Colorado’s grand bargain on property taxes concluded Wednesday as Gov. Jared Polis signed a bill that further cuts commercial and residential rates, while a conservative group withdrew two contentious initiatives from the November ballot. The legislature passed House Bill 1001 last week during its second property tax-focused special session in the past year. Polis called … Read more
The Libertarian candidate running for a Front Range Colorado congressional seat is dropping out and backing the Republican contender in a move that could bolster the GOP’s chances of flipping one of the most hotly contested seats in America. Eric Joss, the Libertarian nominee in the 8th Congressional District, announced the armistice with Republican state … Read more
After years of sparring over property tax rates, leading Colorado Democrats and conservative activists finally see an offramp from the conflict. To get there, it will only have taken two special sessions, annual short-term bills at the Capitol, multiple threats of ballot measures and a failed attempt to override the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights. The … Read more
When the city council in Cortez seated its first pregnant councilwoman a couple of years ago, the seven-member body scrambled to provide arrangements for mother and baby. “We set up a room in case we needed to stop the meeting to allow her to pump,” said Rachel Medina, who was appointed mayor of Cortez by … Read more
A push to oust Colorado GOP Chair Dave Williams has led to the formal censure of the petition’s circulator — the Jefferson County party chair — and an apparent nullification of the effort by her own executive committee. Nancy Pallozzi started the petition last week. It lists several concerns with Williams’ leadership, including the party … Read more
Colorado Gov. Jared Polis signed several tax-related bills into law Tuesday, including two that deliver what officials are touting as historic cuts to taxes of different kinds. One reduces income and sales taxes. Senate Bill 228 cuts the state’s income rate by up to 0.15% in years when state revenue handily exceeds the cap set … Read more
Unlike last year, the end of the Colorado legislative session Wednesday came with no fireworks — no protest walkouts, no intracaucus tensions boiling over into public, no last-minute implosions of keystone policy bills. The final day of lawmakers’ nearly four-month session instead was dominated by noticeably brighter spirits as the General Assembly put the finishing … Read more
Leading Colorado Democrats and the state’s oil and gas industry announced a preemptive armistice Monday — one that seeks to defuse the latest round of dueling ballot initiatives and legislation aimed at the industry and its environmental impacts. The proposals, described to reporters by Gov. Jared Polis and legislative leadership, include imposing a new per-barrel … Read more
Updated at 3:10 p.m. April 27: The bill that’s the centerpiece of this year’s attempted land-use reforms by Democrats in the Colorado legislature and Gov. Jared Polis has run into potential trouble, facing an uncertain fate in a Senate committee. House Bill 1313, which seeks to increase denser residential development in transit-rich areas, stalled in … Read more
Colorado’s new voter-approved universal free school meals program is already tens of millions of dollars short, jeopardizing some of the auxiliary programs tied to the ballot measure as lawmakers scramble to keep the initiative solvent and meals paid for. The state faces a combined shortfall of about $50 million to pay for students’ food under … Read more
