Author: Megan Schrader
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Colorado House plays football to hammer out tentative budget agreement
DENVER – Colorado’s $25.81 billion budget got it’s first painstaking hearing on the House floor Thursday as lawmakers fought last-minute political battles to do things like prevent the state’s Department of Public Health and Environment from implementing President Barack Obama’s legally entangled Clean Power Plan. That issue has become a political football, and just because…
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Rain barrels bill closer to becoming Colorado law
DENVER – After two years of wrangling, a bill legalizing the use of rain barrels passed it’s biggest hurdle Wednesday and seems likely to become Colorado law. House Bill 1005 passed the state Senate Agriculture, Natural Resources and Energy Committee with the support of two Republicans to make it a 6-3 vote. Last year, the…
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Speaker: Talks on proposal to eliminate TABOR refunds at a stalemate
DENVER – The speaker of the Colorado House said negotiations have reached a “stalemate” on a long-debated and highly anticipated proposal to retain more state revenue through an accounting change that would eliminate TABOR refunds in future years. The prospects for the bills Speaker Dickey Lee Hullinghorst introduced Monday are poor in the Republican-dominated Senate.…
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Presidential hopeful Ted Cruz coming to Colorado Springs
Presidential hopeful Ted Cruz will be in Colorado Springs on April 9 addressing the state assembly, where 34 delegates for the national convention will be selected. Colorado’s delegates are unbound, meaning those delegates attending the state assembly still have a say in who “wins” the state and will receive the most Colorado votes in Cleveland…
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Colorado voters can expect lengthy November ballot packed with initiatives
DENVER – Colorado voters likely will have a couple pages to ponder in November after they make their pick for president. Dozens of groups and individuals have proposed dozens of ballot initiatives. Those include letting the state retain TABOR refunds, allowing beer and wine sales in grocery stores, and moving the state to a single-payer…
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Some unexpected candidate opponents emerge at El Paso County Republican Assembly
There were a few surprises at the El Paso County GOP assembly Saturday, with two unexpected candidates getting nominated from the floor and landing their names on the June 28 primary ballot. Republicans who were nominated to the county assembly at their local caucus meetings on March 1 gathered at the University of Colorado at…
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Gardner, Liston get signatures needed to be on Colorado primary ballot
DENVER – GOP candidates Bob Gardner and Larry Liston, both former state representatives, will be on the June 28 ballot for different General Assembly seats after the Secretary of State’s Office certified Friday that the hopefuls turned in enough valid signatures. Gardner, who served eight years in House Districts 20 and 21 from 2007 to…
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Sen. Merrifield: Delay of action on Colorado’s rain barrel bill is like ‘Groundhog Day’
DENVER – It seemed the everything was wrapped up, lock, stock, and barrel, but then the vote on a bill legalizing rain barrels in Colorado was postponed by the clearly irked chair of the Senate Agricultural, Natural Resources and Energy Committee. “There has been a lot of misinformation put out on this bill,” Sen. Jerry…
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Colorado governor still weighing options on bill to curtail youth solitary confinement
DENVER – Gov. John Hickenlooper said he is “closely attuned” to the debate over a bill that would prohibit putting committed and detained youth in solitary confinement for long periods of time, but the governor isn’t ready to take a side yet. “I want to look at the details of the bill and hear both…
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Health care executive picked to be Colorado’s next lieutenant governor
DENVER – Gov. John Hickenlooper picked Donna Lynne, a vice president from Kaiser Health, as his new lieutenant governor Wednesday. Lynne will begin on May 2 if both the House and the Senate confirm her appointment. She would replace Joe Garcia, who announced in November that he will leave the position to become president of…