staging.rockymountainvoice.com

Menu

The Colorado Sun

Rep. Boebert earns temporary restraining order against her ex-husband, Jayson
No Comments
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
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
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
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
While Boebert’s fundraising has slowed, she still holds big cash lead in new district
No Comments
National, The Colorado Sun

While Boebert’s fundraising has slowed, she still holds big cash lead in new district

By Sandra Fish | The Colorado Sun Lauren Boebert started the year with a large campaign cash advantage over her Republican primary opponents in Colorado’s 4th Congressional District, even as the congresswoman’s fundraising slowed in the last three months of 2023, according to federal campaign finance reports filed Wednesday. Some of Boebert’s opponents in the 4th District, which includes the Eastern Plains and sweeps into Loveland and Douglas County, received financial help from big-name GOP donors, while others injected money into their own campaigns.  The reports, covering federal campaign fundraising and spending from Oct. 1 through the end of the year, are the first filed since U.S. Rep. Ken Buck, a Windsor Republican who represents the 4th District, announced in November...
Read More
Colorado Democrats launch second attempt to allow more accessory dwelling units to ease housing crisis
No Comments
State, The Colorado Sun

Colorado Democrats launch second attempt to allow more accessory dwelling units to ease housing crisis

By Brian Eason and Jesse Paul Single-family homeowners in the most populous parts of Colorado would be allowed to build accessory dwelling units on their properties under a bill introduced Tuesday in the legislature aiming to override local zoning rules in areas that currently prohibit them. House Bill 1152 is the first of several marquee bills that Democrats at the Capitol, in partnership with Gov. Jared Polis, are expected to introduce this year that would target city and county land use regulations in an effort to tackle Colorado’s affordable housing crisis.  A similar push last year ended in a political dumpster fire for the governor when he tried to pack an array of changes into one measure that ultimately failed after weeks of animosity between him and local leader...
Read More
Colorado may become the 3rd state to drop its medical aid-in-dying residency requirement
No Comments
State, The Colorado Sun

Colorado may become the 3rd state to drop its medical aid-in-dying residency requirement

Senate Bill 68 would also shorten the mandatory waiting period for people seeking to end their lives to 48 hours from 15 days. Additionally, it would let advanced practice registered nurses prescribe aid-in-dying medication. By Jesse Paul | SOURCE: THE COLORADO SUN Colorado may become the third state to allow out-of-state residents to receive medical aid in dying through a bill that would also shorten the mandatory waiting period for people seeking to end their lives. Senate Bill 68, which was introduced in the legislature on Jan. 22, would shrink the waiting period to 48 hours from 15 days and also let advanced practice registered nurses, in addition to doctors, prescribe aid-in-dying medication.  The bill comes eight years after Colorado voters overwhelmingly approv...
Read More
Rose Pugliese elected new leader of Colorado House GOP caucus following Mike Lynch’s resignation
No Comments
State, The Colorado Sun

Rose Pugliese elected new leader of Colorado House GOP caucus following Mike Lynch’s resignation

Pugliese, a Colorado Springs Republican, is in just her second year as a state representative, but she had been serving as assistant minority leader in the House By Jesse Paul | SOURCE: THE COLORADO SUN Republicans in the Colorado House of Representatives on Thursday elected a first-term lawmaker from Colorado Springs to be their new leader, replacing Mike Lynch, who stepped down from his leadership role a day earlier following revelations about his 2022 arrest on suspicion of drunken driving.  Rose Pugliese, a Colorado Springs Republican, is in just her second year as a state representative, but she had been serving as assistant minority leader in the House. She beat out state Reps. Matt Soper, R-Delta, and Ken DeGraaf, R-Colorado Springs, for the job in two rou...
Read More
Top Republican in Colorado House steps down from leadership a week after news about his 2022 DUI arrest
No Comments
State, The Colorado Sun

Top Republican in Colorado House steps down from leadership a week after news about his 2022 DUI arrest

House Minority Leader Mike Lynch, R-Wellington, announced his decision in an emotional speech on the House floor as his ouster appeared imminent By Brian Eason and Jesse Paul | SOURCE: THE COLORADO SUN The top Republican in the Colorado House of Representatives resigned from his leadership post Wednesday morning as his ouster appeared imminent a week after revelations that he was arrested in 2022 on suspicion of drunken driving. House Minority Leader Mike Lynch, R-Wellington, announced his decision in an emotional speech on the House floor.  “I am stepping down because it is the right thing to do — because I have become a distraction for my caucus and that is getting in the way of the hard work that we have to do in this building,” Lynch said.  Lynch...
Read More
Colorado has the nation’s third-longest waitlist for people charged with crimes and ordered into psychiatric treatment
No Comments
State, The Colorado Sun

Colorado has the nation’s third-longest waitlist for people charged with crimes and ordered into psychiatric treatment

The number of state-run psychiatric beds for people who are civilly committed or ordered by the criminal justice system shrunk by 20% in seven years, according to a new report By Jennifer Brown | SOURCE: THE COLORADO SUN Colorado has for years been short on in-patient psychiatric beds for people with severe mental illness, creating a backlog that means people wait months for care and sit in jail instead of a hospital. The last time the national Treatment Advocacy Center released a status report on the psychiatric bed shortage, Colorado placed 34th among states with 543 beds.  It’s only gotten worse in the past seven years, according to the center’s latest analysis, released Wednesday and based on 2023 data.  The number of psychiatric beds at Colorado...
Read More