Politics & Government

Everyone is buzzing about Colorado’s proposed red-flag law, which might have the strongest due process provisions of any state in the country that currently has red-flag legislation. In other instances, the American Civil Liberties has been an outspoken opponent of red-flag laws, which would allow law enforcement to seize an individual’s firearms with a court order. So what does the ACLU think about Colorado’s proposal?

Last night, May 1, the Castle Rock town council voted unanimously to adopt a new animal ordinance that effectively ends the community’s prohibition on pit bulls. Advocates for pit bulls are overjoyed by this turn of events and feel optimistic that the move will trigger new efforts to overturn similar bans in six other Colorado cities.

A committee that advises the city on issues of homelessness has been revised and rebooted; its initial lineup consists of fifteen individuals, including people who have experienced homelessness.

Denver has a new rule requiring that all single-occupant public restrooms in the city have gender-neutral signs, and businesses that violate the ordinance may face escalating fines. But Laura Swartz, a spokesperson for the city’s Community Planning Department, thinks that in most cases, a warning will be enough.

Thousands of Colorado educators followed the lead of states like West Virginia, Oklahoma and Arizona in demanding that state legislatures stop carving up public education and start putting money back into its public schools. Colorado legislators have cut $6.67 billion out of the state education budget since the Great Recession. And although the economy has bounced back, the practice of cutting education dollars continues. So what can protesters actually do to keep the #RedforEd momentum going?

The search is on to replace Denver Police Chief Robert White, who formally announced his retirement on April 24, and Nick Rogers, president of the Denver Police Protective Association, the city’s most powerful police union, knows exactly the type of person he’d like to see in the post: “someone who has a tremendous amount of honor and integrity.”

This weekend is the fortieth anniversary of the Rocky Flats Truth Force, and the truth keeps spilling out.

Brad Levin thought he had the ballot petition in the bag. He collected 16,000 signatures, far more than the 10,500 signature requirement to get on the statewide ballot. He was wrong. The state threw out 7,000 of his signatures. Some were thrown out over technicalities. Others were thrown out because the signatures were of unaffiliated voters, who are not legally locked out of the candidate petition process. Now, the Democratic candidate for attorney general is suing to get his signatures back.

In a recording obtained by Westword, Walker Stapleton told a crowd earlier this month that he pitches out-of-state donors by telling them that property taxes on their vacation homes in Colorado would double or triple under a Democratic governor.

Two Democratic lawmakers in the Colorado House have introduced a bill that would severely limit non-mandatory cooperation with federal immigration enforcement.

Protests, like plutonium, lasts forever.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced that the Department of Justice has changed its mind about suspending legal orientation trainings at immigration detention centers.

United Airlines is threatening the community as the company pushes back against an effort by its catering workers to unionize.

The anti-queer agenda under the guise of religious liberty is still rampant at the Capitol.

On April 19, a Senate committee approved several amendments to civil rights commission’s composition and procedures.

A revision of Castle Rock’s animal code that removes its pit-bull ban passed on first reading on April 17.

Colorado is consistently ranked as one of the most productive state legislatures in the country,

The Eligibility Colorado Road and Community Safety Act now moves to the governor’s desk.

Vote for Our Lives is designed to sign people up to vote and educate them on gun issues and school safety. The first rally in Colorado takes place on April 19, 2018, at Clement Park in Littleton.

What do a CSU journalism student, a documentary filmmaker and a lawyer all have in common? They’ve been sued by Denver-based Extraction Oil and Gas over an anti-fracking protest in Greeley next door to Bella Romero Academy, a school that serves a predominantly low-income and minority community.

Denver City Council president Albus Brooks, who had surgery for cancer in 2016, has revealed the recurrence of the disease. Surgery to remove a newly discovered tumor has been scheduled for the first week of May.