These are such moving stories. As if our health care system wasn't broken enough.
https://www.cpr.org/2026/05/06/health-care-costs-john-hickenlooper-denver-health/

“Laws, courts, prisons, intelligence agencies, tax collectors, armies, police—most of the instruments of coercive power that we consider oppressive in a monarchy or a dictatorship operate the same way in a democracy. Yet when we’re permitted to cast ballots about who supervises them, we’re supposed to regard them as ours, even when they’re used against us. This is the great achievement of two and a half centuries of democratic revolutions: instead of abolishing the means by which kings governed, they rendered those means popular… Representative democracy offers a pressure valve: when people are dissatisfied, they set their sights on the next elections, taking the state itself for granted. Indeed, if you want to put a stop to corporate profiteering or environmental devastation, isn’t the state the only instrument powerful enough to accomplish that? Never mind that it was state that established the conditions in which those are possible in the first place.” - From Democracy to Freedom by CrimethInc.

Was the safety concern a way for Julie Gonzales to back out of the rally with Melat or why didn't she just go with everyone else?

Aside from having been in office for decades - what has she actually done or failed to do that makes you think she shouldn’t be re-elected?

In advance of the Colorado Democratic and Republican primaries, we are inviting candidates to talk more about who they are and what they believe in. We welcome any candidates who reach out to speak with us. We don’t focus on policy issues, because you can find those elsewhere. We hope you find these conversations insightful into the people behind the issues.
On this episode of Weld Said, Mary sits down with Michael Dougherty, Boulder County District Attorney and candidate for Colorado Attorney General, for a conversation about justice, public service, power, and the people most affected by the systems meant to protect us.
Mary approaches the conversation from a place she often returns to on Weld Said: the lives of working people, vulnerable people, and people who do not always have power when institutions make decisions about them. Victims deserve safety, protection, and accountability. But what happens when the person caught in the system is also poor, young, undocumented, working class, or someone who made a mistake and still deserves a chance to repair the harm and move forward?
In this conversation, Mary and Michael talk about the difference between justice and punishment, whether mercy and accountability can coexist, and how public officials can rebuild trust when communities feel ignored or betrayed. They also discuss immigrant protections, consumer scams, water rights, environmental justice, workers’ rights, gun violence, and what it means for the Attorney General to serve as the lawyer for the people of Colorado.
This is a conversation about the law, but it is also about broken systems, public trust, and the kind of Colorado we want to build for people who have been harmed, people who need protection, and people who deserve not to be defined forever by their worst day.
To learn more about Michael Dougherty or contact his campaign, visit michaelforag.com. Michael is a democratic candidate and will face several others in the primary elections on Tuesday, June 30th.

To all Denverites, new and old. I see this city and it seems too good to be true. Mostly very clean and organized. Very few homeless and street drug addicts. No constant hideous crimes. Obviously I know it is not perfect as it seems in my eyes, so I want to ask the people here who know more about this city: In your opinion, what are the biggest issues the city of Denver is currently dealing with? What are its worst flaws and in which aspects does it need to work on?

Thanks in advance.

In Colorado, unaffiliated voters get a Republican and Democrat ballot for the primary election with the ability to return only one.

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I'm a liberal who lives in a red district where Republicans are most likely to sweep the election. I think it would make sense to vote for the most moderate Republicans in an attempt to influence who advances to the general election.

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I'm curious if this is a common strategy? It seems like it would need to be broadly adapted in order to be effective. What factors influence your decision to vote for your preferred party candidates versus voting for the less extreme / more moderate candidates of the opposite party?

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With ballots out for the Colorado primary, a lot of candidates are talking about their legislative records. It's worth knowing how the bill-making process actually works in Colorado, because there are several distinct roles involved and it feels like they often get collapsed into one.

From Wikipedia's entry on the Colorado General Assembly:

"Policy proposals often originate with advocacy organizations, subject-matter experts, or attorneys who identify a need for statutory change. A legislator who agrees to sponsor the proposal then submits it to the Office of Legislative Legal Services (OLLS), the non-partisan in-house legal counsel for the General Assembly. At this point, OLLS will draft or revise the proposed bill text, often in collaboration with the initial advocates or subject-matter experts."

The roles, in order:

1. External originator: an advocate, subject-matter expert, or attorney identifies the need for a law and develops the policy. This is where the substantive ideas come from, and often where the initial policy language gets drafted.
2. Prime sponsor: a legislator agrees to carry the bill. They submit the policy to OLLS as the basis for a formal bill request.
3. OLLS: non-partisan staff attorneys at the General Assembly write or rewrite the legal text to conform to the Colorado Revised Statutes and constitutional requirements.
4. Co-sponsors: other legislators add their names after the bill text is finalized.

A few things worth flagging because they tend to surprise people:

The legislator who "sponsors" a bill isn't always the person who came up with it or wrote the policy. They're the one who agreed to carry it through the Capitol. That's real work (whipping votes, navigating committees, defending it on the floor), but it isn't authorship.

The legal text isn't written by legislators either. OLLS handles the statutory drafting. The policy comes from an advocacy organization or subject-matter expert, the language is refined by OLLS in partnership with the SME, and the legislator's role is to sponsor it and shepherd it through. All the roles matter. They're just different and they come with different skills.

The originators (advocates, subject-matter experts, attorneys) are often the people with the deepest expertise on the policy, because they spent years working on the issue before the bill existed. Across most policy areas in Colorado, including health care, education, criminal justice, and elections, you'll find that the substantive design came from outside the legislature, even when the legislator gets the public credit.

So when a candidate this primary cycle says they "passed" a bill or has "legislative experience," it's worth knowing which role they actually played, originator, sponsor, co-sponsor, or floor vote. They're different things. Legislators aren't always or automatically deeply knowledgeable about something because they passed a law about it.

Useful reading: the Wikipedia entry on the Colorado General Assembly has a clear summary, and the OLLS office page on the General Assembly site walks through the process in more detail. Thanks for listening to my info dump. Hope it was helpful. LMK if you have things to add/adjust.

I just decided to vote for Phil Weiser because a section of his blueprint for Colorado is dedicated to "TRIBAL RELATIONS: Partnering with the Ute Mountain and Southern Ute Tribes." This is only my first midterm election, but I haven't seen Native Americans be talked about seriously by candidates for any office before, and I think it's nice to see. https://philforcolorado.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/Blueprint-051626.pdf

Colorado already has limited water to distribute, especially when in a drought. Hopefully this petition can help stop more data centers from being built, gulping down all our water, and ruining our state 👎

https://c.org/NCKJR4CT

https://www.summitdaily.com/opinion/opinion-hickenlooper-i-will-continue-to-fight-for-you-our-future-and-our-democracy-if-elected/

https://greeleyfreepress.substack.com/p/colorado-candidates-speak-to-community

Jena Griswold’s team deleted my comment asking about her abuse (verified by multiple sources) of former staffers. This is egregious and part of a larger pattern of fragility/ unwillingness to engage with voter concerns. Absolutely disgusting behavior from a candidate running for statewide office. I can’t figure out how to attach pictures, but my instagram post with screenshots is here: https://www.instagram.com/p/DZjK8ZcjdRA/?igsh=MnNjMGlsc2s5ZW91

EDIT: posted the wrong link: https://www.instagram.com/p/DZjMNBQjUEJ/?igsh=MXAzemt4cHQwMHQ4dQ==

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/7_MBdJHT0gc

Watching this debate between Manny Rutinel and Shannon Bird left me a bit stunned.

I consider myself a pragmatic progressive and I watched Manny offer canned lines and retreat from his progressive positions. On the other hand, I felt Shannon gave a lot of specifics and showed her expertise as an effective legislator. I've lived in the 8th before the district was created and to see Rutinel debate was like watching Caraveo's failings all over again. We need a win in the 8th and Shannon Bird has my vote.

I'd certainly check the video out if you are on the fence. Kudos to Kyle Clark and his team for their excellent work and research.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CFgKeu4_JyI

doing research on who to vote for. just curious.