Politics & Government

There are many scenarios for Saturday’s Republican Party state assembly, ranging from several centrists being shut out of the June primary to a potential boost for them as well. It could simply come down to who gives the best speech.

Denver Police Chief Robert White has received the equivalent of a warning from Mayor Michael Hancock regarding two internal affairs investigations into events that took place in 2016 and 2017. Nick Rogers, the president of the Denver Police Protective Association, the city’s most powerful police union, calls the decision “absurd.”

Jason Crow posted big numbers for his Q1 fundraising, and Mike Coffman lost his lone primary challenger as eyes increasingly turn toward the November general election.

We spoke with every major candidate running in Colorado’s gubernatorial election ahead of the state assemblies.

Attorney Anne Sulton says she’s calling for a review of all lawyers involved in Denver’s $75,000 settlement with Detective Leslie Branch-Wise because of concern that the cash may have been intended to pay for the latter’s services as a witness in a trial over a lawsuit filed by fired city employee (and Sulton client) Wayne McDonald that never actually took place.

Launched by Colorado students, Vote for Our Lives will hold voter-registration rallies and build upon recent student organizing in the wake of the Parkland, Florida, shooting and the March 24 March for Our Lives calling for sensible gun laws and increased safety in schools.

Never Again-Colorado is hosting a town hall meeting on April 7, with or without Representative Mike Coffman.

The Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission was sued almost four years ago by a group of teenagers to force the organization to put health and safety first. That case made it all the way to the state’s highest court. Now, the state is arguing that it does not have to put public health and safety before the interests of the oil and gas industry, rather it should just “balance” the interests of the public and the industry.

Denver’s longtime congresswoman, Diana DeGette, could be in for a primary fight this summer. Challenger Saira Rao raised more than $250,000 in the first quarter of 2018 — without any self-funding or PAC money.

A report outlines how to reboot the culture under the Golden Dome and, to use a line from Donald Trump himself, “drain the swamp” of sexual harassment and professional misconduct. Although legislators pushing for change had hoped to see new policies implemented before the end of this legislative session, that may not be feasible. Party leaders are pushing for more time to dig deep and craft thoughtful policies through the summer after the legislative session comes to an end.

Colorado is one of only fourteen states in the country that has earned top marks for LGBT equality, according to the Transgender Law Center, based on its robust non-discrimination laws and lack of religious exemptions. That’s a far cry from where it was 26 years ago, when it gained national notoriety as the “Hate State” after voters passed Amendment 2 in 1992.

Barry Farah, a successful entrepreneur, author and speaker, is a late entrant into the 2018 Republican race for governor of Colorado. In the following in-depth interview, Farah says the exit from the contest of former Congressman Tom Tancredo and 18th Judicial District DA George Brauchler (who’s now focusing on a bid for Colorado Attorney General) left voters without a heartfelt conservative to support, and he’s eager to fill that role.

A press release announcing Denver’s fourth annual Start By Believing campaign, which supports sexual assault victims, does not include any mention of Mayor Michael Hancock or his office. In contrast, Hancock’s name was front and center during the previous three years, with the mayor offering strong comments about the importance of believing victims on each of those occasions.

Democrats in the Senate took a page out of the lower chamber’s playbook when they voted to expel Senator Randy Baumgardner last night over sexual harassment allegations that an outside investigator found was “more likely than not” to be credible. And while ex-Representative Steve Lebsock did get the boot last month, Baumgardner survived his expulsion vote. But he is still under investigation for two other complaints.

An attorney representing Wayne McDonald, a former Hancock friend and city employee fired in 2012 for his own alleged behavior toward Branch-Wise, is now demanding a review of all lawyers who played a role in a $75,000 payment to the detective by the City of Denver over the matter. The 2013 settlement precludes Branch-Wise from suing Hancock, even though his texts to her (including one that asked her if she’d ever taken a pole-dancing class) were not known to McDonald’s legal team in 2016, when they accepted $200,000 to resolve a lawsuit filed after his firing four years earlier.

Building upon the momentum of the March For Our Lives, the group Never Again Colorado will be host a town hall on April 7 at 6 p.m. at ThunderRidge High School, with speakers including Colorado students and survivors of mass shootings.

Late last night, April 2, Denver City Council president Albus Brooks announced that the panel will not investigate the question of whether inappropriate texts sent by Mayor Michael Hancock to Detective Leslie Branch-Wise during the 2011-2012 period when she was on his security detail constitute sexual harassment.

Today, April 2, Calderón and her attorney Trish Bangert filed a lawsuit and request for a jury trial with the U.S. District Court in Colorado that alleges that her jail re-entry program was not renewed by Denver for reasons of gender discrimination and political retribution.

According to a new report cited by Denver-based Center for Health Progress, the immigration policies enacted by the administration of President Donald Trump are not only making undocumented individuals in Colorado sick, but they’re hitting the rest of the citizenry directly in the pocketbook.

“I’m obviously not a politician, but Denver has a lot of blood on their hands this year especially; over 230 homeless people died, most of them disabled.”

After a Colorado Coalition for the Homeless project was rejected by a federal agency, we caught up with Cathy Alderman, the nonprofit’s vice president of communication and public policy, to find out what happens next and address some of the concerns by Lakewood residents who oppose the project.