staging.rockymountainvoice.com

Menu

completecolorado.com

Numerous citizen-led initiatives working for a spot on Colorado’s November ballot
No Comments
completecolorado.com, State

Numerous citizen-led initiatives working for a spot on Colorado’s November ballot

By Sherrie Peif | Complete Colorado  Colorado is one of just 21 states that allow citizens’ ballot initiatives to change state statute or amend the state Constitution, and one of just 14 states that allow for direct initiatives, meaning the state’s legislature does not have to confirm the statute. Nearly every election year there are a handful of measures for voters to decide, while other efforts never make it to the ballot. This year is no exception, with a huge number of initiatives at various stages of the process, including many being challenged to the Colorado Supreme Court. There are measures to guarantee abortion rights in the state’s Constitution (while another, that did not gather enough signatures would have banned abortion entirely). Other measures would reduce property...
Read More
Sharf: No, left-tilting media, campus protestors aren’t anti-war, just anti-Jew
No Comments
Commentary, completecolorado.com

Sharf: No, left-tilting media, campus protestors aren’t anti-war, just anti-Jew

By Joshua Sharf | Complete Colorado The digital news site Denverite (owned by Colorado Public Radio), as well as other leftward-tilting Colorado news outlets, recently referred to the inhabitants of a pro-Hamas tent encampment on the Auraria Campus in Denver as “anti-war.” Editorial note: They’re not anti-war, they’re just anti-Jew. As the campus protests grow more violent they are also exposed as being more radical than one might suppose from coverage by standard left-of-center news outlets.  It is not uncommon for them to openly support Hamas’s October 7 indiscriminate massacre and rapes as “legitimate acts of resistance,” even as they deny that the worst of the atrocities even happened.  They cite Hamas’s unverifiable, and likely invented,  casualty figures witho...
Read More
Caldara: Colorado’s majority Democrats assault free speech
No Comments
Commentary, completecolorado.com, State

Caldara: Colorado’s majority Democrats assault free speech

By Jon Caldara | Complete Colorado (You can listen to this column, read by the author, here.) Among all protections throughout human existence for political minorities, none greater was ever created before the First Amendment. For the better part of my life, it was classic liberals and the political left who fought for the right of dissent, guaranteeing government shall not abridge speech. It was the cultural warriors of my childhood through school, media and Hollywood who drilled into us themes like: “innocent until proven guilty”; “the ends don’t justify the means”; “I disagree with what you say, but defend your right to say it”; and “dissent is patriotic.” Why? Because the political majority needs no protection for its self-expression. The political minority does. ...
Read More
Caldara: Ex-Rep. Ken Buck leaves constituents without a voice in D.C., at worst possible time
No Comments
Commentary, completecolorado.com, State

Caldara: Ex-Rep. Ken Buck leaves constituents without a voice in D.C., at worst possible time

By Jon Caldara | Complete Colorado (You can listen to this column, read by the author, here.) The speaker of the United States House of Representatives, Mike Johnson, has called for a vote on funding for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan. He has done so at sizable professional risk. His isolationist Republicans might remove him from his leadership position for it. By the time you read this column, you’ll likely know how those votes went. As I write this, I have no idea. But I do know there’s one vote that could be wildly important, if only there were a representative to cast it. With Ken Buck’s resignation well before his term ends, he has left the voters of Colorado’s 4th Congressional District without a voice in government, and at a remarkably critical time. Not only is the ...
Read More
Voters may get to decide on cost-saving shortening of Colorado legislative session
No Comments
completecolorado.com, State

Voters may get to decide on cost-saving shortening of Colorado legislative session

By Sherrie Peif | Complete Colorado DENVER — Independence Institute President Jon Caldara has become well known for his willingness to take issues directly to the voters, and one topic has catapulted to the top of his “must do” list. Caldara is hoping to take what is currently known as Initiative 183 to the 2024 ballot, asking voters to reduce the annual Colorado legislative session from its current 120 days down to just 90 days. The initiative is now in the petition approval phase, after which Caldara will need to collect 124,238 valid signatures of registered voters (5 percent of the total votes cast for secretary of state in 2022). Additionally, because the initiative amends the Colorado Constitution he will need to collect at least 2 percent of that number from insid...
Read More
Orr, Rolling: Xcel power blackout showcases the high cost of unreliable electricity
No Comments
Commentary, completecolorado.com

Orr, Rolling: Xcel power blackout showcases the high cost of unreliable electricity

 By Isaac Orr and Mitch Rolling | Complete Colorado Hundreds of thousands of Xcel Energy customers in Colorado recenlty lost power as high winds damaged power lines, and Xcel preemptively shut off the power to 55,000 customers to mitigate the risk of wildfires. Among the customers who lost power were homeowners and small businesses who received little to no warning. The Denver Post detailed how families experienced entire refrigerators and freezers full of food spoiling, forcing them to refill them at a time when food costs are 25 percent higher than they were four years ago. Business owners without power lost tens of thousands of dollars due to the outages, which stemmed from lost revenue from being unable to do business and lost products. Restaurant...
Read More
Caldara: Colorado legislature is the real threat to democracy
No Comments
Commentary, completecolorado.com, State

Caldara: Colorado legislature is the real threat to democracy

By Jon Caldara | Complete Colorado Every conversation about the Colorado state legislature should begin with this preface: “And these are the people who say Donald Trump is a threat to democracy. …” The legislature is moving forward with a bill to rip away direct elections of the Regional Transportation District Board (RTD), which encompasses the largest population of any local government in the state. Yes, they are willing to allow a couple of “window dressing” elected seats to “represent” the 3 million suckers in the Denver metro area, while minion political appointees seize control of the state’s largest local government. But the goal is clear: end taxation with representation. And these are the people who say Donald Trump is a threat to democracy. READ THE FULL...
Read More
Rosen: The left’s assault on American patriotism
No Comments
Commentary, completecolorado.com, National

Rosen: The left’s assault on American patriotism

By Mike Rosen | Complete Colorado The conventional definition of patriotism is love for and loyalty to one’s country. A 2023 survey published in the Wall Street Journal found that only 38% of respondents thought patriotism was very important to them, down sharply from 70% when that question was first asked in 1998.While 59% of seniors 65 and older feel that way today, only 23% of adults under 30 do. I vividly remember America’s 200th birthday in 1976.  Patriotic activities and celebrations abounded across the country leading up to a grand finale on the glorious Bicentennial Day.  What has doused that American spirit? The American left. It’s been a long slog but I’d trace its roots to the 1960s and 70s with the emergence of what came to be called the “New Left.” ...
Read More
Martinez: Court sends a reminder; tax hikes require voter consent
No Comments
Commentary, completecolorado.com, State

Martinez: Court sends a reminder; tax hikes require voter consent

By Tyler Martinez | Complete Colorado In a major victory for taxpayers, a unanimous panel of the Colorado Court of Appeals agreed with the National Taxpayers Union Foundation’s Taxpayer Defense Center (NTUF) that an overnight doubling of the property taxes in a few Northern Colorado counties violated the Colorado Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights (TABOR). We represented James Aranci and his neighbors, who were shocked to learn in 2020 that their property taxes to the Lower South Platte Water Conservancy District doubled from 2019 to 2020 (and the years thereafter). TABOR mandates a ratification vote of any proposed tax increase or new debt taken on by government entities–including water districts. But there was no vote from Aranci or anyone else. So we came...
Read More
Colorado voters may get final say over the legislature side-stepping open meetings
No Comments
completecolorado.com, State

Colorado voters may get final say over the legislature side-stepping open meetings

Sherrie Peif | Complete Colorado DENVER — Doing what he is well known for, Independence Institute president Jon Caldara has started the process to let Colorado voters decide whether legislators should be treated differently than other elected officials when they meet in groups of more than two. Last Friday, Caldara and his co-proponent, Vanessa Rutledge appeared before the Legislative Council staff to answer questions about Initiative 287, which would repeal Senate Bill 157. Rutledge is the communications and marketing manager for the Independence Institute, a Denver-based free market think tank, which is also the publisher of Complete Colorado. SB 157, which was passed earlier this year in record time and signed into law by Gov. Polis on March 12, created a carv...
Read More