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Another spring, another Democrat lawmaker push for “extreme temperature” workplace rules
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Colorado Accountability Project, Approved, Commentary, State

Another spring, another Democrat lawmaker push for “extreme temperature” workplace rules

By Cory Gaines | Commentary, Colorado Accountability Project For the last couple (I think--don't quote me on it being two) legislative sessions, some of the more progressive Democrats in the state legislature have been trying, and failing, to run a bill to offer "protection" to workers who do their job in extreme temperatures.Such a bill is running again this year. It's HB26-1272 which I link to first below.Past efforts died due to (legitimate) concerns by businesses and industry over the effect rules about breaks, heating, and cooling would have on their ability to operate.This year's effort is at least passing its first initial hurdles, albeit in an altered form. Quoting from the Sum and Substance article about the bill linked second below (with link intact):"House Bill 12...
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Free speech or state control?: Elon Musk lawsuit targets Colorado’s AI discrimination law
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Financial Times, Approved, State

Free speech or state control?: Elon Musk lawsuit targets Colorado’s AI discrimination law

By Alex Rogers and George Hammond | Financial Times Elon Musk’s AI lab claims the regulations violate free speech protections Elon Musk’s xAI has filed a lawsuit challenging Colorado’s landmark AI bill as the Trump administration and leading industry players try to stop US states from regulating the technology. Colorado’s bill, set to take effect in the summer, was the first state-level initiative passed to impose protections against “algorithmic discrimination” in AI systems. Musk’s AI lab, which recently merged with rocket group SpaceX, says the bill would force it to “promote the state’s ideological views on various matters, racial justice in particular” rather than its own “disinterested pursuit of truth”. The lawsuit is the latest move in a battle between ...
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Lawmakers Debate Fee Based Plan To Cut Insurance Costs With Hail Resistant Roof Grants
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The Colorado Sun, Approved, State

Lawmakers Debate Fee Based Plan To Cut Insurance Costs With Hail Resistant Roof Grants

By Bente Birkeland | The Colorado Sun Colorado insurance premiums have risen 65% in 5 years. Hail storms are mostly to blame. Colorado lawmakers want to impose a per-policy fee on home insurance providers to raise $20 million a year for a program that would provide grants to homeowners to protect their properties against hail. The hope is that the program will protect enough Colorado homes against hail that insurance rates will drop across the state. A similar effort failed last session. In the last five years the average premium in the state has gone up 65%, according to the National Association of Insurance Commissioners. That makes Colorado one of the top-10 most expensive states in the country for homeowners insurance.   Climate exp...
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Livestock Losses And Budget Overruns Fuel Federal Review of Colorado’s Wolf Program
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Colorado Politics, Approved, State

Livestock Losses And Budget Overruns Fuel Federal Review of Colorado’s Wolf Program

By Marianne Goodland | Colorado Politics Federal wildlife officials have opened a formal review of Colorado’s wolf reintroduction program, launching a public comment period to assess how the state has handled rising conflicts between wolves and livestock. A notice from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service was published in the Federal Register on Monday, setting a June 5 deadline for the comments. The notice says the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is seeking information on how Colorado has implemented the federal 10(j) rule issued in 2023. It also explains that the agency signed a memorandum of understanding with Colorado Parks and Wildlife outlining goals, such as providing timely public updates on the restoration program, conducting outreach, and carrying out ...
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From Kazakhstan to Colorado: Secretary of State candidate James Wiley’s plan to scrap electronic voting machines
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Rocky Mountain Voice, State, Top Stories

From Kazakhstan to Colorado: Secretary of State candidate James Wiley’s plan to scrap electronic voting machines

By Jen Schumann | Rocky Mountain Voice James Wiley was 7 on Election Night 2000. He remembers the decorations from his birthday staying up for two more weeks while the country waited to find out who had won. He didn’t understand hanging chads or voting machines. At the time, he was living in Almaty, Kazakhstan, where his missionary family had been since he was three months old. What stuck with him from those years wasn’t the mechanics of elections. It was how power operated. He’s 32 and running for Colorado Secretary of State as a Republican, after years working on election cases and a stint as executive director of the Libertarian Party.  What he’s saying on the campaign trail isn’t new for him. The push to get rid of electronic voting machines and move to hand-cou...
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Colorado bills spark concern over parental rights and religious freedom
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Christian Home Educators of Colorado, Approved, Commentary, State

Colorado bills spark concern over parental rights and religious freedom

By Colleen Enos | Commentary, Christian Home Educators of Colorado Colorado is becoming much more antagonistic towards families and people of faith. Our leadership appears to place more importance on ideology, secrecy, and crime when introducing and debating bills. The last few weeks have been an example of that mindset. The legislative session crossed the halfway mark in mid-March and is racing towards the finish line of May 13. SB26-018, Legal Protections for the Dignity of Minors, passed out of committee on March 25 and is headed for second and third reading in the State House this week. The most problematic section of the bill was stripped out in the Senate, but the secrecy provision for minors who request a name change for reasons including conforming to their new ...
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The numbers didn’t add up: A judge says Colorado’s elections office didn’t either
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Rocky Mountain Voice, State, Top Stories

The numbers didn’t add up: A judge says Colorado’s elections office didn’t either

By Jen Schumann | Rocky Mountain Voice Jonathan Ambler read the article more than once. Republicans in Pueblo County had reported tens of thousands in contributions. Democrats—who had controlled local politics for generations and operated out of their own headquarters—had reported barely a few thousand. It didn’t square. So he started digging. What he found led to two formal complaints, a dismissal by Colorado’s top elections office, and now, a Denver judge ordering that same office to go back and do the work again. A court steps in where the state stepped away On March 26, Denver District Court Judge Bruce Jones ruled that the Colorado Secretary of State’s office improperly dismissed Ambler’s campaign finance complaints against the Pueblo County Democratic Party. The...
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“Single most insecure person I’ve ever encountered”: Former Griswold aide breaks silence ahead of AG race
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Rocky Mountain Voice, State, Top Stories

“Single most insecure person I’ve ever encountered”: Former Griswold aide breaks silence ahead of AG race

By Jen Schumann | Rocky Mountain Voice Reese Edwards didn’t plan to speak out. He spent less than a year inside Colorado’s Secretary of State’s office before leaving in 2020, frustrated and burned out enough to walk away. He wasn’t looking to revisit any of it. Now, with Jena Griswold running for attorney general, he’s speaking up—and doing it on the record. “I love democracy with an almost religious belief,” he told RMV. “The idea of people deciding for themselves how they will govern themselves. That’s why I took the job.” Edwards, who served as Director of Government and Public Affairs, is now going on record with a warning. He says what he witnessed inside the Secretary of State’s office—erratic leadership, blurred lines between political ambition and public duty ...
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Speak up or step back: Why critics say Coloradans must engage with CPW now
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Colorado Accountability Project, Approved, Commentary, State

Speak up or step back: Why critics say Coloradans must engage with CPW now

By Cory Gaines | Commentary, Colorado Accountability Project Depending on where you get your news, you are probably by now aware that the CPW Commissioners, in a meeting that I’ve heard referred to as a “shit-show” by more than one person, voted to accept a petition by a monied, out of state group. If you missed it or want to hit the high spots again, I put a FencePost article on the meeting. That is the first link below.This vote came over the recommendations against the petition by their own director and other CPW employees.Why? From where I stand the reason’s pretty simple: the CPW Commissioners have been (by design from the governor’s office) “captured” by animal rights and environmental groups.This is not just an impression I have pulled out of thin air. Over and over w...
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Federal Judge Clears Path For Colorado GOP To Reclaim Primary Control
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The Colorado Sun, Approved, State

Federal Judge Clears Path For Colorado GOP To Reclaim Primary Control

By Jesse Paul | The Colorado Sun The judge ruled the requirement that 75% of the Colorado GOP or the Colorado Democratic Party must support opting out of the primaries before it can happen “constitutes a severe burden on the major parties’ right to association and is therefore unconstitutional”. he Republicans who have long sought to stop their party from participating in Colorado’s primaries, mainly out of opposition to how unaffiliated voters are now allowed to cast ballots in them, received a major boost late Tuesday when a federal judge ruled that the burden for opting out is unconstitutionally high.  U.S. District Court Judge Philip A. Brimmer found the requirement that 75% of the Colorado GOP or the Colorado Democratic Party’s central committee must suppor...
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