colorado and Denver leave some visitors no way to carry
Rocky Mountain Voice, State, Top Stories

Three laws, one result: A federal suit says Colorado and Denver leave some visitors no way to carry

By Shaina Cole | Contributing Writer, Rocky Mountain Voice He says he passed a background check stricter than Colorado's. He holds a carry permit that is good in more than 30 states. He owns a second home in Weld County. And when Greg Howeth applied for a Colorado permit this spring, a Weld County employee called to tell him no — because he does not have a Colorado ID. That denial, delivered by email on May 28, is now Exhibit 2 in a federal lawsuit against the City and County of Denver, Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser, and five other officials.  Howeth, a South Carolina man named Zackary Dougherty, and the National Rifle Association filed the case in U.S. District Court in Denver on Aug. 12. Their claim is not that any single Colorado law is unconstitutional. It ...
Weiser’s Blueprint: More offices, in the name of streamlining
Rocky Mountain Voice, State, Top Stories

Weiser’s Blueprint: More offices, in the name of streamlining

By Shaina Cole | Contributing Writer, Rocky Mountain Voice Phil Weiser's plan for Colorado runs 109 pages. It promises, throughout the document, to make state government simpler, faster, and less tangled in its own rules. It also proposes a new set of offices, officers, and coordinating teams to carry it out. The Colorado Blueprint, the platform Weiser is running on for governor, tells voters he will cut red tape and streamline how the state operates.  Alongside those promises, he would appoint a Chief Innovation Officer, a Chief Housing Officer, a Chief Resilience Officer, a Director of Rural Affairs and Collaboration, and a new Office for Safe Communities to coordinate the agencies that already handle public safety.  Reading the document, the same theme shows up...
Judge Orders Griswold to Turn Over Records Tied to Taxpayer-Funded Consulting
CBS Colorado, Approved, State

Judge Orders Griswold to Turn Over Records Tied to Taxpayer-Funded Consulting

By Shaun Boyd | CBS Colorado A Denver District Court judge has given Secretary of State Jena Griswold until Thursday to comply with an open records request, or she could be held in contempt. The records involve consulting work, paid for with public funds. Griswold's office says it doesn't have the documents and it refuses to ask the consultant for them, claiming that would impose an undue "burden." Instead, the Secretary of State's office sent four employees and the Attorney General's Office sent three attorneys to court. The consultant was brought in two years after Griswold became Secretary of State. The office had become a revolving door. Griswold was on her second deputy secretary, third chief legal counsel and fourth chief of staff. An invoice in the court record ...