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@nickcoltrain Colorado legislature week in assessment for Feb. 27, 2026. Gun payments, lawsuits in opposition to immigration and an ethics investigation plods on. #copolitics #colege @JHB
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Former state consultant tapped to fill vacant Colorado Senate seat
A Democratic emptiness committee has picked former state Rep. Adrienne Benavidez to fill a vacant Colorado Senate seat.
Benavidez, of Commerce Metropolis, will exchange former Sen. Dafna Michaelson Jenet after successful the Thursday evening emptiness election. Michaelson Jenet resigned earlier this month to take a job because the director of the David Merage Basis for Confronting Antisemitism.
Benavidez will characterize Senate District 21, which stretches from north metro Denver to elements of Adams and Arapahoe counties.
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Former Colorado senator will get probation, neighborhood service for faking help letters
Former state Sen. Sonya Jaquez Lewis was sentenced to 2 years of probation and 150 hours of neighborhood service on Friday following her conviction on 4 felony prices.
Jaquez Lewis, a Longmont Democrat, was convicted in January of three counts of forgery and one rely of trying to affect a public servant. Jaquez Lewis submitted faked letters of help to the Senate Ethics Committee final 12 months because it investigated her therapy of aides.
Throughout sentencing in Denver District Courtroom, Jaquez Lewis acknowledged making “dangerous choices” and maintained that the letters of help, which she wrote however signed with different folks’s names, have been a easy mistake. She additionally characterised the method as politically motivated.
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Colorado invoice would create new charges on alcohol gross sales to fund therapy, prevention
Colorado lawmakers are pushing new charges on alcohol to fund prevention and therapy, just like the best way the state taxes playing revenues to offset the prices of dependancy.
Home Invoice 1271 would create three state enterprises to gather charges: one for beer, arduous cider and “apple wine”; one for grape wine; and one for spirits. It defines apple wine as drinks constituted of apples or pears that comprise as much as 22% alcohol and aren’t cider.
In 2024, the state recorded 1,419 “alcohol-induced deaths,” which incorporates deaths from organ injury brought on by extreme consuming or issues of withdrawal, however not different deaths the place alcohol was an element, corresponding to accidents or sure cancers.
Whereas seeing a lower is encouraging, Colorado nonetheless has a excessive alcohol-related dying fee in comparison with different states and to itself in 2014, stated Dr. Invoice Burman, a Denver Well being doctor and member of the Colorado Alcohol Impacts Coalition.
“We nonetheless have a fee of alcohol deaths that’s twice the nation as an entire and twice the speed a decade in the past,” he stated.
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Invoice would ban prop bets on sports activities apps in Colorado as lawmakers search to curb playing addictions
Colorado lawmakers who’re involved about rising playing dependancy and betting scandals in skilled sports activities filed a invoice Wednesday that may prohibit sports-betting apps from providing proposition bets on particular person athletes’ performances.
The bipartisan invoice — SB26-131 — would additionally try to decelerate playing habits by eliminating bank card utilization on sports-betting apps, limiting the variety of deposits an individual could make into an account, curbing tv commercials and banning push notifications to cellphones from betting corporations corresponding to DraftKings and FanDuel.
“Frankly, the extra I seemed into it, the extra I grew to become actually, actually alarmed by every part that has occurred as a consequence of legalized sports activities betting and, for my part, putting only a few restrictions on it,” stated Sen. Matt Ball, D-Denver, one of many invoice’s sponsors.
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Colorado slashes rape equipment testing backlog, however lag time nonetheless tops 6 months — 3 instances so long as commonplace
Colorado forensic officers have slashed the turnaround time for sexual assault equipment testing, nevertheless it nonetheless takes analysts greater than six months to course of and full a check, a brand new state audit discovered.
The 190-day testing lag is effectively exterior the 60-day purpose set by the legislature in state legislation, and it’s greater than twice so long as the Colorado Bureau of Investigation’s inner purpose of three months.
However the diminished backlog additionally represents a big enchancment from final June’s lag time of 450 days, officers from the state auditor’s workplace advised lawmakers Wednesday morning. Each auditors and CBI officers stated the company ought to be capable of hit 90 days earlier than the tip of the 12 months.
“At the moment final 12 months, we have been at over 500 days, possibly it was within the 560s,” stated Rep. Jenny Willford, a Northglenn Democrat. “So I do need to acknowledge that there was important progress made, and there are a whole lot of audit suggestions to implement nonetheless, and I stay up for working with you on that.”
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Ethics committee finds possible trigger to analyze if Colorado Home member broke guidelines
Colorado state Rep. Ron Weinberg will face extra scrutiny for allegations of unethical habits following a vote of his friends Wednesday morning.
The Home Ethics Committee discovered possible trigger to additional examine two out of six allegations filed in opposition to Weinberg, a Loveland Republican, by fellow GOP Rep. Brandi Bradley. One surviving declare includes allegations that he copied or in any other case misused a grasp key that would entry any of the places of work of his fellow legislators and that he used the important thing to enter a minimum of one member’s area.
The opposite still-active declare by Bradley alleges that Weinberg made sexually suggestive and inappropriate feedback to her and others on a number of events.
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Colorado Senate passes measure that may permit folks to sue ICE brokers for constitutional violations
The state Senate accepted a measure Tuesday that may permit Coloradans to sue federal brokers in the event that they believed their constitutional rights have been violated throughout immigration enforcement.
The Democrat-backed measure, Senate Invoice 5, handed the chamber 20-11 on a party-line vote. It nonetheless must cross the Home earlier than it goes to Gov. Jared Polis for consideration.
SB-5 is a part of a trio of payments run by Democrats this 12 months that immigrant-rights advocates hope will assist insulate the state from what they see as federal overreach. If it turns into legislation, the invoice will set up a authorized proper to sue brokers in state courts for folks whose constitutional rights are violated throughout immigration enforcement actions.
“Home windows are getting smashed in automobiles in Alamosa, and glass is raining down on kids,” Sen. Mike Weissman, an Aurora Democrat who sponsored the invoice, stated throughout debate Monday. “… 5-foot-2, middle-aged ladies are being thrown to the bottom and pinned down by federal officers in Durango. Brokers with generic uniforms that say ‘sheriff’ or ‘police’ are strolling round northwest Aurora, my district.”
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Lawmakers tackle Huge Information, housing payments, ICE legal responsibility within the Colorado legislature this week
Welcome to a different Monday within the state Capitol, people. Lawmakers are settling in for every week of housing debates and efforts to restrict the sharing of Huge Information.
However first, the Senate is ready to have the primary flooring debate and vote at the moment on Senate Invoice 5. The measure is the primary of Democrats’ trident of immigration payments, and it will permit Coloradans to file lawsuits in opposition to federal brokers if residents are injured by these brokers throughout immigration enforcement operations.
The invoice was one of many first measures launched this session, and it cleared its first committee earlier this month on a party-line vote. It’s more likely to cross the complete Senate, too, and at the moment’s vote is the primary of two it’ll want earlier than it may transfer to the Home.
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