President Donald Trump’s administration had just placed more than 50 Colorado cities and counties on a list of that, it claimed, were “deliberately obstructing the enforcement of federal immigration laws and endangering American citizens.” Their inclusion on the list shocked some local officials and sent them scrambling — since many hadn’t passed pro-immigrant policies or ordinances.

Jeff Small, a consultant for the 76 Group, a prominent Denver-based conservative public affairs firm, offered a way out. In emails to the elected leaders of at least five Colorado counties on the list, Small quoted media reports about targeted counties losing millions of dollars in grant funding.

For a “one-time low payment,” he wrote on May 31, he could use his expertise and “extensive relationships” with the White House and federal law enforcement agencies to “swiftly” get the counties off the list.

The pitch went to commissioners in at least Jefferson and Arapahoe counties in suburban Denver, as well as Clear Creek, Gunnison and Chaffee counties in the mountains. The offer shocked and confused the commissioners who received it, six of them told The Denver Post on Thursday.

All said they’d never received an email like it during their time in office. Three of them likened it to a shakedown.

“I’ve been in elected office for almost 20 years now, between the legislature and this,” said Andy Kerr, . “When I received this email, I was floored. Flabbergasted. I saw it as the single most corrupt shakedown attempt that I’ve ever experienced, personally, in Colorado politics.”

Leslie Summey, the chair of , said she took the email to be Small’s attempt “to get some money, and he has figured out this new niche to get it.” Jeffco Commissioner Rachel ZenzingerĚýthought it was “a shakedown or fraud or a joke.”

None of those who spoke with The Post accepted Small’s offer, and it’s unclear how much he intended to charge. His pitch to the five counties — where Democrats either occupy all the commissioner seats or have a board majority — soon became a moot point: shortly after it was released.

In a statement early Thursday evening, Small said that after the jurisdiction list was published, he “moved quickly to help get two Colorado counties removed and attempted to help others before the list was taken down on June 1st. With hundreds of millions in federal grants potentially at risk for Colorado counties, I wanted to help.”

In a follow-up text, he said he’d helped remove El Paso and Weld counties from the list shortly after it was released.

Jennifer Finch, a spokeswoman for Weld County, said in an email Friday that the county commissioners were “not aware of work Jeff may have done on this topic.” One commissioner said he’d received a text from Small about the list, but that was only after U.S. Reps. Lauren Boebert and Gabe Evans had contacted the board and let them know the county had been removed.

In a statement early Friday evening, El Paso County spokeswoman Natalie Sosa disputed Small’s characterization of his help to the county as “blatantly false.”

“While Jeff Small attempted to contact one Commissioner, no member of this Board directed Jeff Small to take any action regarding El Paso County’s removal from the sanctuary jurisdiction list. El Paso County did not request, receive, or process any payments related to this issue,” Sosa wrote.

As for the shakedown allegations, Small said in another statement that he was “sorry anyone felt that way. That definitely was not my intention. I tried to help three counties pro bono.”

Consultant, claiming White House backing, called Colorado clerks to gain access to voting machines

Details of Small's offer to the commissioners surfaced soon after several election officials told The Post in recent days that he had reached out to Republican county clerks last week. Small sought third-party access to voting equipment on behalf of the White House and as part of a Trump executive order seeking to overhaul elections.

Like their commissioner colleagues several weeks before, the clerks were taken aback by Small's outreach, and none agreed to his request.

Small, who lives in the Washington, D.C., area, joined the 76 Group, a Colorado consulting and lobbying firm, earlier this year. He was previously chief of staff for Boebert of Colorado and had been appointed to the U.S. Department of the Interior during Trump's first administration.

Josh Penry, the 76 Group's founder, referred a comment request to Small.

Small sent the emails on May 31, two days after the Department of Homeland Security published the list of targeted cities and counties.

His email, some of the commissioners said, seemed to suggest that he had influence over the list's contents before it was publicly unveiled. He wrote that he'd already prevented current "county clients" from ending up on the list and that he'd also "successfully helped remove multiple other counties."

"It seemed like Mr. Small had more time to think about the sanctuary list and the executive order attached to it than I had," said Commissioner George Marlin of . "It¶¶Ňőap not the way that government-to-government relations usually works."

, Small began lobbying on behalf of Douglas and Mesa counties nearly three months before the jurisdiction list was published. Neither of those counties was on the list, though both had resolutions .

Boebert told The Post in late May that she'd successfully removed Douglas County from the list prior to its publication.

Small said he was involved in keeping the two counties off the list, too.

"I didn't control the decision and I never saw a preview of the list -- but I made the case for those counties," he wrote in a text to The Post.

Abe Laydon, the chair of , did not return a voicemail seeking comment Thursday. On Friday morning, a spokeswoman for Mesa County government said she was not immediately able to comment. She also directed The Post to file a public records request.

For those counties that stayed on the list during its short life, its makeup befuddled some commissioners, who didn't understand why they were included. Kristin Stephens, a commissioner in Larimer County who didn't receive Small's email, said she and her colleagues had been surprised to see their county on it.

But, she said, she learned through word of mouth how they might get Larimer removed.

"My understanding was that counties on the list were counties that hadn't done a resolution to say they weren't a sanctuary county or city," Stephens said. "But I also understood that if you called the right person and your county was of the right persuasion, you could get off the list."

Zenzinger said she and her colleagues in Jeffco dismissed Small's email after the list was rescinded. But word had spread among other county commissioners. Routt County Commissioner Sonja Macys, who didn't receive Small's email but heard about it, laughed when asked about it this week by The Post.

"Oh, that guy," she said. "The one that's going to get you off the list?"

Leading the push are Denver City Councilman and Jefferson County Commissioner Andy Kerr, who last year revived the long-discussed project they say will open travel to Jefferson County parks and public sites to all people — not just those with cars or concert tickets — while cutting traffic and harmful carbon emissions.

“We want to create an amenity that runs all day and into the evening,” Kerr said. He noted that the W Line RTD Light Rail service from downtown Denver’s Union Station to Jefferson County ends too early at night to help Red Rocks concert travel, at least for now.

“Jefferson County also has four different open space parks right in this area, the city of Lakewood has several, Denver has some, and all of these fit into what we’re trying to do,” he added.

Watson wasn’t available to comment for this story.

Under the proposal, concertgoers and other visitors would travel by light rail along the RTD W Line to its end at the domed Jefferson County Government Center in Golden. From there, vans or buses would ferry riders about three miles to Red Rocks and back.

Kerr plans to apply for a $1 million partner grant from RTD that would pay for the next three years of potential service. However, RTD has proposed changes to its operations over the last year that might complicate the service, The Denver Post has reported, including reducing hours due to low ridership.

“Even if we’re just talking about Red Rocks, you’ve got hundreds of employees out there every single day in the summer, and for the most part, they have to drive their cars out there too early or too late for public transportation,” Kerr said.

Denver has owned Red Rocks since 1927 and in 1941 opened the public amphitheater, which ranks among the nation’s highest-volume outdoor concert venues. Nearly one million people a year attend concerts at Red Rocks, and two million a year visit the surrounding park for hiking and picnics.

“We’re very much trying to get people from downtown Denver who don’t get into our mountains, even though they’re just 15 miles away,” Kerr said, noting a partnership with , which for the last decade has advocated for public transportation to Red Rocks and other mountain parks as a matter of social justice. “It quickly became apparent this wasn’t just about shows, but running, hiking, biking, and family activities at Dinosaur Ridge, Apex Park and for example.”

Despite not being able to run a pilot program this summer — Kerr said the elements didn’t come together quickly enough — he hopes to do a brief test in September with RTD’s blessing. He’s working closely with RTD and cities such as Lakewood, Golden and Morrison to make sure that all parties benefit from the direct and ancillary tourism spending, visits and environmental benefits of fewer car emissions.

After securing funding, Kerr is hopeful the program can be tested across three to four months of the 2026 Red Rocks concert season.

As you’re finishing your ballot, we’ve got links that can help: How to vote mindfully for judges up for retention, explainers on Proposition 131 (ranked choice voting) and Proposition 127 (mountain lion and bobcat hunting), and deeper dives into the 4th Congressional District race (Lauren Boebert vs. Trisha Calvarese), Denver Initiated Ordinance 309 (slaughterhouse ban) and issues like abortion (Amendment 79).

So Wood, a Republican, has thrown his hat in the ring to run for the county commission.

“We don’t feel like we get representation out here,” said the 41-year-old California native, who has grown industrial hemp on his farm for several years. “We see one-party politics in this state, and everyone’s sick of it.”

But his quest to join local government by challenging District 5’s Democratic incumbent, Lynn Baca, will be a slog: Democrats outnumber Republicans by some 33,000 registered voters in Adams County, and its five-member board of commissioners currently consists of all Democrats.

It’s a common problem for metro Denver Republicans seeking leadership positions in county government. Democrats have increasingly dominated several of Colorado’s most populous counties — including Adams, Arapahoe and Jefferson — in recent election cycles after Republicans long had enjoyed an edge on most suburban counties’ boards.

Republicans are eyeing Colorado’s plentiful pool of unaffiliated voters for that push to victory — and in two counties, they’re hoping to capitalize on local tax measures on the ballot to help make their case for more conservatism.

Natalie Menten, a fiscal hawk who served as a Regional Transportation District director for several years, is gunning for Democratic Commissioner Andy Kerr’s seat next month in Jefferson County. Despite her GOP label, she sees a path to the board in a county where Democrats outnumber Republicans by 26,000 registered voters.

A victory, she said, will come from the nearly 210,000 unaffiliated voters who live in Jefferson County, by far the largest segment of the west suburban county’s electorate.

“I think I have a very good chance to take back that seat as a fiscal conservative,” Menten said. “When we’re talking to the voters about pocketbook issues and tax hikes, it’s a resounding no.”

Menten, 54, said she will pin her fiscal-restraint message on her opposition to Ballot Issue 1A, yet another attempt by the county to get voter permission to keep excess tax revenues above the limits established by Colorado’s Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights, or TABOR. Voters rejected similar measures in 2019 and .

Jefferson County’s TABOR measure would fund road and bridge repairs and would pay for wildfire and flood mitigation and response, addiction and mental health programs and crime prevention programs. Without the retained revenue, the county says it could face budget cuts of more than $12 million next year.

Last year, Jefferson County property taxpayers .

“People may lean blue,” Menten said, “but they are going to go fiscal conservative on ballot issues.”

Outgoing state Sen. Rachel Zenzinger is vying to take over an open Jefferson County commissioner seat in District 1 against Republican Charlie Johnson, a trucker and truck driving instructor.

ZenzingerĚýprides herself on not voting in lockstep with her fellow Democrats all the time. She cites her opposition to a 2023 sweeping land use bill, pushed by Gov. Jared Polis, that failed in the legislature as evidence that she’s not ideologically rigid. (Some elements from that legislation passed the legislature on a second try this year.)

If Jefferson County’s commissioner board ends up with three Democrats after Nov. 5, keeping the same 3-0 political dynamic it has today, Zenzinger said she won’t be afraid to look at different approaches to policy challenges.

“I’m coming in with fresh eyes,” she said. “I might make a different judgment about what we need to do.”

Zenzinger, 49, supports the county’s effort to “de-Bruce,” a colloquialism to describe the process by which governments in Colorado — municipalities, counties or the state itself — ask voters if they can opt out of TABOR’s revenue limits. The term is inspired by conservative firebrand Douglas Bruce, who spearheaded TABOR’s passage three decades ago.

Jefferson County is more than $600 million behind on road repairs and infrastructure improvements, Zenzinger said, and the time has come to de-Bruce.

According to Colorado Counties Inc., 13 of Colorado’s 64 counties haven’t gotten voters’ approval to keep additional TABOR-capped tax revenues, including Broomfield, Delta, Pueblo, Weld, Routt and Arapahoe counties.

Like Jefferson County, Arapahoe County is running a revenue-retention measure on its Nov. 5 ballot. The board currently is made up of four Democrats and one Republican, Jeff Baker.

“Even really conservative counties like Douglas County have passed these measures,” Zenzinger said.

Douglas County remains the lone stronghold for Republicans in metro Denver. It’s there that a mirror-image effort of the one in Adams and Jefferson counties is taking place — to get a Democrat on a board of commissioners that hasn’t had one in 44 years.

Democrat Angela Thomas has taken up that challenge, with an eye to unseating incumbent Republican Commissioner George Teal in District 2. The 65-year-old small business owner, who has called Castle Rock home for five years, said she wants to end the “dysfunction and chaos” on the three-member board.

For several years, Teal and Commissioner Abe Laydon have been at loggerheads with fellow Commissioner Lora Thomas. The dispute culminated last year in Thomas suing her colleagues to recover legal fees to defend herself against investigations she said should never have been launched.

Angela Thomas, who is not related to the current commissioner, says it’s time for peace and productivity on the board. Even if she ends up as the lone Democrat on the dais, that is what she’ll strive for, she said.

“I think it’s important to bring a voice of logic and reason to the process,” Thomas said. “There’s a place in this world for moderation.”

Music and nature lovers who chafe at the traffic jams and parking hassles at might get relief via public shuttles from the westernmost light-rail stop — if RTD can keep the trains running late enough.

A Denver City Council member and a Jefferson County commissioner have joined social justice leaders in pressing for public transportation that ensures easier, safer access to and from the venue near Morrison as well as less air pollution.

Under their proposal, concertgoers and other visitors would travel by light rail along the to its end at the domed Jefferson County Government Center in Golden. From there, vans or buses would ferry riders about 3 miles to Red Rocks and back, starting with a pilot project in 2025. Costs and possible fees haven’t been determined.

“We have our mountain parks to provide access to open space and green space for Denverites. That¶¶Ňőap the premise for our mountain parks. The difficulty is the access,” said , who has been leading the push with .

Denver has owned Red Rocks since 1927 and in 1941 opened the public amphitheater, which ranks among the nation’s highest-volume outdoor concert venues. Nearly 1 million people a year attend concerts at Red Rocks and 2 million a year visit the surrounding park for hiking and picnics.

But RTD plans may complicate their initial approach.

RTD directors this month are mulling service reduction proposals that initially would have ended rail runs on the W Line to and from to Golden after 10 p.m. Sunday through Thursday, before many concerts at Red Rocks end. But the proposal has been revised to continue service through midnight on those days, with less of a reduction. The proposed service changes, though, would maintain weekend service with W Line trains that now run until 1:25 a.m. Friday and Saturday extended to 2 a.m.

At an executive meeting on Thursday, said they’re aware of the efforts to provide public transportation to and from Red Rocks. RTD said there are no plans by RTD to extend service.

However, board member Michael Guzman said he sees potential for helping to boost RTD’s lagging ridership, suggesting service reduction on the W line should be reconsidered carefully to allow for a role in helping residents reach Red Rocks.

Ending rail service early “might not be beneficial to helping our riders,” Guzman told fellow directors at the meeting. “Engaging in the conversation and trying to understand what Jefferson County and Denver are doing would be the most beneficial and potentially increase ridership.”

A Red Rocks public access project also could help reach RTD goals of decreasing emissions of heat-trapping greenhouse gases by giving metro residents new options “so that we are not taking individual trips up to Red Rocks and can utilize the public transit system that has been placed through Golden and back to Denver for concertgoers,” he said.

In Jefferson County, Morrison and other communities have been deluged with vehicle traffic before and after concerts as music lovers try to reach the 868-acre park and its sandstone outcrops, where the Rocky Mountains meet the high plains.

Jeffco Commissioner Kerr rides his bicycle in the area and documented peak traffic congestion in photos.

“The entire valley is at a standstill, jam-packed, like Interstate 25 through Denver during rush hour,” he said. “What we’re proposing would help the situation. People could leave their cars at home and take a train and bus.”

RTD wouldn’t be directly involved at first.

“We’ve talked to RTD about what we are thinking about,” Kerr said. “We’re talking about centering this at an RTD station, the Jeffco Government Center at the end of the W Line. And we are not shutting them out. But we know we cannot wait for them either. We want to move ahead. We need to move ahead with a pilot program that is not based on RTD at this point.”

For a decade in central Denver, has been advocating for public transportation to Red Rocks and other mountain parks as a matter of social justice.

“This would open thousands of acres to urban dwellers,” he said. RTD reduction of rail service “would not be helpful for concertgoers but I don’t think that would stop this,” he said, suggesting transit routes to the as an option.

Jeffco officials in 2020 published a plan for ferrying rail riders to and from multiple foothills attractions, including the , and , before shelving it due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“More than 90% are using cars,” Watson said. “Our focus, first, is the concerts. And we expect to have a pilot project by next (2025) summer.”

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It took 15 years, but that two-lane road from McIntyre Street to the Coors brewery is finally being widened, something Bike Jeffco and other Front Range cyclists have been advocating since before Shahram Moghadamnia was killed while on a 50-mile ride in April of 2008.

West 32nd is a popular route favored by Denver cyclists bound for Lookout Mountain and other destinations in and along the foothills, but the section where Moghadamnia was killed had little or no bike lane. Other dangers included multiple blind turns, dips, rises, shadows cast by tall cottonwoods and heavy truck traffic to and from the enormous Molson Coors plant. The speed limit is 20 mph and is widely flouted.

A ghost bike still stands in memorial to Moghadamnia, who was 53 and the father of two teenagers when he died. He was an engineer at Coors who liked to ride up Lookout Mountain on his lunch breaks.

“If there is any way through this tragedy that we can make West 32nd Avenue a safer place through those tight turns, Shahram would be all in favor,” his wife said two weeks after his death.

Last month she marked the 15th anniversary of his passing. A week later, she learned the road finally is being widened to include four-foot paved shoulders, Moghadamnia was thrilled.

“I had no idea it was finally happening,” Moghadamnia said. “Oh my gosh. I’m so excited, it¶¶Ňőap really good news. It was a long time coming, and I’m delighted to hear that. Bike Jeffco, I can’t even imagine what their feelings and thoughts and reactions are.”

Mike Raber, a spokesman for Bike Jeffco, said improving that section of roadway has long been one of the group’s “critical” advocacy objectives.

“We’ve been working on this probably since 2002, 2005,” Raber said. “We’ve always had that as one of the top priority projects.”

Jeffco says the project is about 80% complete, with the finishing touches expected in June.

Andy Kerr, a Jefferson County commissioner, called it “very overdue.” Kerr is a former state legislator, an avid cyclist and a member of the Bicycle Colorado board of directors.

“Even before I ever rode it on a bike, I drove it in a car, and I’ve driven it when cyclists are using it,” Kerr said. “It has been an intimidating place to get through, whether you’re in a car or on a bike. There’s not a lot of space there for different vehicles to get through safely, but hopefully with all of the work that¶¶Ňőap going into it, it will be more welcoming and safer for cyclists to use.”

The fix wasn’t as simple as adding a few extra feet of asphalt on the edges of the road. There is a steep hillside on the south side of the road and an irrigation ditch in places on the north side, so the roadbed needed to be built out in spots.

“There are so many places where you can put down extra asphalt on the shoulder to widen a road,” Kerr said. “You couldn’t do that there. It was much more involved.”

According to a post on the Jefferson County website:

“The project includes modification of West 32nd Avenue to a standard roadway template with the installation of four-foot paved shoulders, mill and overlay of the roadway surface, and restriping of the travel lanes. Construction will also involve necessary work for the paved shoulder widening which includes clearing and grubbing (removing vegetation and pulling roots), removal of necessary trees along the north side of the roadway for grading activities, realignment of portions of the existing irrigation ditch, and installation of retaining walls and guardrail.”

A section of the road currently under construction is limited to one lane with alternating travel controlled by traffic signals and flaggers.

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Stapleton sees the program — which returned more money during his tenure than all previous years combined — as one of his better known successes. Democrats, however, hope to turn that popularity against him by convincing voters the program has been mismanaged and the two-term treasurer is to blame.

The Great Colorado Payback started in 1989 as a way to tell people about all the unclaimed property the state keeps, such as the contents of forgotten safe deposit boxes and bank accounts. The division didn’t do much advertising until Democrat Cary Kennedy became treasurer and started running television ads.

When Stapleton took office in 2010, he established a tradition of timing his TV ads with March Madness, the spring college basketball tournament. And that’s when things took off.

The program grew from about 60,000 claims per year to nearly 140,000 in 2017, spokeswoman Rachel George said. The size of the staff and its methods for processing claims, however, remained the same. The result was a mess.

“This will be my fourth request to you since my initial email on July 19 to Erin to resolve the pending claim …,” Courtney Smith wrote in a September 2017 email to a Great Colorado Payback employee. “The last time I received a response from you was on September 5 in which you said you would touch base with me the following day. It is now the 24th of September.”

Another email came from a grandmother named Dianne Ehalt who wrote the office in October 2016 to complain that she had been waiting more than a year and a half for the program to send her $10,000. She wanted to use part of the money for her granddaughter’s education.

“Well, she is struggling without this assistance,” Ehalt wrote. “What is going on???”

The Denver Post reviewed emails sent to the program in 2016, 2017 and 2018. These emails detailed the frustrations of dozens of people who said they had sent two, three and even four unreturned requests for updates about their claims. Seven of those complainants wrote that they had been waiting more than a year.

In July, three Democrats from Colorado’s Senate pointed to previously published emails as proof of the program’s alleged mismanagement. They wrote to the Legislative Audit Committee and asked its members to investigate the unclaimed property office.

“This is not good government, and clearly signifies a department that needs to be held accountable for improving their policies and internal procedures,” according to the letter from Sens. Andy Kerr of Lakewood, Rhonda Fields of Aurora and Kerry Donovan of Vail.

The letter came less than 100 days before Colorado voters pick their next governor, and its accusations fit into a larger political narrative of incompetency Democrats hope to create around the Republican candidate.

Stapleton and his team believe changes they have made over the last two years tell a different story.

“From our perspective, we have made a lot of progress,” he told The Denver Post. “It’s been a long odyssey to try to improve the performance of that department over many months and years.”

Stapleton and others in his office said efforts to fix problems with the unclaimed property division started in 2016.

Those changes started at the top.

“I think that over decades of service the mentality of the leadership over there became unresponsive …,” said Deputy Treasurer Ryan Parsell. “When they got so many calls that their voicemail broke, the solution wasn’t ‘Well, maybe we need to be doing something to get a better return call policy.’ It was ‘We need a bigger voicemail box so it doesn’t break.’ ”

Stapleton picked a new leader for the program in 2017 and changed how the job was classified.

“If the person running the program is not doing a good job, they can be fired and replaced whereas previously that was not easy to do,” said George, the agency’s spokeswoman.

Employees spent five months converting from a paper system to a digital one, which now allows people to file supporting documents electronically. The treasurer’s office partnered with a background check company to automatically verify the identity of people whose claims are $100 or less. They even got a new phone system.

“I don’t think it’s a story of perfection,” George said. “But it is a good story of success.”

Stapleton still has things he wants to change. State law requires a notary to verify someone’s identity if his or her claim is worth more than $100. He thinks that limit should be higher, and he’s interested in exploring possibly more modern methods for verifying who people are.

“I’m very happy to see they’re taking this seriously,” Sen. Donovan said. “I wish it would have been taken seriously day one when the office was put under control of Walker Stapleton.”

Change in government happens slowly, Stapleton said. It took more than a year to change job classifications for employees in that department. He also doesn’t think there’s “an appetite” to hire more people to process claims.

Colorado’s unclaimed property division has 14 employees. Utah’s division employs half as many people to process about 15 percent of the claims that Colorado does. Iowa processes about 35 percent as many claims with a staff of 11.5 full-time employees.

“My job is to try and be as effective and efficient with the resources I’m given,” Stapleton said.

He isn’t worried about being audited, either.

“We welcome an audit,” Stapleton said. “We want to make sure that the department is continuing to improve, so we measure that improvement.”

The State Auditor’s Office started laying the groundwork for a performance audit at the beginning of 2018, but it had to postpone those plans because other audits had priority.

“We are probably the only people in the state who were sad when the auditors weren’t going to look at our stuff anymore,” Parsell said.

The deputy treasurer contacted the auditor’s office in June — more than a month before Democrats penned their letter — to ask to get back on the schedule.

That was news to Donovan.

She told The Denver Post she wouldn’t have signed the letter asking for an audit if she had known one was already in process.

The Treasurer’s Office said all she had to do was ask.

The opponents, including media representatives, point to past reporting projects that relied in part on autopsy reports to hold child-protection officials accountable for failing to protect abused children who died. They also say could complicate efforts to shed light on other issues, such as the opioid epidemic, or fatal shootings of juveniles by police and even potential flaws in police homicide investigations.

Steven Zansberg, a lawyer who has represented The Denver Post and other media outlets in open-records litigation, said the effort to close public access to all autopsy reports for minors is an overreach. He pointed out that Colorado courts already recognize that unique and extraordinary circumstances can justify the withholding of autopsy reports. Coroners can petition a court for an order exempting release of autopsies if they believe it would be against public interest, the courts have ruled.

“To create a new categorical exemption for all autopsy reports of minors is not only unnecessary and overboard, it is a disservice to the public interest,” Zansberg said in an e-mail. He added that the state’s Colorado Open Records Act “provides a strong presumption of access to such reports so that the public can hold its public servants, county coroners and other public officials who review such reports, accountable.”

County coroners are pushing the legislation, which already has passed the state Senate, and is now scheduled for consideration by the House Judiciary committee and then potentially the full House. Sen. Bob Gardner, a Republican of Colorado Springs, introduced the bill.

The coroners say they’re concerned that continuing to allow the public to access autopsy reports of minors will end up violating the privacy of families.

“Anytime when you have a death is bad, but when that death involves a child or a teenager or an infant and particularly when that death involves trauma of some kind, I don’t care whether it’s a drug overdose, a suicide, a homicide, a car accident — all those are very traumatic to families,” Robert Bux, the El Paso county coroner, said in testimony to legislators. “One of the problems is the families feel stigmatized.”

Bux said the coroners also fear that publicly disclosing details of suicides and homicides could result in copycats. Media representatives dispute that contention and say sealing autopsy reports of minors from public view would make it impossible for the public to judge and assess the work of coroners themselves and sometimes that of law enforcement.

The work of the in the 1996 murder of 6-year-old child beauty queen JonBenĂ©t Ramsey in Boulder became controversial and generated criticism in a case in which police and prosecution tactics were questioned, they point out. Extensive legal battles also were waged over the sealing of Columbine High School killer Dylan Klebold’s autopsy report amid questions over whether Eric Harris, Klebold’s accomplice in the 1999 massacre, had fired the shot that killed him. Eventually, Klebold’s parents, Tom and Sue, brought an end to the court battle and allowed the release of the autopsy report, which did little to detract or advance the theory that Harris killed Klebold.

The legislation on the autopsy reports passed the state Senate last week, with dissenting votes only from Sen. Kerry Donovan, D-Vail; Sen. Andy Kerr, D-Lakewood; and Sen. John Kefalas, D-Fort Collins.

The Post and KUSA 9News relied on autopsiesĚýto shed light on problems in the state’s child protective system in 2012. The newspaper reviewed the autopsy reports of 72 children who had died from abuse or neglect and whose cases had been known by child protective workers before the deaths.

The series uncovered issues ranging from a lack of cooperation between police and case workers, to disparities in funding and a lack of coordination between county and state officials. It spurred reform, including the creation of a statewide hotline, the hiring of more child protective workers, new training and an increase in funding.

The Post also reviewed autopsy reports when controversy flared over the January 2015 fatal shooting by Denver police of Jessica Hernandez in an alleyway. Those reports shed light on how many shots were fired by police. City officials ended up agreeing to a $1 million settlement to avoid costly litigation from her family over that fatality.

A found that 26 states had statutes that directly addressed disclosure of autopsy reports. Of those states, 15 generally favored disclosure of autopsies with minor restrictions, while 11 had barred disclosure of autopsies, the review found.

Reporters in other states also have used autopsy reports to detail controversial issues of public interest. The Los Angeles Times Ěýin 2012 after reviewing autopsy reports in 3,733 fatalities in opioid overdose deaths. That review showed drugs prescribed by physicians caused or contributed to nearly half of those deaths, dispelling the myth that pharmacy robberies, the black market and teenage pill poppers were behind a surge in overdoses.

Advocates of the legislation stress that exemptions have been carved out to allow the state’s child fatality review team to access autopsies of minors. Law enforcement officials and prosecutors also would continue to be able to review those autopsies as well as defendants and their lawyers if the bill is signed into law. The parents of children also would be able to access the autopsies by filing a written request they have signed under penalty of perjury.

Still, the exemptions do little to allay the fears of open-records advocates and reporters.

“The Denver Post showed five years ago that those reports are extremely useful in covering issues of abused children,” said Jeffrey Roberts, the executive director of the Colorado Freedom of Information Coalition.

“They are trying to protect the privacy of families,” said Roberts, a former reporter for the newspaper. “I get that in certain circumstances, but what about the child who was abused and is dead? Who speaks for that child? How is the public going to know what happened if you can’t see the records?”

“There will be other ways and other times to make the case for change. I set out to make an argument about the future — not to challenge Ed,” said Baer in prepared remarks.

He added he would “work hard to get Ed re-elected” in a race where Republicans have yet to offer a serious opponent.

Among Democrats, Baer was the still in the race after three other contenders for the Ěý— state Sens. Andy Kerr and Dominick Moreno and state Rep. Brittany Pettersen — soon after Perlmutter got back into it.

Baer’s exit likely puts a cap on what could have been a big battle for Colorado’s 7th Congressional District.

The drama began this spring, when Perlmutter .

But after only a few months – and the entry of fellow Democratic congressman Jared Polis – Perlmutter dropped his bid and said he wouldn’t run for re-election for Congress either.

At the time, he cited a lack of “.”

Perlmutter’s departure from politics, however, proved temporary, and in August .

The decision led to the quick withdrawal of Kerr, Moreno and Pettersen, but Baer stuck around — motivated perhapsĚý.

Perhaps we feel overly stung by Perlmutter’s move, as we were among those in regretful reflection last month when he said he was stepping aside.

“For nearly 20 years, Coloradans have benefited from the public service of Ed Perlmutter,” we noted, adding that his Washington exit “comes as sad news indeed.”

What happened here is understandable enough in the too-often cynical world of politics. Perlmutter wanted to run for governor, and he became an early entrant to next spring’s Democratic primary. When his congressional colleague from Boulder, Jared Polis, entered the race, Perlmutter felt the fear of many others who have watched the multimillionaire overwhelm the field with campaign funds from his own deep pockets.

Perlmutter said he no longer had the fire in the belly needed to run, and no doubt the country’s dysfunction can be more than dispiriting. He also based his decision on the baseball field shooting of Republican congressional members, including his friend Rep. Steve Scalise, R-La. The tragedy sadly harkens back to the grocery store shooting of former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., which also rattled Perlmutter, known for holding constituent meetings in grocery stores.

But the lure of elected office in such a powerful institution proved too great to resist, though Perlmutter argues his turnabout comes from “many meaningful conversations with friends, neighbors, supporters and family” who have encouraged him to run again.

The problem for Perlmutter is that while he was in the gubernatorial sweepstakes, rising Democratic stars in the left-leaning district stepped in, among them state Sens. Andy Kerr and Dominick Moreno and Rep. Brittany Pettersen. At the beginning of this month, Daniel Baer, a former Obama administration diplomat, also joined the hunt.

The candidates had every reason to expect an open race, and they had been raising money and support. Now Kerr, Moreno and Pettersen are out, and their political futures somewhat uncertain. Baer is considering his options.

Yes, the incumbent apologized to the up-and-comers, but his words surely are cold comfort.

The upside, of course, is that Colorado retains a representative we have long supported and who has a proven track record for useful public service.

As retired Colorado College political science professor Bob Loevy notes, aside from Congresswoman Diana DeGette of Denver, our state doesn’t have other long-serving members and the benefits that come with extended leadership.

“From Colorado’s point of view, I think it¶¶Ňőap good that he’s coming back into the race,” Loevy said.

Politicians routinely change their minds about races. It¶¶Ňőap common for someone to assert in unequivocal terms that he or she has no interest in pursuing office, only later to be convinced by transformation on the playing field.

But the bottom line here is that Perlmutter stumbled badly in handling this decision from the start. We hope he’s got enough fire in the belly to regain the public’s trust.

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