I read with great interest that President Donald Trump’s Department of Justice is “investigating whether Colorado prisons are violating the constitutional rights of the state’s adult inmates and youth detainees through excessive force, inadequate medical care and nutrition …”
I find it fascinating and ironic that this same DOJ has chronically overlooked similar issues in regard to the handling of the migrants who have been systematically grabbed without warrants, and imprisoned without due process in facilities that have been documented as being overpopulated, unsanitary, and with inadequate nutrition or medical care. I’ve only heard of a few, if any, interventions to undo these chronic civil rights violations.
In the article, President Donald Trump refers to Colorado Gov. Jared Polis as a “sleazebag.” Trump seems to have numerous undesirable traits, but one of his favorites seems to be derogatory name-calling. He seems to have a less-than-complimentary name for anyone who is not loyal to him, anyone he disagrees with, such as journalists, etc. According to artificial intelligence, this form of name-calling is most prevalent among children, which seems to fall in line with his level of maturity, sophistication and intelligence!
Steve Nash, Centennial
The 11-2 Broncos are an underdog?
Further proof that the NFL/Vegas betting has no respect for the Broncos. The Broncos currently own the number one seed in the AFC, have not lost at home this year, and are on a 10-game winning streak. Still, Denver is the underdog in next week’s home game against Green Bay.
Leroy M. Martinez, Denver
Senator’s tragic death reminds us to do good in our lives
Life can change within a second. The entire trajectory of someone’s future can be altered in the blink of an eye. I would’ve never believed that the section of the highway, Interstate 25, I travel on so often, the one that blurs by in a moment, could ever be remembered as something so tragic. That highway is now a distressing symbol of how life is a gift and can be snatched away at any random moment.
Recently, two accidents occurred on the northbound I-25 near Dry Creek. Faith Winter, a Colorado senator, was killed, and three others were injured. However, it is important to remember Sen. Winter not the way she passed but how she lived.
Reporter Katie Langford reminded us about how Sen. Winter fought to make Colorado a better place her entire life. She strongly advocated for and brought paid family leave to the state of Colorado, passed an important transportation bill to improve roads and public transportation, and fought against workplace sexual harassment, making impactful changes wherever she went.
Sen. Winter made history and brought positive changes to many Coloradans and she will be honored and remembered in our hearts for years to come.
Life is so short and unpredictable. Those who realize the importance of living each day like it’s your last and doing good in the world never really pass away. They live in everyone’s hearts, and the memory of them lasts for a lifetime.
State Sen. Faith Winter was a fierce and relentless advocate for Colorado’s families, climate and transportation who forever altered the state’s political landscape by fighting to make it a better place to live, her friends and colleagues said Thursday.
Winter’s death was confirmed late Wednesday by Gov. Jared Polis and legislative leaders, and Polis ordered flags be lowered to half-staff in her honor on the day of her memorial service, which has not been announced.
“Our state is shaken by the loss of Senator Faith Winter, and I send my deepest condolences to her children, loved ones, friends, and colleagues across our state,” Polis said in a statement.
“I have had the honor of working with her on many issues to improve the lives of every person and family in our great state and tackling climate change. I am deeply saddened for her family, her friends and colleagues and her community. Faith’s work and advocacy made Colorado a better state.”
The Arapahoe County coroner’s office on Thursday confirmed Winter was killed in the crash, which also injured three others and closed northbound I-25 for more than five hours Wednesday night.
The cause of the crash is under investigation, and additional information likely will not be released until next week, Arapahoe County sheriff’s Deputy John Bartmann said Thursday. No one has been cited or arrested in connection with the crash.
Winter’s 10-year career in the statehouse exemplified her deep passion for making the lives of everyday Coloradans better as well as her remarkable resilience in the face of adversity, friends and colleagues told The Denver Post.
A Democrat from Broomfield, Winter served in the House from 2015 to 2019, moving over to the Senate after she won a seat in 2018. She also served on the Westminster City Council earlier in her career.
Winter was a driving force behind bringing paid family leave to Colorado; passing a massive 2021 transportation bill to improve the state’s roadways and expand transit options; and strengthening protections against workplace harassment, among many other initiatives.
“Faith was a deeply complex person, and she moved through multiple challenges with grace and remained dedicated to the work she was doing,” state Sen. Lisa Cutter said in an interview Thursday. “She believed in the work she was doing, believed in the power of friendship and connection and will always live on that way and certainly live on in my heart.”
Winter led the way in addressing sexual harassment in Colorado workplaces as well as her own workplace — the halls and chambers of the Capitol.
Her allegations against former state Rep. Steve Lebsock were followed by similar sexual harassment complaints from other women, leading to his expulsion from the House in 2018.
“I was always proud to stand by her side in moments when she was trying to change the culture of the Capitol,” Garnett said. “She was a leader in that space.”
Garnett met Winter as the two ran and won seats in the House of Representatives and described her as a leader among their class of state lawmakers.
“She understood the Capitol better than most,” Garnett said. “When we started, the legislature was very different: We were in split chambers with a small majority, and she knew how to work across the aisle to get some of her stuff through.”
Winter also knew when to take a stand, Garnett said, including running a paid family leave bill she knew would not pass the Republican-controlled state Senate to get legislators, the media and public talking about the issue.
Garnett was so inspired by Winter’s passion for paid family leave that he accidentally announced that his wife, Emily, was pregnant while speaking on the issue from the floor of the House.
“Somebody tweeted it and my wife texted me and asked, ‘Did you just announce I was pregnant on the floor of the House?’” Garnett said, laughing. “I told her I was so moved by Faith, I had to do it.”
Winter also cared deeply for those around her, from her family, including children Sienna and Tobin, to her friends and colleagues at the statehouse. The Capitol could be a lonely place, and Winter was intentional about connecting with people, whether through soup-making parties or field trips to pick sunflowers, Cutter said.
Flowers brought Winter deep joy, and she was known for keeping a tiny vase of flowers on her desk that she would arrange on Monday mornings and leaving single buds or tiny flower arrangements on the desks of her colleagues.
“She had a tremendous heart,” Cutter said. “I don’t know where she found the energy to do all that. I really don’t.”
Winter also faced several personal challenges, including an ethics complaint for appearing intoxicated at a Northglenn community meeting in 2024, which caused her to seek treatment for a substance use disorder.
Winter’s death caused an outpouring of grief from Colorado’s local, state and federal elected officials on Wednesday night and Thursday.
In a statement Wednesday night, Senate President James Coleman and Majority Leader Robert Rodriguez said they were “devastated” by her passing.
“Whether fighting for legislation to support mothers and families, championing groundbreaking transit policy, or simply supporting constituents in moments of need, she brought thoughtfulness, innovation, and humility to every aspect of her work,” they said in a joint statement.
Sen. Cleave Simpson, the Republican caucus leader in the chamber, said in a statement posted to X that Winter’s legacy was “one of courage, kindness and unity.”
“Senator Winter was not only a dedicated public servant but also a bridge builder,” Simpson said. “She worked tirelessly with colleagues across the aisle, forging strong partnerships with her Republican counterparts. Her ability to listen, collaborate and find common ground reflected her deep commitment to the people she served and to the integrity of the legislative process.”
House Speaker Julie McCluskie and Majority Leader Monica Duran, both Democrats, said in a statement that Winter “always fought for Colorado’s most vulnerable. Her bravery brought necessary reforms to the Capitol, and her kindness filled the building. We will all miss her dearly.”
They extended condolences to Winter’s family, including her children, as well as to former state Rep. Matt Gray, a fellow Democrat to whom she was engaged.
In the last budget that Gov. Jared Polis will usher through from conception to enactment, the term-limited Democrat hopes to wrestle down ever-rising Medicaid costs, he said Friday in unveiling his proposal.
It’s a plan that proposes clamping down on dental benefits, requiring prior authorization for more services and making payment changes affecting home health services. Elsewhere, Polis hopes to revive his often-proposed — and never accepted by the legislature — idea of privatizing Pinnacol Assurance, the state’s workers’ compensation insurance program, to generate hundreds of millions of dollars.
Medicaid, which provides health insurance to low-income Coloradans, has been gobbling an ever-bigger chunk of the overall state budget for years. It’s growing at a rate that’s double the overall spending growth allowed by the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights, or TABOR.
If left unchecked, Medicaid costs could end up dwarfing all other spending in the state in the next 15 years, leaving almost no money for any services that aren’t directly related to education or health care, according to the governor’s office.
“This gets worse if we don’t fix it,” Polis said Friday.
The governor’s overall budget proposal for the 2026-27 fiscal year includes a total spending request of more than $50.6 billion, up from $48 billion in the current fiscal year, which goes through June 30. Most of that is already spoken for as pass-through spending or other obligations.
The general fund, which covers most day-to-day spending, would grow from about $18.2 billion to $18.6 billion under Polis’ proposal.
Polis’ announcement of his proposal represents a starting point for the state’s next spending plan, which will cover July 1, 2026, through June 30, 2027. He will unveil an amended proposal in January as the state updates economic projections.
Then the legislature will have its say, starting with the powerful Joint Budget Committee.
Four of the committee’s six members are seeking higher office in the 2026 election, making this budget an even more pitched-than-usual declaration of political values. The legislature will vote on the final budget in the spring.
Early forecasts have the body needing to make up a nearly $1 billion gap — again — between planned spending and what the state is allowed to spend under the growth cap set by TABOR. This tight budget year follows an August special session where lawmakers needed to fill a $783 million hole opened up in the current fiscal year by federal tax changes signed into law by President Donald Trump over the summer.
Trying to rein in Medicaid
Polis said a key hope of his budget proposal is to bring growth in Medicaid spending in line with the overall growth in state spending allowed by TABOR. Over the past decade, the state constitution has limited total state spending to growth by an average 4.4% per year.
Medicaid spending has grown at double that rate, 8.8%. In that period, general fund spending on Medicaid has grown from about $2.4 billion $5.5 billion per year.
In his proposal, Polis would increase state Medicaid spending by about $300 million. That increase alone represents more spending than several executive agencies’ combined budgets — but would still be half as steep as Medicaid’s projected growth without changes to the program.
A Medicaid sign is displayed in the hallway at Clinica Family Health on Thursday, May 2, 2024, in Adams County, Colorado. (Photo by Eli Imadali/Special to The Denver Post)
Polis said he wants to lower overall spending on Medicaid services without touching how much individual providers are paid for services. Proposed changes include annual caps of $3,000 on dental benefits, which Polis noted would be double the cap that existed in 2023; adding prior authorization to some services; and changing how payment is calculated for home health nursing and therapy services.
Several of those proposals are extensions of executive orders he issued to help shore up the most recent budget trouble in August.
“There have been a number of benefits that have been added (to Medicaid) in recent years, and some of those are not sustainable over time,” Polis said.
His administration has also been working with national consultants to examine how Colorado’s Medicaid spending has differed from national trends. That report should be available in the New Year.
Pushing to privatize Pinnacol … again
In another key element of his proposal, Polis is looking to restart a fight from last year over converting the state’s quasi-governmental workers’ compensation insurance program to a fully private enterprise.
Polis’ office predicted the Pinnacol Assurance spin-off, if completed, would generate at least $400 million for the state. About half of that would go to pay for the homestead property tax exemption, while the rest would go to state maintenance and to balance the budget.
Pinnacol acts as an “insurer of last resort” for employers in high-risk industries. The firm is generally not allowed to refuse to insure employers or cancel policies, but it can operate only within Colorado’s borders.
Polis restarted the conversation last year with arguments that Pinnacol was hamstrung from competing in today’s markets, where employers are less bound by state borders than ever. Turning the quasi-state agency into a private firm would also equal a payday for a cash-strapped state.
The effort petered out when the idea didn’t win much traction during the legislative session — though Polis hinted later that he hadn’t given up on the effort.
This year, Polis said the money would help the state keep its property tax break for certain long-term homeowners, known as the homestead exemption. The tax break is usually paid for using the state’s TABOR surplus, but the state won’t have one this year, Polis said.
“Nearly every other state has moved in this direction for reasons that are very important to employees and employers,” Polis said. “For Pinnacol to be able to continue to serve as our insurer of last resort, we have to be able to allow them to write interstate business, to take some of the same steps that can reduce overhead and produce better value to employees that other states have done.”
Opponents to the move worry that taking Pinnacol private would weaken protections for workers and employers in the state. The insurer essentially acts as a social safety net for industries that otherwise couldn’t obtain coverage, they argued last year.
This year, opponents are warning that privatizing the insurer and taking a portion of the money — potentially hundreds of millions of dollars — would be unconstitutional because the money isn’t the state’s to take.
“Pinnacol’s assets were built from employer premiums, not tax dollars,” said Stephanie Tucker, an attorney and president of the Workers’ Compensation Education Association, in a statement. “These funds belong to the employers who paid premiums and (to) injured workers, not the state. Privatization without clear legal authority could result in years of litigation and uncertainty for both Pinnacol and the state of Colorado.”
State officials have a different interpretation. The state “has an obligation” to get value for Pinnacol if it’s spun off, Mark Ferrandino, the head of the Office of State Planning and Budgeting, said.
Polis said he’s been briefed on the legal question and his staff classified it as a “very low litigation risk.”
Pushback and criticism against the federal government continued across Colorado this week after immigration officials arrested a father and two children in Durango, sparking local protests that were met with pepper spray, rubber bullets and physical confrontation by federal agents.
Colorado Bureau of Investigation officials on Thursday announced the agency will investigate a federal agent throwing a protester’s phone and pushing her to the ground outside a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement field office in Durango.
The encounter was caught on video as demonstrators gathered outside the ICE office on Monday to try to prevent a Colombian man and his two children from being separated and moved to different facilities.
Fernando Jaramillo Solano and his 12- and 15-year-old children were arrested Monday morning while heading to school despite the family’s active asylum case, advocates with Compañeros Four Corners Immigrant Resource Center said.
Durango Police Chief Brice Current asked the CBI to investigate in the wake of a widely circulated video which “appears to show a federal agent use force on a woman during the demonstration,” the state agency said Thursday.
Investigators will look into whether any state criminal laws were broken during the incident and send the investigation to the 6th Judicial District; the district attorney’s office will decide whether to file charges.
Gov. Jared Polis on Wednesday said Colorado officials were not informed of the operation or given any information about whether Jaramillo Solano and his children were suspected of any crimes.
“The federal government’s lack of transparency about its immigration actions in Durango and in the free state of Colorado remains extremely maddening,” Polis said on social media.
“The federal government should prioritize apprehending and prosecuting dangerous criminals, no matter where they come from, and keep our communities safe instead of snatching up children and breaking up families,” he continued.
ICE officials did not respond to an email seeking comment about the investigation and arrests.
Dozens of Durango and La Plata County residents packed City Council chambers and overflowed into the hallway during a tense, emotional community meeting Thursday evening.
City officials at times seemed at a loss for how to address the arrests and protests, including ICE officials refusing to let Durango police perform a welfare check on the children.
“People really put their lives on the line for the children and this community, and it was an incredible display of people’s position on this issue. It makes me very proud and sad at the same time,” Councilwoman Shirley Gonzales said.
Community members who attended the protest spoke about being assaulted and seeing others assaulted by ICE agents while state and local police watched and did nothing to intervene.
Sixteen-year-old McKenna Bard described calling 911 five times to beg for medical assistance, but no one came, leaving high school students and residents to try to treat their own injuries for more than two hours.
Bard was one of several speakers who criticized the Durango Police Department for failing to help community members during the protest, even to provide medical aid.
“The people of Durango feel betrayed, lied to and disgusted,” Bard said.
The Rev. Jamie Boyce, a minister with the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Durango, said she saw ICE agents stomp on protesters who sat with linked arms, pepper-spray protesters directly in the face and use sound cannons and rubber bullets. One agent put a protester in a chokehold, she said.
“City Council, I want you to hear the haunting cries of people asking, ‘Why won’t you protect us?’ Because that is the question that calls for your moral clarity,” she said. “I beg you, claim your moral ground and strength of character to help heal our hurting city.”
The arrests and protests in Durango are among a wave of violent federal immigration action across the United States, with similar clashes between demonstrators and federal agents happening in Chicago, Los Angeles and Portland, Ore.
Stephen Miller, a top adviser to President Donald Trump, last week said any state or local officials who impede federal law enforcement are engaging in illegal activity.
“To all ICE officers, you have federal immunity in the conduct of your duties, and anyone who lays a hand on you or tried to stop you is committing a felony,” Miller said on Fox News.
Gov. Jared Polis is still trying to find a way to comply with a federal immigration subpoena, four months after a Denver judge ruled that doing so would violate Colorado law.
In repeated court filings, including one submitted Friday, Polis’ private attorneys have said they intend to turn over records on 10 businesses that employed several sponsors of unaccompanied children to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
They’ve asked a Denver judge, who previously prohibited some state employees from complying with ICE’s subpoena, to dismiss the case and clear the way for them to turn over a more limited batch of records.
The recent filings represent the second attempt by Polis to comply with the April immigration enforcement subpoena. The governor’s first attempt was blocked by District Court Judge A. Bruce Jones in June, after Jones sided with a senior state employee who’d sued Polis earlier that month to stop the state from fulfilling the subpoena.
The employee, Scott Moss, argued that providing the requested records would violate state laws that limit what information can be shared with federal immigration authorities.
But though Jones preliminarily sided with Moss, his ruling is complicated. He prohibited Polis from directing a specific division of the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment to comply with the subpoena. But he said he couldn’t prevent Polis from directing others to comply with the subpoena, even though Jones said doing so would still likely violate the law.
The records that Polis now says he intends to turn over to ICE are in the custody of another labor department division not covered in Jones’ order.
In an email Tuesday, Polis spokeswoman Shelby Wieman declined to comment on the case or why Polis is still seeking to provide records to ICE. She pointed to the administration’s recent legal filings.
The administration has previously said it wanted to support ICE’s efforts to check on unaccompanied minors without legal status, though the governor’s office has not provided any evidence that it has sought assurances that ICE wasn’t seeking the information purely for immigration enforcement efforts.
David Seligman, whose law firm has supported the case, criticized the governor’s decision to seek the lawsuit’s dismissal while indicating his intention to turn over records to ICE. While ICE wrote that it wanted detailed employment records so it could check on the well-being of unaccompanied children, Seligman and Moss, the employee who brought the lawsuit, have argued that the agency only wants the information so it can arrest and deport the children’s sponsors.
“It is absolutely absurd that this governor would be going out of his way to comply with and cooperate with ICE in light of everything that we’re seeing right now,” Seligman said.
Moss has since left the department, and Polis’ lawyers now argue that no one associated with the case has a legal standing to challenge compliance with the subpoena. They’ve also argued that they can turn over the records because the employers’ addresses and contact information can be found online.
The records are only part of the broader swath of personal details that ICE initially requested, and they cover only six of the 35 sponsors for which ICE first sought records. The sponsors are typically family members of children without legal status, who care for the minors while their immigration cases proceed.
The administration has similarly told ICE officials that it intends to comply with part of the subpoena once the lawsuit is concluded. In a July 11 email, Joe Barela, the head of the Department of Labor and Employment, wrote to a special agent in ICE’s investigative branch that the agency planned to “provide your office with the names and contact information for those 10 employers.”
Jones must now rule on whether to dismiss the lawsuit or let it proceed. Between June and early September, Recht Kornfeld, the private law firm Polis hired to represent him in the lawsuit, has billed the state for more than $104,000, according to records obtained by The Denver Post through a public records request.
The Colorado Attorney General’s Office has said it was unable to represent Polis because of legal advice it provided to the governor related to complying with the subpoena. The office has declined to characterize the nature of that advice.
The subpoena was sent to the state labor department in April as part of what ICE described as essentially a welfare check of unaccompanied minors in the state. The subpoena sought employment and personal records for the children’s sponsors.
Initially, administration officials decided not to comply with the subpoena because of the state’s laws limiting such contact. But Polis abruptly changed course and decided to turn over the records, prompting Moss to sue.
Polis’ office has claimed that the governor wanted to comply with the subpoena because it was part of a “targeted” criminal investigation into human trafficking. The state’s immigration laws — including one signed by Polis in late May — allow state officials to comply with federal subpoenas if they’re part of criminal probes, rather than immigration enforcement operations.
But the governor’s office has not released any evidence that the criminal investigation actually exists or that it made any effort to ensure that it did.
Jones wrote that “the subpoena — on its face — was not issued as part of a criminal investigation,” and he said that no one in Polis’ office or the labor department, “with the potential exception of the governor himself,” actually believed that the subpoena was part of a criminal investigation.
The subpoena is not signed by a judge, and the federal statute that it cites is related to immigration enforcement.
In her email Tuesday, Wieman, Polis’ spokeswoman, did not address questions about whether the state had pursued or received any additional information confirming the existence of the investigation allegedly underpinning the subpoena. Nor did she address questions about whether Polis had directed any state resources to check on the children.
ENGLEWOOD — Metro Denver budtender Quentin Ferguson needs Regional Transportation District bus and trains to reach work at an Arvada dispensary from his house, a trip that takes 90 minutes each way “on a good day.”
“It is pretty inconvenient,” Ferguson, 22, said on a recent rainy evening, waiting for a nearly empty train that was eight minutes late.
He’s not complaining, however, because his relatively low income and Medicaid status qualify him for a discounted RTD monthly pass. That lets him save money for a car or an electric bicycle, he said, either of them offering a faster commute.
Then he would no longer have to ride RTD.
His plight reflects a core problem of lagging ridership that RTD directors increasingly run up against as they try to position the transit agency as the smartest way to navigate Denver. Most other U.S. public transit agencies, too, are grappling with a version of this problem.
In Colorado, state-government-driven efforts to concentrate the growing population in high-density, transit-oriented development around bus and train stations — a priority for legislators and Gov. Jared Polis — hinge on having a swift public system that residents ride.
But transit ridership has failed to rebound a year after RTD’s havoc in 2024, when operators disrupted service downtown for a $152 million rail reconstruction followed by a systemwide emergency maintenance blitz to smooth deteriorating tracks that led to trains crawling through 10-mph “slow zones.”
The latest ridership numbers show an overall decline this year, by at least 3.9%, with 40 million fewer riders per year compared with six years ago. And RTD executives’ newly proposed, record $1.3 billion budget for 2026 doesn’t include funds for boosting bus and train frequency to win back riders.
Frustrations intensified last week.
“What is the point of transit-oriented development if it is just development?” said state Rep. Meg Froelich, a Democrat representing Englewood who chairs the House Transportation, Housing and Local Government Committee. “We need reliable transit to have transit-oriented development. We have cities that have invested significant resources into their transit-oriented communities. RTD is not holding up its end of the bargain.”
At a retreat this past summer, a majority of the RTD’s 15 elected board members agreed that boosting ridership is their top priority. Some who reviewed the proposed budget last week questioned the lack of spending on service improvements for riders.
“We’re not moving the needle. Ridership is not going up. It should be going up,” director Karen Benker said in an interview.
“Over the past few years, there’s been a tremendous amount of population growth. There are so many apartment complexes, so much new housing put up all over,” Benker said. “Transit has to be relied on. You just cannot keep building more roads. We’re going to have to find ways to get people to ride public transit.”
Commuting trends blamed
RTD Chief Executive and General Manager Debra Johnson, in emailed responses to questions from The Denver Post, emphasized that “RTD is not unique” among U.S. transit agencies struggling to regain ridership lost during the COVID-19 pandemic. Johnson blamed societal shifts.
“Commuting trends have significantly changed over the last five years,” she said. “Return-to-work numbers in the Denver metro area, which accounted for a significant percentage of RTD’s ridership prior to March 2020, remain low as companies and businesses continue to provide flexible in-office schedules for their employees.”
In the future, RTD will be “changing its focus from primarily providing commuter services,” she said, toward “enhancing its bus and services and connections to high-volume events, activity centers, concerts and festivals.”
But agency directors are looking for a more aggressive approach to reversing the decline in ridership. And some are mulling a radical restructuring of routes.
Funded mostly by taxpayers across a 2,345 square-mile area spanning eight counties and 40 municipalities — one of the biggest in the nation — RTD operates 10 rail lines covering 114 miles with 84 stations and 102 bus routes with 9,720 stops.
“We should start from scratch,” said RTD director Chris Nicholson, advocating an overhaul of the “geometry” of all bus routes to align transit better with metro Denver residents’ current mobility patterns.
The key will be increasing frequency.
“We should design the routes how we think would best serve people today, and then we could take that and modify it where absolutely necessary to avoid disruptive differences with our current route map,” he said.
Then, in 2030, directors should appeal to voters for increased funding to improve service — funds that would be substantially controlled by municipalties “to pick where they want the service to go,” he said.
Reversing the RTD ridership decline may take a couple of years, Nicholson said, comparing the decreases this year to customers shunning a restaurant. “If you’re a restaurant and you poison some guests accidentally, you’re gonna lose customers even after you fix the problem.”
The RTD ridership numbers show an overall public transit ridership decrease by 5% when measured over the 12-month period from August 2024 through July 2025, the last month for which staffers have made numbers available, compared with the same period a year ago.
Bus ridership decreased by 2% and light rail by 18% over that period. In a typical month, RTD officials record around 5 million boardings — around 247,000 on weekdays.
The precautionary rail “slow zones” persisted for months as contractors worked on tracks, delaying and diverting trains, leaving transit-dependent workers in a lurch. RTD driver workforce shortages limited deployment of emergency bus shuttles.
This year, RTD ridership systemwide decreased by 3.9% when measured from January through July, compared with that period in 2024. The bus ridership this year has decreased by 2.4%.
On rail lines, the ridership on the relatively popular A Line that runs from Union Station downtown to Denver International Airport was down by 9.7%. The E Line light rail that runs from downtown to the southeastern edge of metro Denver was down by 24%. Rail ridership on the W Line decreased by 18% and on R Line by 15%, agency records show.
The annual RTD ridership has decreased by 38% since 2019, from 105.8 million to 65.2 million in 2024.
A Regional Transportation District light rail train moves through downtown Denver on Friday, June 27, 2025. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski)
Light rail ‘sickness’ spreading
“The sickness on RTD light rail is spreading to other parts of the RTD system,” said James Flattum, a co-founder of the Greater Denver Transit grassroots rider advocacy group, who also serves on the state’s RTD Accountability Committee. “We’re seeing permanent demand destruction as a consequence of having an unreliable system. This comes from a loss of trust in RTD to get you where you need to go.”
RTD officials have countered critics by pointing out that the light rail’s on-time performance recovered this year to 91% or better. Bus on-time performance still lagged at 83% in July, agency records show.
The officials also pointed to decreased security reports made using an RTD smartphone app after deploying more police officers on buses and trains. The number of reported assaults has decreased — to four in September, compared with 16 in September 2024, records show.
Greater Denver Transit members acknowledged that safety has improved, but question the agency’s assertions based on app usage. “It may be true that the number of security calls went down,” Flattum said, “but maybe the people who otherwise would have made more safety calls are no longer riding RTD.”
RTD staffers developing the 2026 budget have focused on managing debt and maintaining operations spending at current levels. They’ve received forecasts that revenues from taxpayers will increase slightly. It’s unclear whether state and federal funds will be available.
RTD directors and leaders of the Southwest Energy Efficiency Project, an environmental group, are opposing the rollback of RTD’s planned shift to the cleaner, quieter electric hybrid buses and taking on new debt for that purpose.
Colorado lawmakers will “push on a bunch of different fronts” to prioritize better service to boost ridership, Froelich said.
The legislature in recent years directed funds to help RTD provide free transit for riders under age 20. Buses and trains running at least every 15 minutes would improve both ridership and safety, she said, because more riders would discourage bad behavior and riders wouldn’t have to wait alone at night on often-empty platforms for up to an hour.
“We’re trying to do what we can to get people back onto the transit system,” Froelich said. “They do it in other places, and people here do ride the Bustang (intercity bus system). RTD just seems to lack the nimbleness required to meet the moment.”
Denver Center for the Performing Arts stage hand Chris Grossman walks home after work in downtown Denver on Thursday, Oct. 16, 2025. (Photo by Andy Cross/The Denver Post)
Riders switch modes
Meanwhile, riders continue to abandon public transit when it doesn’t meet their needs.
For Denver Center for the Performing Arts theater technician Chris Grossman, 35, ditching RTD led to a better quality of life. He had to move from the Virginia Village neighborhood he loved.
Back in 2016, Grossman sold his ailing blue 2003 VW Golf when he moved there in the belief that “RTD light rail was more or less reliable.” He rode nearly every day between the Colorado Station and downtown.
But trains became erratic as maintenance of walls along tracks caused delays. “It just got so bad. I was burning so much money on rideshares that I probably could have bought a car.” Shortly before RTD announced the “slow zones” last summer, he moved to an apartment closer to downtown on Capitol Hill.
He walks or rides scooters to work, faster than taking the bus, he said.
Similarly, Honor Morgan, 25, who came to Denver from the rural Midwest, “grateful for any public transit,” said she had to move from her place east of downtown to be closer to her workplace due to RTD transit trouble.
Buses were late, and one blew by her as she waited. She had to adjust her attire when riding her Colfax Avenue route to Union Station to manage harassment. She faced regular dramas of riders with substance-use problems erupting.
Morgan moved to an apartment near Union Station in March, allowing her to walk to work.
She still hoped to rely on RTD for concerts and nightlife, and to reach DIA for work-related flights at least once a month. But RTD social media posts have alerted her to enough delays on the A Line that she no longer trusts it, she said. To reduce her “anxiety” and minimize the risk of missing her flights, she shells out for rides — even though these often get stuck in traffic.
She and her boyfriend recently tried RTD again, riding a train to the 38th and Blake Station near the Mission Ballroom. They attended “an amazing concert” there, she said, and felt happy as they walked to the station to catch the train home.
A man on the platform collapsed backward, hitting his head. He was bleeding. She called 911. Her boyfriend and other riders gathered. She ran across the street to an apartment building and grabbed paper towels. RTD isn’t really to blame, but “I just wish they had a station platform attendant, or someone. I do not know head-injury first aid,” Morgan said.
The train they’d been waiting for came and went. An ambulance arrived. They got home late, the evening ruined, she said.
“His head cracked open. He had skin flaps hanging off his head. This was stuck in my head, at least for the rest of the night.”
Colorado has a new law declaring nuclear power a source of clean energy. The Denver airport might explore building a small nuclear reactor to meet the rising demand for electricity. Local business, civic and labor leaders see nuclear energy as the fuel of choice when Xcel Energy stops burning coal at its power plants in Pueblo County,
Is nuclear power becoming cool in Colorado?
The state has had only one nuclear power plant, Fort St. Vrain near Platteville. And it was converted to natural gas in 1989 after 10 years of technical problems. The former Rocky Flats weapons plant, which produced plutonium triggers for nuclear bombs, drew thousands of protesters for years to the site north of Denver, including such prominent activists as Daniel Ellsberg and Beat poet Allen Ginsberg.
Worry about the demand for electricity outstripping capacity and concerns about progress on cutting greenhouse gas emissions led state Rep. Alex Valdez, a Denver Democrat, to back legislation this year that defines nuclear power as “clean.” He sponsored House Bill 25-1040, which added nuclear to the energy sources that utilities can use to meet state clean energy targets.
“As a kid, I grew up in the ’80s when a lot of talk about nuclear was in relation to the weaponry that was pointed at each other between the Soviet Union and the United States,” Valdez said. “I think I just kind of lumped nuclear into the same conversations as most people do: around its negative uses, less desirable uses.”
With some forecasts showing electricity demand rising dramatically, Valdez said the U.S. will have to add “a tremendous amount of energy” to the grid if it’s going to compete in quantum computing and other advanced technology.
A boom in data center construction driven by increasing the use of artificial intelligence is expected to escalate the need for more electricity generation.
Valdez, who spent most of his career in the renewable energy field, said the legislation he sponsored recognizes that the power generated by nuclear energy is carbon-free. “As we move toward our path to zero-carbon (energy), it can be included in the mix to get us there.”
Not ready for prime time
A lot of the current interest in nuclear power revolves around a new technology: small modular nuclear reactors, about one-tenth to one quarter the size of a conventional reactor. They’re billed as potentially less expensive, safer, easier to build and adaptable because modules can be added as more power is needed.
The technology is also still in the development and demonstration stage. Just a few are operating in China and Russia. No small modular reactors –SMRs– are in commercial use in the U.S.
“SMRs aren’t ready for prime time,” said Dennis Wamsted, an analyst at the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis. “You will hear from developers and others about the advantages. The advantages right now are all on paper.”
The institute focuses on research into the economics of expanding the use of renewable energy.
“We are not fans of nuclear power because it costs too much and that cost has been consistently high over the years. We see no track record of it declining,” Wamsted said. “We certainly don’t see that happening with a new class of reactor that nobody’s built before and nobody’s run before.”
Noah Rott, a spokesman for the western region of the Sierra Club, said the environmental group feels that discussion around nuclear energy “is largely a distraction as utilities work to address electric load growth in the next decade.”
“Cleaner sources like wind, solar, demand response, energy efficiency and storage are the answer here,” Rott said in an email.
The airport put the study on hold after complaints that city officials hadn’t talked to area residents first. The airport determined that a broader scope will best serve its interests and needs and will issue a request for information later this fall on multiple clean energy solutions, including reactors, after first receiving ideas and input from the community, spokeswoman Courtney Law said in an email Wednesday.
Nuclear power generation is the top choice of a local advisory committee for replacing coal at Xcel Energy’s Comanche power plants near Pueblo. Xcel has proposed tapping renewable energy, battery storage and natural gas when it stops burning coal by 2031.
But the Pueblo Innovative Energy Solutions Advisory Committee, established by Xcel and community members, said renewable energy facilities wouldn’t provide the same number of jobs and tax revenue for local governments that nuclear or gas facilities would. The committee is promoting installing SMRs.
Xcel Energy operates nuclear facilities in Minnesota and has said they’re not off the table for Colorado, but the new type of reactors likely won’t be commercially available when the utility has to replace its coal plants.
The Western Governors Association, WGA, held workshops in September at the Idaho National Laboratory, which focuses largely on nuclear energy.
The workshops were part of an initiative by Utah Gov. Spencer Cox called “Energy Superabundance: Unlocking Prosperity in the West.” Cox, the WGA’s chairman this year, said the country is looking to the West for ways to meet the surge in need for more electricity.
Andy Cross, The Denver Post
Some community leaders want to see nuclear power replace coal-fired power when Xcel Energy quits burning coal at the Comanche power plant in Pueblo County. (Photo by Andy Cross/The Denver Post)
Idaho Gov. Brad Little said during a workshop that the U.S. won’t meet its energy needs “with our legacy energy.”
“We’re going to have to have scalable, safe nuclear energy,” Little said.
While it could be five to 10 years before small reactors are up and running in the U.S., Mark Jensen, a chemistry professor at the Colorado School of Mines, said the federal government is more involved in promoting nuclear energy than in the recent past. He noted that the Department of Energy has opened federal sites to allow companies to test prototypes and that could help streamline development.
President Donald Trump has issued executive orders intended to invigorate the nuclear power industry and streamline regulations.
Jensen, director of the nuclear science and engineering program at the School of Mines, said more private money is flowing into nuclear projects than he has seen over the past 35 years.
Wind, solar the ‘workhorses’
Jack Waldorf, WGA executive director, said in an email that advancements in nuclear energy provide the opportunity to expand clean, reliable generation of electricity, but achieving true energy abundance will require a comprehensive approach.
Gov. Jared Polis said in a statement that Colorado has a history as an innovator and nuclear energy should be no different. ” As projects become cost competitive and safer, we should view nuclear energy not as a competing energy source to wind and solar, but as a complementary solution for better overall reliability and lower costs.”
Will Toor, executive director of the Colorado Energy Office, agreed. He said as Colorado moves to more deeply cut emissions, other technologies will be needed and nuclear energy should certainly be in the mix.
“It’s pretty clear that wind and solar will be the workhorses of the grid just looking at the cost modeling,” Toor said. “You can build them relatively quickly and they’re so much cheaper than other resources.”
He expects nuclear power to be in a group of what he calls “clean, firm” energy sources: ones that emit low or no greenhouse gases and provide round-the-clock power. Toor said geothermal energy is likely the furthest along among those sources.
“The challenge with nuclear is really still the same challenge that it has been for utilities, which is the cost, how long it takes to build and the uncertainties of federal permitting,” Toor said.
He added that he would be surprised if Colorado utilities moved ahead with conventional nuclear or “to be first in line for the first-of-its-kind” small modular reactor.
Almost one-third of the budget cuts and sweeps of unused money that Gov. Jared Polis used to close a $249 million budget hole will come from Medicaid, and providers are trying to figure out how much disruption that will cause for them and their patients.
About $79.2 million of the $252 million in cuts came from the Colorado Department of Health Care Policy and Financing, which runs Medicaid in the state. The list includes a mix of reductions in the rates paid to people who provide care, unused funds swept from specific programs and plans to review some care types more strictly before paying.
The largest cut, worth roughly $38.3 million, would roll back most of a 1.6% increase that most providers expected to get this year. Since providers received slightly higher rates in the first months of the fiscal year, it will work out to about a 0.4% increase, which is in line with recent years, the department said.
Denver Health estimated the rollback would cost the city’s safety-net hospital about $5 million. The health system isn’t planning any layoffs or service reductions, but could cut back on nonessential maintenance and technology updates, CEO Donna Lynne said. As it was, the increase only partially offset growth in costs in recent years, she said.
“We were already trying to absorb the difference between medical inflation and the 1.6%,” she said. The American Hospital Association estimated hospital costs rose about 5.1% in 2024.
The Colorado Hospital Association said its members were “disappointed” with the rollback, especially since they expect to lose Medicaid funding under provisions of H.R. 1 in 2027 and beyond. An unknown number of patients will lose Medicaid coverage due to new work requirements, and states won’t be able to draw down as much federal funding for hospitals because of limits on provider taxes.
“We recognize the tough choices required in this budget process, but reductions to provider rates — particularly alongside other health care cuts stemming from H.R. 1 — add to the challenges ahead,” the association said in a statement. “CHA and our members remain committed to working with the governor and legislators to identify solutions that protect health care funding and sustain access to care across Colorado.”
Dentists also will receive less for treating Medicaid patients than they anticipated, with about $2.5 million in reductions to planned increases. The Colorado Dental Association said it was waiting for details about which services would take cuts, and how deep they would go.
Other Medicaid cuts include:
$7 million from reviewing applied behavior analysis claims for improper billing. The therapy attempts to teach daily living skills to people with severe autism.
$6.1 million from requiring prior authorization for more than 24 psychotherapy visits in one year
$5.6 million that Colorado was going to spend to keep children covered by Medicaid until age 3. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services revoked permission for the state to do that.
$4.4 million from a fund to raise pay in nursing homes above $15 per hour. The state’s minimum wage will be over $15 next year, making the fund largely irrelevant.
$3 million from reducing the “community connector” benefit to bring kids with disabilities into integrated settings
$3 million from reducing incentives for behavioral health care improvements
$2.7 million from benchmarking the state’s rate for applied behavior analysis for autism to 95% of the rate in comparable states
$1.7 million from requiring prior authorization to administer 17 or more drug tests to the same person in one year
$1.5 million from starting payments to small, rural and pediatric providers in January 2026 instead of July 2025
$1.5 million from reducing the rate paid to family caregivers for people with disabilities
$750,000 from reducing incentives to coordinate primary care
$500,000 in unused funding appropriated for family planning services to undocumented people
$500,000 from training for providers about screening patients for substance misuse and referring them to treatment
$131,000 in funding to advertise Cover All Coloradans, which offers Medicaid-like coverage to undocumented people
Americans are recoiling from the Democratic Party, and even in blue states like Colorado, Democrats are feeling the burn.
With Republicans fielding the best candidate for governor they’ve had in a decade – Sen. Barbara Kirkmeyer – liberal politicians would be wise to address the root causes of this dissatisfaction publicly, frequently and head-on. The reality is that Americans are struggling — our politics are becoming more violent, everything is more expensive, and the job market is tightening.
After years of enjoying popularity, Colorado’s top Democrats are now showing a remarkable drop in their approval ratings among voters. President Donald Trump remains deeply unpopular in the state, but Gov. Jared Polis, Sen. Michael Bennet and Sen. John Hickenlooper are failing to break a 50% approval rating, meaning more of those asked than not said they were unhappy with the politicians’ work.
These results from a poll conducted in early August of 1,136 registered Colorado voters by Magellan Strategies mirror what we are seeing across the nation. Americans are dissatisfied.
According to a New York Times analysis of available voter registration numbers, the Democratic Party is hemorrhaging voters across the board and particularly in swing states. Meanwhile, the Republican Party is gaining voters after years of losses.
Part of the shift is voters simply changing their affiliation to unaffiliated, but the Magellan Poll clearly indicates that there is more afoot than voters just looking to participate in open primaries.
Magellan, a conservative-leaning Colorado firm, found that among voters who supported Kamala Harris in 2024, 47% have unfavorable opinions of the Democratic Party.
To be clear, voters who were polled still said they were more likely to support a Democrat for governor next year. Only 38% of those polled said they would likely support a Republican for governor. Kirkmeyer has an uphill battle to be certain, but her opponents are weakened.
We’d hazard a guess that the non-existent Democratic primary in 2023 to challenge a sitting president who was showing cognitive decline while in office is part of the reason voters are upset. It will take time for voters to forgive – and no one will ever forget – the disastrous presidential debate.
U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet is doing slightly better with 44% of voters reporting disapproval of him, and U.S. Sen. John Hickenlooper was at 49%.
Bennet is going to face Attorney General Phil Weiser in the Democratic Primary for governor. Weiser wasn’t included in the poll and neither were any of the Republican candidates.
The bottom line is that Democrats cannot spend this election talking about Donald Trump, and pretending that voters don’t have real concerns about the governance of both political parties. Voters may still put many or even most Democrats into office, but if the party wants to recover, its top leaders must start this election cycle with something more than fear and loathing.
Coloradans are concerned. The Magellan poll found that 54% of voters anticipate the economy will decline in the next 12 months (with more Democrats expressing this fear than Republicans), a pessimistic view that requires our politicians to articulate a plan for the worst-case scenario.
Similarly, 54% think Colorado is headed in the wrong direction (with more Republicans unhappy than Democrats), and the high cost of living, public safety, and homelessness were mentioned frequently by voters as top concerns, according to Magellan. These issues will only be harder to address given the decline in federal, state and local revenue sources. Our next governor will articulate a feasible plan.
Finally, Democrats will win safe seats in 2026 with their heads in the sand, but if the party wants to gain ground in swing districts, its politicians are going to have to step up to the challenge at hand – restoring faith in and favorability of the party. Can that be done without rehashing the many missteps of the past four years? We would like to see elected officials be accountable and transparent.
But Colorado must move forward, as must the nation.
If Democrats want to stop losing ground, they’ve got to appeal to voters as far more than an alternative to Trump.
And that of the Broncos’ last 15 postseason games in Denver, eight of them — per Pro-Football-Reference.com — were played in temperatures 37 degrees or warmer? The last five Empower Field playoff temps: 43, 46, 40, 41, 63.
Snow down, Broncomaniacs.
Denver won’t just be playing in Super Bowls over the next decade.
We’ll be hosting them.
“The Broncos have been, since Day 1 of the franchise, an important fabric and part of the community in Denver,” Broncos CEO Greg Penner told The Denver Post’s Parker Gabriel in an exclusive interview. “Finding a site of that size that we could weave into the downtown area and all that just was incredibly unique, combined with the historic nature of the site. …
“We have the bones of the old railyard and a couple of buildings and a unique site that we think enables us to create something unique and special, both with the stadium and the mixed-use development around it.”
The Walton-Penner Group just raised the roof without raising taxes. Despite overtures from Lone Tree and Aurora, they’re keeping the Broncos in Denver. Where they belong.
In other words, Penner and his wife Carrie Walton-Penner read the room the way Peyton Manning read defenses at the line of scrimmage.
“We’re really thrilled that they came with that partnership mentality and not, like we’ve seen in other cities, ‘You give us a bunch of money or we’ll leave,’” Colorado Gov. Jared Polis told The Post. “I think the Walton-Penner Family Ownership Group is deeply committed to Denver and deeply committed to the community.”
Not anymore. You want a venue with 60,000-plus seats that can host Taylor Swift in March or April? Check. You want a venue where football fans can still feel the elements on an autumn gameday? Got that, too. Open that bad boy up and let the Colorado sunshine in.
We don’t need the cool kids on the coasts to tell us Denver is the best darn sports city in America. But building a multi-purpose stadium at Burnham Yard gives the Front Range many more chances to prove it — and on the largest stages imaginable.
New Orleans officials recently estimated that Super Bowl LIX was worth more than $1.25 billion in economic impact to the Crescent City. San Antonio boasted an economic bump of $440 million from hosting the Men’s Basketball Final Four this past April.
You wouldn’t want a piece of that?
The Penners do. And thank goodness.
“The goal is to create something that is active on gameday,” Penner stressed to The Post, “but also (for) the rest of the year.”
There’s nothing wrong with Empower Field, which opened in 2001. There’s nothing all that right about it, either, at least from a real estate purview. Even the best ideas, like the best concrete, get weathered by time.
Pro sports owners are playing a different level of Monopoly than they were three decades ago. It’s not just about owning Tennessee Avenue anymore. It’s about gobbling up St. James Place and New York Avenue next door, then making sure a row of strip malls, restaurants and hotels get built on top of them. Collect the rent, funnel some of that money to Bo Nix and Nik Bonitto, pass GO, collect $200. Rinse. Repeat.
Stadiums are so expensive to build that a single-use facility, especially one available for 12-20 dates a year instead of 50-60, isn’t cost-effective. The land around Empower Field is owned by the Metropolitan Football Stadium District. Whatever’s built at Burnham Yard will be owned by the Walton-Penner Group and designed with a neighborhood in mind, not just the stadium itself.
Oh, there will be bumps. That’s inevitable. The city’s slated to foot the bill for public improvements related to connectivity to the stadium — exit ramps, roads, RTD, etc. And Tuesday’s announcements didn’t mention Personal Seat Licenses (PSLs) — a one-time fee paid by fans for the “right” to buy a seat.
If there’s a cloud rolling in behind all those rainbows, it’s that. PSLs seem inevitable here, too — a survey the Broncos sent to fans in 2023 included that very subject.
Would a Super Bowl be worth that? Everyone who let hosting a World Cup slip away from soccer-mad Denver in 2026 should land a red card for life. With this new district, hopefully, it won’t happen again.
Five years down the line, who knows? In 2020, as a franchise, the Broncos looked listless and lost — a sleeping giant resting on the laurels of orange-and-blue bloods everywhere.
The Walton-Penner ownership group woke everybody up. The beast is taking names now. It’s buying up land. It’s drawing castles in the sky.
For what it’s worth, Penner sounds as if he wants to keep the lid off as much as possible. And for as many Broncos games as feasible. He gets it. All of it.
“We wanted something that is true to our roots here and looked at domed stadiums,” Penner told The Post. “But (we) just thought that wouldn’t enable us to take advantage of Colorado sunsets and Mile High views and playing in the elements if we choose to.”
Give the Penners an inch, they’ll take a Yard. All the way to the bank.
More than $250 million down, another $530 million to go.
That’s how much of a projected $783 million state budget hole the Colorado legislature filled by the time a special session called to address the impact of the federal tax bill ended Tuesday afternoon — and the larger amount that still remains. Erasing the rest of the red ink will fall to Gov. Jared Polis, who plans to rebalance this year’s budget in the coming days through a mix of cuts to state funding and a big dip into the rainy-day fund.
Over six days, the legislature’s majority Democrats fulfilled their part of a plan worked out with the governor’s office: to pass legislation that is expected to generate enough revenue to close about a third of the shortfall projected for the state’s budget in the current fiscal year, which began July 1. They ended tax breaks and found other ways to offset declining state income tax revenue, while leaving spending cuts largely for Polis to decide.
“What we did here in this special session is soften the blow,” said Sen. Jeff Bridges, a Greenwood Village Democrat who chairs the legislature’s budget committee. “But when the federal government cuts $1.2 billion in revenue from the state with a stroke of a pen, after we’ve already cut $1.2 billion (from the budget) in the regular session, that’s a tough deficit to come back from in a way that doesn’t impact the people of Colorado.”
The special session ended with 11 bills going to Polis for final approval. Five sought to fill the budget gap, largely by ending tax incentives for businesses and high-income earners.
The single largest revenue-raising measure, House Bill 1004, will auction off tax credits that can be claimed in future tax years for a discount. Backers expected that bill to bring in an additional $100 million to state coffers this year, at the expense of about $125 million in future years.
Together, those measures add up to $253 million in revenue to reduce the projected deficit — money that Democrats say represents averted cuts to Medicaid, schools and hospitals.
“Colorado legislators stepped up and helped protect children’s food access and minimized the devastating cost increases to health insurance premiums across the state, to the best of our ability,” Polis, who signed two of the new bills earlier Tuesday, said in a statement.
The legislature’s Joint Budget Committee expects to meet Thursday to hear Polis’ plan to address the remaining $500 million or so, including mid-year spending cuts.
As part of his call for a special session on Aug. 6, Polis announced a statewide hiring freeze. He said in an interview before the session started that he hoped to avoid cuts to K-12 education, but he has left all other options on the table, including Medicaid program spending.
The plan also factors in a significant use of reserves to offset some of the remaining gap.
Partisan debates
Over the past week, Republicans fought the Democrats’ bills, but strong Democratic majorities in both legislative chambers all but preordained the outcome.
“Not only did we increase taxes, we’re balancing the budget on the back of small businesses,” said Sen. Barbara Kirkmeyer, a Brighton Republican on the budget committee.
One of the bills heading to Polis would erase a fee paid by the state to businesses for collecting sales taxes — an outdated subsidy, according to Democrats, and an unnecessary new burden now put on businesses, according to Republicans.
Republicans said before the session that they’d likely challenge several bills in court over allegations that they violate provisions in the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights that require voter approval for tax increases. Kirkmeyer and Rep. Rick Taggart, a Grand Junction Republican who’s also on the budget committee, said bills going to the governor that would eliminate some tax credits and allow the sale of tax credits against future collections seemed particularly vulnerable to a challenge under TABOR.
Debate throughout the special session took a distinctly partisan edge. Democrats laid the cuts on congressional Republicans and President Donald Trump and called the federal tax bill a de facto theft of benefits from the poorest Coloradans to benefit the wealthiest.
Republicans countered that the federal bill delivered much-needed tax cuts, and they said Democrats sought to yank those away instead of cutting partisan priorities.
Legislators begin to gather in the Senate Chambers before the start of another day of the special legislative session at the Colorado State Capitol in Denver on Aug. 26, 2025. (Photo by RJ Sangosti/The Denver Post)
Bills on wolves, artificial intelligence
Other bills passed sought to respond to different aspects of the federal bill, formerly known as the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” as well as other priorities.
Lawmakers stripped general fund money away from the voter-approved program to reintroduce wolves in the state, though releases are expected to continue this winter. They tweaked ballot language for a measure about taxes for universal school meals to allow that money to go to general food assistance, as well, if voters approve it in November.
The legislature also approved a bill allowing state Medicaid program to pay Planned Parenthood for services provided, after the federal government specifically barred federal money from going to the organization.
Polis included in his call of the session that lawmakers address concerns swirling around the state’s first-in-the-nation regulations of artificial intelligence after a similar effort in the spring blew up. The rules now in law go into effect in February.
After days of bruising negotiations, lawmakers punted on any new changes and delayed the existing rules from going into effect until the end of June — giving them time to resume the debate during the next regular legislative session in January.
Colorado’s reinsurance program will save people who buy their health insurance on the individual market an estimated $493 million next year, compared to how much premiums would have risen without it, according to the Polis administration.
Statewide, premiums on the individual market will rise by an average of 5.6%, while they will increase about 7.1% for small-group plans.
Reinsurance is a backstop that limits how much insurance companies have to pay out for the relatively small number of people who have highly expensive medical needs each year. Since they aren’t on the hook to pay out as much, the companies charge lower premiums, which in turn means the federal government doesn’t have to spend as much on tax credits to people buying insurance on the marketplace. Colorado got permission from the federal government to use those federal savings to further lower monthly premiums.
A news release from Gov. Jared Polis’ office estimated that premiums in 2025 will be about 24% lower than they would have been without a reinsurance program. The amount any customer would save depends on where they live, their age and how many people in their family need coverage.
A 40-year-old buying individual coverage would have an average savings of $1,500 over the course of a year. People living on the Western Slope would save more, while the change was smaller near the Front Range.
Open enrollment on the marketplace begins Nov. 1 and runs through Jan. 15.
Missed the second half of the show? The latest on…Democratic Rep. Chrissy Houlahan of Pennsylvania, who is on the House task force investigating the July assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump, tells “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan” that there were “enormous gaps” in the Secret Service communication, Amid comments from former President Donald Trump about Venezuelan gangs in Aurora, Colorado, Democratic Gov. Jared Polis says the city is “safer than it’s been, and Israeli President Isaac Herzog tells “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan” that his country is a “very aggressive, active and vociferous democracy.” “The world has to be with us.”
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Colorado Gov. Jared Polis’ chief of staff will leave the administration next week to take a job as a lobbyist at UCHealth.
Then-Speaker Alec Garnett of the Colorado House of Representatives during a committee hearing on fentanyl at the Colorado State Capitol on Tuesday, April 12, 2022. (Photo by AAron Ontiveroz/The Denver Post)
Alec Garnett, a former Democratic lawmaker from Denver, joined the governor’s office at the start of 2023 after serving as speaker of the Colorado House of Representatives. He used those close ties to lawmakers as he worked to pass Polis’ agenda and weigh in on legislation, including during a special legislative session last week that was aimed at averting property tax reform ballot initiatives as part of a deal with conservative and business advocacy groups.
Polis’ office announced Tuesday morning that he will step down as chief of staff on Sept. 13. UCHealth, in an internal announcement, says Garnett will join the health system as vice president of government and regulatory affairs.
Polis’ new chief of staff will be David Oppenheim, who served as the deputy to Garnett, handling legislative and policy affairs. Before that, he was director of operations and cabinet affairs. He joined the governor’s office as legislative director in 2019.
“I thank Alec Garnett for his incredible leadership and hard work for the people of Colorado, culminating in a historic special session that successfully cut the property tax rate for every homeowner and small business,” Polis said in a news release.
As Colorado’s universal preschool program moves into its second school year this month, officials are hoping to leave its rocky rollout in the rearview mirror.
By the end of July, more than 31,000 4-year-olds matched with state-funded preschool providers for the coming year, according to the most recent data for the core program from the Colorado Department of Early Childhood. Most will receive up to 15 hours of free classtime per week, though about 11,100 of them — about 3,000 more than last year — are expected to qualify for 30 hours each week, after state officials expanded eligibility criteria for the extra class time.
The number of providers participating in the program — in-home day cares, private practices, religious schools and public schools — has grown by about 150, to more than 2,000 statewide for this school year, Universal Preschool Program Director Dawn Odean said.
Taken together, that data points to the year-two stabilization of a program whose inaugural year, hiccups and all, was akin to “building the plane as we were flying it,” Odean said.
Colorado’s program was officially born in April 2022, when Gov. Jared Polis signed the bill to create it and the new Colorado Department of Early Childhood. The program was set for a fall 2023 launch. That left about 16 months to stand up the department, bring about 1,800 participating providers into the new system and sign up tens of thousands of families.
But entering year two of the $344 million program, Odean and local coordinating organizations are hopeful the initial struggles were growing pains associated with its launch. Department officials expect to meet or surpass last year’s sign-up numbers soon, and they hope to see enrollment increase by up to 5%.
“In a nutshell, I’ll tell you things are much better,” said Elsa Holguín, president and CEO of the Denver Preschool Program. It’s one of the local coordinating organizations, or LCOs, that act as a link between the state department and on-the-ground providers. “Things have gotten better for the families, things have improved for the child care providers and things have improved for the LCOs.”
But, she added, there’s always room for refinement.
“Are we where we need to be? No. We still have some work to do across the spectrum,” Holguín said.
The rollout of year two is still underway, with parents now able to walk through local providers’ doors to sign up for free preschool, space permitting, rather than being required to apply online. The full enrollment figures for this year won’t be available until the fall.
Aleia Medina, 5, second from right, and classmates attend a morning class with Rosario Ortiz at the Early Excellence Program of Denver on Tuesday, Aug. 6, 2024. (Photo by Hyoung Chang/The Denver Post)
Adapting to last year’s high enrollment
Ahead of last year’s launch, expectations for the first year began shifting about as soon as public planning for it began.
A promise of 10 hours a week of free classtime for all preschoolers turned into 15, with some students qualifying for double that time — considered full-day schooling — based on family circumstances. But months later, officials raised the threshold to qualify for 30 hours as overall enrollment rates shot up about 20% higher than expected, leaving some families feeling like the rug was yanked out from under them.
Initially, the state had planned to offer extra time to children deemed at risk if they qualified under an eligibility category — by having an individualized education plan, being a dual-language learner, coming from a low-income family or being in foster care.
When demand outpaced expectations, state officials changed the criteria to add base household income limits, at a middle-class level, as an additional qualification. Students still had to qualify under at least one other factor.
Meanwhile, providers and families were chafing at a confusing enrollment process that drew critical attention from state lawmakers.
But officials point to a number of under-the-hood changes since then to smooth out operations.
Voters in November approved a ballot measure last fall that allowed the state to keep $23.7 million in excess tobacco tax proceeds that help pay for the program. Officials expanded the criteria for 30 hours of free classtime to include all families who are at or below the federal poverty line, expanding access to some 3,000 more children. And the state streamlined enrollment processes to smooth out some of those first-year wrinkles.
“We’re ecstatic with year one as far as the number of children served and the number of providers participating — but (we) certainly knew that we stood up the program, and the process to enroll and register, in a fairly compressed timeline, which created some challenges,” said Odean, the state’s preschool program director, in an interview this week.
She also acknowledged the legal battles that played out in the first year.
A group of school districts had sued over the rollout, claiming that it hurt students with special needs and left school districts in a lurch. A judge ruled in July that the districts lacked standing to sue, while also acknowledging the “headaches” they faced, according to Chalkbeat.
In a separate January lawsuit, two Catholic schools sued over a nondiscrimination clause for preschool providers. That suit was largely rejected, but not before the state removed the nondiscrimination clause. About 40 religious schools are registered as universal preschool providers in the state this school year.
Odean said she couldn’t comment on the particulars of the lawsuits, but she appreciated the conversations they spurred about how to make sure families get the preschool they want — even if she wished they didn’t take the form of litigation.
Hunter Fridley, 4, counts the number of classmates during a morning class with Rosario Ortiz at the Early Excellence Program of Denver on Tuesday, Aug. 6, 2024. (Photo by Hyoung Chang/The Denver Post)
Private providers’ low enrollments “concerning”
When it came to preparing for school this year, Holguín, the Denver Preschool Program’s CEO, said preregistration for families and other changes to enrollment, in particular, “changed our world” by making it easier to connect them with preschool providers.
Diane Smith, director of the Douglas County Early Childhood Council, another LCO, likewise said the state’s program is better positioned this year “in many ways” — though it’s still too early to make a definitive call.
She still identified a number of focus areas for the future, including a desire for more lead time between announced changes to the program and when they’re implemented, along with more predictable, consistent funding for providers. And, of course, the unending work of making sure every family that wants to participate knows about the program and how to enroll in it.
In short, the first-year growing pains haven’t quite waned, Smith said, even as she excitedly reports that more providers have signed up to provide universal preschool in her area.
“Some people are bigger worriers than I am,” Smith said. “I’m the type who says ‘Yes, this is a little bit of a challenge, but I think intentions are always good.’ We’re looking to move forward and we have.”
Dawn Alexander, executive director of the Early Childhood Education Association of Colorado, which advocates for private preschool providers, warned that some of her members were starting to fret about “concerning” lowearly enrollment numbers — though she, too, cautioned that it was too early to raise a red flag.
Many families seem to be choosing school districts’ programs for their 4-year-olds, Alexander said, meaning that private preschools lose out on those enrollments. The older, less care-intensive preschool children help round out the rosters of many facilities that also provide day care for infants and toddlers, she said. Losing those populations can put their entire business at risk.
That, coupled with other strains associated with tight margins and fluctuating enrollment, add up for providers, she said. Many staffed up based on expected enrollment — and corresponding state funding — that’s so far not materialized, she said. She and other private providers raised similar concerns last year.
“You get too many frustrations and you go, ‘I’m out,’ ” Alexander said. “And you don’t want private providers to opt out of the system. It’s critical they be a significant part of it.”
Odean said there was still work being done around funding, including how to make it easier for families to qualify for — and providers to benefit from — the myriad state and federal preschool assistance programs.
There’s also a balance to strike between stable, predictable funding and ways to allow it to fluctuate so it meets current needs, she said. A smoother year two will make it easier for officials to be intentional about steps forward, she said.
“Things change, communities change — and so we have to continue to be responsive,” Odean said. “We just want to have some clear processes in place where we’re continuing to hear from families and providers, and we have a stable system and environment … so we can continue to improve.”
All-Pro Reels from District of Columbia, USA, CC BY-SA 2.0 , via Wikimedia CommonsCredit: All-Pro Reels from District of Columbia, USA
Last week, Oscar-winning actor Matthew McConaughey attended the National Governors Association meeting in Salt Lake City, sparking curiosity about his potential political aspirations. During the event, New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy inquired about McConaughey’s thoughts on entering the political arena.
“I’m on a learning tour and have been for probably the last six years,” McConaughey responded. “Do I have the instincts and intellect that it would be a good fit for me and I would be a good [fit] for it. You know, would I be useful?”
Watch his full comments:
Nothing New for McConaughey
McConaughey’s musings about a political career are not new. He has been contemplating this shift for several years, most notably in 2021 when he considered challenging incumbent Governor Greg Abbott in the 2022 Texas gubernatorial race. This contemplation has become as familiar as his iconic phrase, “alright alright alright.”
The actor’s approach to politics is seen by some as a refreshing contrast to the often impulsive nature of political figures. And for some a reminder of how past figures weighed the challenges of political work.
Governor Green’s Advice to McConaughey
Hawaii Governor Josh Green offered McConaughey some sage advice during the meeting. “Don’t fall into the trap to think you should be just one thing,” Green advised. “A lot of Republicans will want you to be Republican and a lot of Democrats will want you to be a Democrat, just be you because that might be something special for all of us.”
Green’s advice underscores the importance of authenticity in politics, a quality McConaughey has consistently displayed in his acting career and public persona. However, the actor’s prolonged hesitation raises an important question: If McConaughey has spent years pondering his usefulness in a political role, might he already have his answer?
Screenshot: The Salt Lake Tribune Youtube
McConaughey’s potential entry into politics could bring a unique perspective to the often polarized political landscape. His centrist views and dedication to thoughtful consideration might resonate with voters tired of extreme partisanship. Yet, the question remains whether he will ultimately decide to take the plunge.
As McConaughey continues his “learning tour,” the public and political observers alike remain intrigued by the possibility of his candidacy. His approach, which is quite reminiscent of other political figures will keep people’s attention.
For now, the question of his political future remains unanswered, leaving room for continued debate and anticipation.
Colorado Gov. Jared Polis was elected Friday to lead the National Governors Association, a bipartisan 55-member body of state and territorial leaders.
For the last year he served as the vice chair of the group, which serves as a policy workshop for the nation’s governors and their cabinets. In the new post, Polis will push an initiative to help states build education systems that prepare students for the workforce and to address economic needs, such as mismatched skills and worker shortages.
Colorado Gov. Jared Polis speaks next to U.S. Senator Michael Bennet at a bill-signing event for a new child tax credit at Denver KinderCare in Denver on Friday, May 31, 2024. (Photo by Zachary Spindler-Krage/The Denver Post)
“All Americans should have access to education that prepares them for success in life,” Polis said in a statement announcing his chairmanship. “As the world changes and technology evolves, ensuring all students graduate with the skills and knowledge necessary for success is so important for U.S. economic competitiveness.
“Our initiative will explore how to better evaluate outcomes from state investments in education, and help drive improved outcomes for learners at all stages of their education journey.”
Polis earlier served in Congress, and before that on the Colorado State Board of Education. He helped found two charter schools. He has also previously served as chair of the Western Governors’ Association, where he pushed an initiative exploring the use of geothermal energy in the West.
Nearly $1 million — mostly from a group supporting charter schools — has poured into the Democratic primary for a seat on the Colorado State Board of Education, a race that some observers say could play a role in the future of charters in the state.
But the two candidates vying to represent the 2nd Congressional District dispute that Tuesday’s primary, whatever the result, will alter the fate of charter schools. They each said in interviews that they support school choice, a system in which charters — public schools that have more autonomy than traditional, district-run schools — play an integral part.
“I believe this is a false narrative,” said Marisol Lynda Rodriguez, an education consultant new to politics with a background in charter schools.
Colorado Lt. Gov. Dianne Primavera was hospitalized Wednesday night due to an infection, state officials announced.
“Lt. Gov. Primavera is one of the strongest and toughest people I know and we are glad she is taking extra caution and getting the care she deserves,” Gov. Jared Polis said in a statement Thursday. “I was not surprised when I learned that she plans to continue working today.”
Information about what led to the infection and hospitalization was not available Thursday.
Primavera — a lifelong Coloradan and longtime Broomfield resident — is currently serving her second term as Colorado’s 50th lieutenant governor.
In her role, Primavera leads six programs: the Office of Saving People Money on Health Care, the Office of eHealth Innovation, the Colorado Disability Funding Committee and Disability Policy, the Colorado Commission of Indian Affairs, Serve Colorado and Aerospace and Defense.
Cannabis advocates in Colorado cheered the Biden Administration’s reported move to reclassify marijuana and said the decision likely would reduce businesses’ tax burden significantly.
Industry leaders cautioned that such a move — if finalized — would not resolve some major challenges facing the industry, such as limited access to banking. But they pointed to the symbolic importance of preparations by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration to downgrade the substance’s drug classification.
A man pours cannabis into rolling papers as he prepares to roll a joint the Mile High 420 Festival in Civic Center Park in Denver, April 20, 2024. (Photo by Kevin Mohatt/Special to The Denver Post)
