Tales beneath the video
@nickcoltrain Colorado legislature week in overview: $18 million in overpayment, former senator is convicted of felonies, Democrats purpose at enviornment costs. DenverPost.com @JHB #copolitics #coleg
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Colorado lawmakers log out on jail funding after delay, however renew demand for overcrowding plan
Colorado lawmakers voted Wednesday to ship hundreds of thousands of {dollars} to the state’s overcrowded jail system, one week after a key committee rejected the funds and demanded that Gov. Jared Polis present a plan to launch extra eligible inmates.
No plan has but materialized, however lawmakers on the Joint Price range Committee mentioned they have been swayed by security considerations within the prisons and county jails — and by a brand new willingness from Polis’ workers to debate jail overcrowding. The committee voted to totally fund funds to jails, which have housed some offenders as a backup, and for medical funds.
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For years, Colorado Medicaid mistakenly paid a program’s suppliers a number of occasions an excessive amount of — costing hundreds of thousands
In November, Colorado Medicaid officers corrected a mistake.
5 years earlier, they’d advised contracted transportation suppliers in metro Denver to invoice the state as if the suppliers have been specialty ambulances. By 2022, these suppliers — who transported sufferers utilizing massive wheelchairs — have been billing the state for greater than $640 for each pick-up. By 2025, the speed elevated extra, to just about $669.
In actuality, the pick-ups ought to have value $65, legislative workers advised lawmakers Tuesday.
“This simply looks as if — what?” mentioned Sen. Judy Amabile, a Boulder Democrat, citing the ultimate distinction. “We paid 10 occasions what we have been speculated to pay?”
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New Colorado crimson flag regulation growth — permitting extra folks to hunt a gun-removal order — clears first hurdle
A proposal to once more develop Colorado’s crimson flag regulation cleared its first hurdle within the state Senate on Tuesday.
The regulation, which permits judges to concern excessive threat safety orders, now permits relations, regulation enforcement, well being care professionals and educators to petition the courts to require folks to give up their firearms quickly. The decide should discover the individual to be a threat to themselves or others.
Senate Invoice 4 would develop that checklist of petitioners to incorporate behavioral well being professionals who’re co-responders with police or different authorities in emergencies, in addition to well being care and academic establishments.
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Colorado lawmaker drops defamation lawsuit in opposition to girls who accused him of sexual harassment
A Colorado legislator has dropped a defamation lawsuit he filed in opposition to two girls who accused him of sexual harassment.
Rep. Ron Weinberg and the 2 girls, Jacqueline Anderson and Heather Sales space, agreed to finish the go well with in a Friday joint submitting that was submitted per week earlier than all three events have been set to testify in court docket. The dismissal was accepted by a decide later that day.
No settlement or confidentiality agreements have been a part of the joint submitting, Anderson mentioned in an interview.
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Are stadium meals and beer costs too excessive? Colorado lawmakers unveil payments focusing on prices.
Colorado Democrats unveiled a trio of proposals Monday geared toward wrenching down rising costs that they blamed on company greed — and at forestalling newer makes an attempt at various pricing for various prospects.
The proposals embrace a measure that may require worth transparency for what is perhaps thought-about “captive shoppers,” together with at sporting occasions or airports. One other would prohibit wholesalers from giving preferential pricing to massive teams. And a 3rd would ban firms from utilizing shoppers’ private information to set costs or wages.
“Affordability isn’t this summary idea. Everybody has skilled the $20 beer at a Nuggets recreation, the $10 water on the airport or the $80 Tylenol on the emergency room,” state Rep. Yara Zokaie, a Fort Collins Democrat, mentioned throughout a information convention on the state Capitol. “When individuals are pressured to pay extra, just because they’re trapped, that isn’t the free market. It’s exploitation.”
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Colorado lawmakers categorical anger over killing of Alex Pretti in Minneapolis as legislature prepares for first invoice debates
Ninety-nine payments have been launched within the Colorado legislature within the 2026 session’s first dozen days. This week, legislators will start debating a number of of them.
However this morning’s proceedings started first with lawmakers addressing the deadly capturing of Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old intensive care nurse, by a U.S. Border Patrol agent throughout an immigration enforcement operation in Minneapolis on Saturday. Pretti’s mother and father reside in Arvada, and Renee Good — who was shot and killed by an immigration agent earlier this month — additionally had Colorado connections.
The bulk Democrats in each chambers began with feedback from the ground criticizing Pretti’s killing.
“We’re offended, heartsick and scared,” Home Speaker Julie McCluskie mentioned.
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Colorado Democrats float huge modifications geared toward reforming revenue taxes and unleashing state spending
A pair of measures that Democrats are aiming to put on the November poll would considerably alter the inspiration of Colorado’s tax code, upending the Taxpayer’s Invoice of Rights.
Taken alone, both of the 2 proposals — a graduated revenue tax that requires the rich to pay extra and one other that raises the state’s spending cap dramatically — would symbolize a basic change to the state’s inflexible tax construction. Taken collectively, the measures ask voters to reimagine how taxes are collected and spent.
The potential advantages would go to schooling, particularly, in addition to to well being care, youngster care and a slew of different state companies that Democrats say have been shortchanged by a system that has been largely untouched for practically 20 years.
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