Sixth Judicial District Attorney Sean Murray is one of just a few prosecutors across the country who have pursued criminal charges against federal agents for their actions during the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.

On Tuesday, he filed misdemeanor assault and petty offense criminal mischief charges against U.S. Customs and Border Protection Officer Nicholas Rice.

Murray told The Denver Post on Thursday that he did not consider that broader political landscape when he filed the case.

“Affirmatively no,” he said. “I tried to set that aside. I don’t think it is relevant to that decision-making process.”

He was aware of the political implications, he added, and he did consider federal statutes and federal use-of-force guidelines as he considered the case. Politics, though, didn’t factor into the decision-making, he said.

“At the end of the day, it shouldn’t matter, as long as there is an analysis about supremacy clause immunity,” he said, referencing the broad legal protections federal agents have when acting in the course of their official duties.

“It is a slightly different posture, procedurally, than a typical case when someone can’t claim that,” he said. “So there is an added layer of analysis to the charging decision in that regard. But I think it¶¶Ňőap incumbent upon state and local prosecutors to enforce the criminal code.”

Murray emphasized that all defendants are considered innocent unless and until proven guilty, and declined to discuss the specifics of the case against Rice.

The began investigating the case in October at the request of Durango police Chief Brice Current in the wake of a widely-circulated video that showed a masked federal officer snatch protester Franci Stagi’s phone, drag her across a street and throw her to the ground during an at a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Durango.

Stagi, a retired hypnotherapist, said she reached for the officer’s shoulder to get his attention after she lost her phone. She said he put her in a chokehold and threw her down an embankment next to the street. She said she still experiences pain in her arm while doing everyday activities, like putting on her jacket.

“It did open my eyes to how quickly I can be under someone else’s control, and it¶¶Ňőap frightening,” said Stagi, whose legal name is Anne Francesca Stagi.

The Justice Department has taken a hard line against state efforts to arrest or prosecute federal agents, citing the broad legal protections. Late last year, U.S. Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said arrests of federal officers performing their duties would be “illegal and futile,” citing the Constitution’s supremacy clause and federal law.

Legal experts say those protections are significant but not absolute and that the supremacy clause does not provide blanket immunity.

In a statement on the Colorado charges, a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees U.S. Customs and Border Protection, said states do not have the authority to investigate such cases.

“Federal officers acting in the course of their duties can only be investigated by other Federal agencies,” the statement read.

The department said it was still investigating what happened in the incident.

Murray said Thursday he expects Rice’s case to move to federal court for the debate on federal immunity. He added he considered that potential defense as he decided whether to bring charges.

Stagi said Wednesday she was disappointed Rice was charged with less serious crimes. The assault charge, a misdemeanor, carries a maximum sentence of just under a year in jail. But she hopes the prosecution sends a message that immigration officers can’t tackle people indiscriminately and use excessive force.

Across the country, at least two other federal agents have been charged with crimes amid the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement effort.

Earlier this month, a federal immigration agent was charged with two counts of second-degree assault by a county prosecutor in Minnesota amid investigations into the actions of several officers during the immigration crackdown in the Minneapolis area.

ICE officer Gregory Donnell Morgan Jr. is accused of pointing his gun at occupants of a car after pulling alongside them on a Minneapolis-area highway. Investigators say Morgan said he feared for his safety after the vehicle swerved in front of him.

Outside Chicago, an off-duty ICE agent has been charged with misdemeanor battery for throwing to the ground a 68-year-old protester who was filming him at a gas station in December. The Homeland Security Department says the agent acted in self-defense.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.Ěý

The 3-2 vote by , in favor of the State Sunlight/Long well pad proposed by Crestone Peak Resources, came after about five hours of testimony and deliberation. The decision ends what had become one of the more contentious battles over energy extraction in Colorado.

Board Chair Jeff Robbins acknowledged that the application from Crestone had evoked a strong reaction from homeowners living nearby. But in the end, the company complied with rigorous state oil and gas regulations enshrined in a law known as Senate Bill 181, which was passed by state lawmakers seven years ago.

“At the end of the day, State Sunlight/Long achieves the balance we were told to look for,” Robbins said.

The two commissioners who voted no were Trisha Oeth and John Messner. The approvals process for the Sunlight/Long well pad encompassed seven hearings before the commission, stretching over several months.

Nearby homeowners rose up in opposition, claiming that the project would pose health hazards to those living nearby — in particular, to school-age children. They also worried about the drilling’s potential environmental impacts on the Aurora Reservoir, which is a water source for the 400,000 residents of Colorado’s third-largest city.

“I cannot believe that the state came down on the side of the industry yet again,” Randy Willard, the president of opposition group , said in an interview minutes after the vote came down Tuesday afternoon. “The group as a whole is severely disappointed.”

The group had pushed back on the proposed project using the 2019 oil and gas reform law as a guide, Willard said.

The 2019 law prioritized public health, safety and the environment when regulators consider oil and gas development — a profound change from the industry-focused approach Colorado had taken for decades.

“We’ve done everything we feel is possible under 181, only to find the industry comes out on top yet again,” Willard said. “I don’t know what else we’re supposed to do.”

In December, the state commission voted 4-1 to put a stay on the project, ordering Crestone to return with a list of alternative sites from which it could drill.

Crestone, a subsidiary of Denver-based SM Energy Company, came back this month with a slimmed-down proposal, knocking down the number of wells at Sunlight/Long from 32 to 24.

The company insisted that after examining 11 other potential sites, most of which were farther away from homes, its preferred site near Aurora’s Southshore neighborhood and the reservoir remained the best place to locate its wells.

Civitas Resources was Crestone’s parent company until late January, .

Jamie Jost, an attorney for Crestone, spoke to the commission during an online hearing Tuesday that, at one point, was attended by nearly 1,000 people. She called the site the “most vetted, most analyzed” location for the pad.

The company said the site would have the least impact on wildlife and waterways across 26,500-acre Lowry Ranch, a stretch of rolling prairie owned by the Colorado State Land Board where Crestone has plans to drill just over 100 wells in total — down from 166 just a couple of years ago.

Dan Harrington, SM Energy’s asset development manager, told the commission that reducing the number of wells at Sunlight/Long would curtail the time needed for drilling and fracking.

“This will reduce operational duration by about 25%,” he testified.

And the scaled-back operation will emit fewer emissions, including of carbon dioxide, nitrogen oxide, volatile organic compounds and methane, the company in favor of its preferred site.

Mike Foote, a former Democratic state lawmaker who represents the neighbor opposition group as its lawyer, testified that Crestone didn’t conduct an honest comparison of alternative sites.

“It found things wrong with everyone else’s suggested sites instead of coming up with something that worked,” he said.

But Nathan Bennett, SM Energy’s director of permitting and compliance, said Crestone looked at other potential locations with an open mind. The company, however, said the alternate sites had problems, with questions raised about whether Xcel Energy could provide electricity to some of them to power electric drilling equipment.

Other locations, the company said, would have required much longer truck trips and called for running pipe over more ecologically sensitive areas.

Commissioner Mike Cross said Crestone’s proposed site for Sunlight/Long was well outside the state’s required 2,000-foot distance buffer from homes. He said the company’s commitment to use quieter and cleaner electric equipment on site was a positive aspect of the project.

“The best practices that we’ve seen from operators in the state, we’ve seen in this application,” he said. “It does meet our rules.”

But Willard, who has been working to defeat the application for nearly two years, said neighbors were already complaining of noise from other Crestone drilling operations on Lowry Ranch. In a presentation that the opposition group ahead of Tuesday’s meeting, the group claimed that more than 40 noise complaints were filed with the agency last month alone.

That, Willard said, will only increase once drilling starts at Sunlight/Long in the coming months.

Polis signed into law administratively on Monday, without a signing ceremony. The law, which takes effect July 1, will require courts to keep records of petitions for a legal name change from public view if the petitioner is younger than 18 at the time of filing.

The law is aimed at protecting the privacy of trans youths and their families.

The original version of the bill also would have directed family court judges to consider a parent’s acceptance of a child’s gender identity when determining custody. That provision, however, was stripped out.

A spokesperson for Polis said at the time that the governor was worried that the provision would be inadvertently harmful to the children and families it sought to protect.

One of the two must-pass bills, the annual budget, is already all but complete. The Joint Budget Committee will meet later this week to review amendments to the spending package and decide which, if any, it will keep. The House and the Senate each adopted several amendments to the budget for the upcoming fiscal year, including measures relating to veteran services and the state’s sexual assault testing kit backlog.

However, the legislature must also pass a balanced budget, and paying for those changes would affect spending in other areas. A final vote to send the budget to Gov. Jared Polis is expected later in the week, setting off the final mad dash of activity under the Gold Dome.

The other must-pass bill, the annual School Finance Act, will also begin its journey this week. That measure, , will be heard in the Senate Education Committee on Monday, its first step toward becoming law.

Scheduled hearings are always subject to change at the Capitol, but here’s what else is on the legislature’s docket.

Tuesday

The full Senate is expected to debate a referred ballot measure that would ask voters this November to exempt education from the state’s spending cap under the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights. In effect, it would free up billions of dollars to spend on general state priorities over the next decade, while funneling more cash to education. is part of a series of proposals from Democrats and liberal groups that would remake state budgeting.

The bill still would need to move through the House before voters may decide on it.

Also on Tuesday, the Senate Finance Committee will hear , a measure that would regulate gaming and sports betting. It is separate from , which also looks to regulate the booming industry. That bill is scheduled for a hearing in the Senate Appropriations Committee on Tuesday morning.

Wednesday

The House Judiciary Committee is set to hear , a measure that would provide the ability to sue to people who have their civil rights violated during immigration enforcement actions. It is one of several bills introduced this year that deals with how immigration enforcement agents operate in the state.

The Senate Local Government and Housing Committee will hear . That bill would make it easier to declare towns abandoned and stems from tumult in the tiny southeast Colorado town of Hartman, which had its entire town government resign.

Thursday

The Senate Local Government and Housing Committee will hear a series of bills aimed at increasing density in cities. would allow people who build an accessory dwelling unit, or so-called “granny flat,” to split that into its own property to sell it separately. would prohibit local governments from setting minimum lot sizes at more than 2,000 square feet.

Also on Thursday, the House Business Affairs and Labor Committee will hear , a proposal to have users to affirm their age on a computing device, which can then be used to prove their age when accessing age-restricted materials online. It is the only surviving measure this year that seeks to enforce online age requirements.

On the same afternoon, the House Energy and Environment Committee will hear , one of two bills whose sponsors seek to regulate data centers. That bill, however, has been subject to some turmoil as backers negotiate changes.

Debbie Fox, a retiree in Arvada, had met some liars on dating apps before.

She thought her defenses were sharp, and she was on the lookout for anything that seemed too good to be true. So when Fox felt a connection with one of her matches, she Googled the man and verified his business filings. She spoke with him regularly for weeks, both on the phone and on video. He showed her his passport.

And then he stole $58,000 from her.

“I was devastated,” Fox said. “My body collapsed to the floor. I couldn’t comprehend this amount of harm that was done to me.”

Fox, who was robbed in 2023, has since become an advocate for stronger protections against fraud — including those proposed in one measure, , that is now moving through the Colorado legislature. That bill would give banks the power to delay certain suspicious transactions made by people who are 70 or older.

A pause like that, Fox says now, would have given her the chance to snap out of the emotional manipulation and would have stopped her victimization in its tracks.

The bipartisan bill has already cleared the House and was unanimously approved by the Senate on Monday. A spokesperson for Gov. Jared Polis says the governor will review the final version when it reaches his desk.

In addition to the delay on transactions, the bill would also require bank employees who handle financial transactions or approve loansĚýto report potential financial exploitation to law enforcement or relevant county agencies. The measure builds off a that requires financial advisers to report possible financial abuse of vulnerable adults.

“Elder abuse is prevalent, and it can be physical or it can be financial,” said Sen. Jessie Danielson, a Wheat Ridge Democrat and sponsor of the bill. “Unfortunately, it is often financial.”

´ˇĚý found that $3.4 billion was stolen through fraud targeting older people in 2023. The FBI reported more than 100,000 complaints from people older than 60 that yearĚý— with Colorado ranking No. 8 in the nation for the number of complaints made, at 2,905.

But the Federal Trade Commission the total value of such fraud may be as high as $61.5 billion, since only a fraction is reported.

“All of these types of scams have one simple solution. And that is delay, delay, delay,” Allan Gordon, an advocate with AARP, testified at a committee hearing on the bill.

In Fox’s case, she said she was “trauma-bonded” by a man who spent weeks trying to find her weakness. A story about an urgent need for short-term loans to keep his business afloat in the fallout of Middle East conflicts cracked her.

Fox still recalls the line that broke her defenses: “Are you telling me you’re in a position to help me, but you won’t?”

She reviewed bank statements and even signed a loan agreement with a person who claimed to be an attorney before making two wire transfers from her retirement account, totaling $58,000.

A third request for money snapped her out of the haze.

She reported the theft, and the money was eventually traced to South Africa — presumably part of an international crime ring. Adding insult to injury, she also had to pay taxes on the withdrawals.

Now, she suspects the thieves would have tried to get her to mortgage her home and take her for all she had. She also believes, she said, that a quick conversation with her bank teller — or some other slowdown to stop her earlier in the process — would have nipped the fraud in the bud.

“If (my bank teller) had been aware and astute enough, they could have pulled me aside and said, ‘Hey, these scams are happening’ — and that probably would have worked with me,” Fox said. “My flags were already up, but I was a nervous Nelly.”

Fox would like to see a federal law passed allowing such delays, but said she was grateful state lawmakers were taking action. She would also like to see the state proposal expanded to include more than just older adults. Some fraudsters may target vulnerable older people, she said, but plenty of schemes go after younger people, too.

The bill is sponsored by Rep. Sean Camacho, a Denver Democrat; Rep. Jamie Jackson, an Aurora Democrat; and Sen. Marc Catlin, a Montrose Republican.

Camacho said he’d be open to such expansions in future years. This year, backers opted for a narrow step-by-step approach to weigh the effects of the legislation.

“The stories are absolutely heartbreaking,” Camacho said. “Because you have someone who’s worked their entire life to build a retirement, to take care of themselves, and then in one instant, some fraudster just comes and takes that all away from them.”

The state in January contracted with , a Denver firm that specializes in probing workplace issues, to investigate complaints within the department, according to a copy of the agreement obtained through an open records request.

While the department declined to elaborate on the nature of the $25,000 investigation, a review of internal complaints and interviews with seven current and former agency leaders and workers paint a picture of a toxic work environment that impacted the mental health of its staff. Leadership was abusive, inappropriate and demeaning, employees told The Denver Post. Several high-ranking members of the agency left under strained circumstances, with the state paying them money to avoid litigation.

“Not only are they ruining people’s lives,” said one former employee, speaking on the condition of anonymity because they still work for the state, “they’re destroying the state’s second-largest agency.”

All told, the Department of Human Services has paid departing employees nearly $2.8 million in settlement agreements since 2019, when Gov. Jared Polis’ administration took the reins. These cases have concerned alleged pay, age, gender and disability discrimination, whistleblower protection violations, and retaliatory firings, among other accusations.

“That place is a trainwreck,” said Mark Schwane, an employment attorney who frequently represents state workers. “It’s a disaster.”

Department of Human Services officials declined an interview request for this story and did not respond to a list of questions from The Post. In a statement, a spokesperson said the department does not comment on personnel matters, including any investigations tied to individual employees. The external probe remains ongoing.

Employees have a variety of resources to address workplace concerns, including submitting grievances or complaints to leadership, requesting mediation or submitting discrimination or workplace violence reports, said Haysel Hernandez, a department spokesperson.

If an investigation finds that a staff member violated policies or the law, the department takes “immediate action to remedy the situation,” she said in the statement.

“The Colorado Department of Human Services strives to establish a respectful, healthy workplace where all employees are valued and treated fairly,” Hernandez said.

‘So many concerns’

The Colorado Department of Human Services is a sprawling state agency with more than 4,800 employees, trailing only the Department of Corrections in size.

It’s the department of “people who help people,” leadership says, responsible for providing services to children and families, the disabled, and older adults. The agency also manages the state’s child welfare system, 12 youth detention and commitment centers, and two state mental hospitals.

The department’s first stated value: people first. But individuals who worked there say the agency’s own staff don’t seem to get that same treatment.

Those who have been interviewed as part of the outside investigation told The Post that the questions have largely centered on one person: , deputy executive director for operations and strategy.

Morrison referred to her leadership style as “slap and tickle,” which employees who spoke to The Post said made them uncomfortable. She also made inappropriate comments about people’s work statuses, staff said, reminding them that they could be fired at any time.

One staff member said Morrison told them they lacked “executive presence” and recommended they dress in such a way that required them to go beyond the organization’s official dress code. Others said the leader was known for making fun of others in team settings.

“She was very abusive as far as I’m concerned and used her power to intimidate people,” said the former employee who spoke of leadership ruining people’s lives.

Two former high-ranking department members specifically called out Morrison in internal complaints after leaving the agency.

AnneMarie Harper, the department’s former director of communications, cited “hostile and inequitable working conditions” that Morrison created and maintained “through a pattern of inconsistent expectations, inappropriate conduct and professional undermining and communication failures,” she wrote in an appeal and dispute form before the , which was obtained by The Post.

Harper declined an interview request for this story.

In January, another top official filed a complaint with the department’s Civil Rights Unit, alleging Morrison and two other leaders forced her to retire by creating an “intimidating and psychologically harmful (workplace) such that it affected her physical well-being.”

Kristen Withrow, the former associate director for the , which operates the state’s juvenile commitment and detention facilities, said she was left out of meetings, publicly humiliated and scapegoated for safety issues that went on in the youth centers. Her treatment at the end of her tenure was so bad, she wrote, that she applied for family and medical leave for the first time in her 30-year career to care for her health.

“I have so many concerns in the last nine months,” Withrow wrote in a February email included in her complaint. “…I’m just so sad about all of this.”

Withrow declined to talk to The Post about her departure.

Employees say they chose to work for the Department of Human Services because they cared deeply about the agency’s mission to help those less fortunate. But the longer they worked there, the more they realized that their own mental health suffered as a result.

Multiple people told The Post that their sleep suffered while in the job. Others began going to therapy to deal with all the work stress. One former staffer said they burst into tears during a job interview when asked why they left the department.

“The values espoused and printed all over the place, we don’t seem to know how to live those out,” said a current employee, speaking on the condition of anonymity because they still work for the department.

While Morrison received the bulk of the attention from the outside investigators, many of the former staffers said her boss, , also bore responsibility for the department’s toxic culture.

“If you’re not stopping it, you’re part of it,” the current employee said. “I think she is complicit. Katy can only do what she’s allowed to do.”

Barnes and Morrison, through a department spokesperson, declined interview requests for this story.

Millions in settlements

Barnes has also overseen the agency’s practice of paying out high-dollar settlements to departing staffers who challenged their terminations or brought claims in court or with the state personnel board.

The Post obtained all settlement agreements involving the Department of Human Services that concerned monetary payouts to employees since Polis took office in 2019. The department, during that span, reached financial agreements with at least 69 staffers, paying out a total of $2.8 million.

Those agreements spanned $500 on the low end to more than $400,000 to settle claims with a worker who filed a federal lawsuit.

In that 2020 suit, a psychologist working at the at Fort Logan alleged that her supervisor demonstrated “abusive and authoritarian behavior” toward the female psychologists at the facility and used false claims to demote her and go after her professional license.

In a 2019 federal complaint, the director of nursing at a Wheat Ridge facility for those with intellectual and developmental disabilities said she was paid less than her white and non-Asian colleagues for the same work. The director, who is Asian, said leadership retaliated against her after she brought grievances over the discriminatory pay.

The Department of Human Services ended up paying her $383,750 to settle the nursing director’s claims.

Over the past two years, the department has reached 26 agreements with staffers to avoid litigation. Many did not involve money and only dealt with whether an employee’s departure was designated as a termination or resignation.

Fourteen of these deals, though, involved state payouts, to the tune of $381,900. Only the Colorado Department of Corrections paid out more money — $502,702 — to its workers during the last two years.

Harper received $95,000 to resolve her claims. Another worker got $26,500 after alleging their termination was discriminatory. A third person negotiated $122,000 after saying his separation was retaliation in violation of the . One staffer obtained nearly $40,000 to resolve civil rights and charges based on disability discrimination.

Some, though not all, agreements involved nondisparagement clauses, which prohibit the sides from making negative statements about each other. Several also included nondisclosure language, mandating that neither side discuss the settlement negotiations with a third party.

The Department of Human Services needs wholesale change at the top, said Schwane, the employment lawyer. The department rewards loyalty over quality of work, he said, which results in anyone giving negative feedback being pushed out.

“They’re reliable sychophants,” Schwane said.

Settlement agreements are used for a variety of reasons, and do not necessarily indicate wrongdoing by the department or employee, Hernandez, the agency spokesperson, said in a statement. These deals “ensure a fair process, and, when needed, a reasonable opportunity to resolve disagreements or provide a supportive transition out of the agency,” she said.

“The department continues to welcome feedback from staff and is committed to a positive, productive and successful workplace culture that helps employees conduct their best work,” Hernandez said.

Heather Wilcox, a 20-year state employee, said she was administratively dischargedĚýfrom her communications job with — part of the Department of Human Services — after she took an extended leave following the deaths of both her parents and one grandparent.

Her supervisors questioned her about her leave and rejected her accommodation requests when she tried to return to work, she said in an interview.

Wilcox lost her hearing as a child and received cochlear implants — a fact that made her deaf but “not deaf enough” for some in the community, she said. A job helping Colorado’s deaf and hard-of-hearing was a dream come true. Until it wasn’t.

“The whole thing was horrifically abusive,” Wilcox said. “My own community did this to me.”

Wilcox lost health insurance for her and her daughter. She says she feels blackballed as she applies for other jobs.

She filed a claim with the state personnel board, alleging her discharge was discriminatory. In March, the state agreed to let her resign, removed disciplinary memos from her file, and paid her $40,000 plus attorney fees to avoid a protracted legal dispute.

Wilcox wonders how she became so disposable after spending her entire career in public service.

“How do you treat people like that at CDHS?” she said.

The Colorado Senate approved the budget bill 25-10 on Thursday morning. But the body, like the House of Representatives last week, added a number of amendments. Some of those changes might throw the balance of the budget off kilter, while others would redirect spending — and potentially affect jobs — to pay for specific priorities.

Now the Joint Budget Committee will evaluate the 20 amendments adopted by the House or the Senate to decide which, if any, will make it into the final document. That decision is expected early next week.

The two chambers will then conduct final formal votes to accept the document. Members of the bipartisan committee have emphasized throughout the legislative session how painful their decisions have been as they’ve sought to close a general fund deficit of more than $1 billion — requiring the third round of deep cuts in two years.

The Colorado Constitution requires the state to adopt a balanced budget, and it is one of two must-pass bills during each year’s session. The budget will take effect for the fiscal year that begins July 1.

The overall general fund for the upcoming fiscal year will be $17.4 billion. That represents a $212 million year-over-year increase — less than inflation and less than the skyrocketing costs in some must-spend areas like Medicaid and the system that houses the prison population.

Many of the cuts this year have nonetheless landed on Medicaid patients and providers.

“This was an extraordinarily hard budget,” Sen. Jeff Bridges, a Greenwood Village Democrat and vice chair of the budget committee, said. “It kept me up at night (on) many, many days. It¶¶Ňőap taken a huge emotional toll.”

Bridges said the committee generally gives preference to amendments adopted by both chambers of the legislature, but “unique circumstances” in the House meant that “the process this year may look a little different.”

Last week, Rep. Brandi Bradley, a Littleton Republican, asked to have the 661-page budget bill read at length, chewing up some 16 hours of floor time and leading the Democratic majority to limit debate on amendments to keep the budget process on schedule. Some 20 proposed amendments in the House were not debated as a result.

Still, both chambers approved amendments aimed at bolstering funding for courts that handle veterans with substance-use problems and behavioral health disorders; allowing the treasurer’s office to hire more people to help return money in the unclaimed property trust fund; moving money from the governor’s mansion maintenance fund to the veterans trust fund; and creating new line items to pay for a special-needs parole program and private nursing homes for prisoners, which are minimally funded at $1 apiece.

Another amendment, which would prevent a proposed cap on Medicaid-paid caregiver hours for people with severe disabilities and limit the increase in a waitlist for people awaiting services for severe disabilities, also cleared the Senate. Its sponsor, Sen. Lisa Frizell, a Castle Rock Republican, made clear that her support of the budget was contingent on that amendment remaining. She also acknowledged that her amendment, like others, was a “long shot” to stay in the final budget bill.

Frizell was the only Republican who’s not on the budget committee to support the budget package in Thursday’s Senate vote.

“These are parents who bear burdens and responsibilities that are beyond comprehension,” Frizell said of her support for families with severely disabled children. “They are people whose biggest fears are dying before their disabled child.”

Evans brought in more than $1.2 million during the first three months of 2026, according to federal campaign finance reports due Wednesday. He ended March with more than $3.4 million in the bank. That’s an eye-watering sum, easily surpassing the roughly $2 million that Evans’ Democratic predecessor, then-U.S. Rep. Yadira Caraveo, had gathered at the same point in early 2024.

Evans has no primary challenger, meaning he won’t need to start seriously spending his cash until after his Democratic opponent emerges from the June 30 primary.

In other federal races, U.S. Sen. John Hickenlooper significantly outraised a state senator challenging him in the Democratic primary, while another incumbent — Republican U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert — was outraised by an even greater factor by her only remaining Democratic challenger in the state’s most conservative-leaning district.

The race for Evans’ 8th Congressional District seat, which sits in a rural-suburban area north of Denver, will be among the most closely watched contests in the country this fall. Two of the Democrats hoping to topple Evans have started marshalling their own financial resources.

State Rep. Manny Rutinel posted a strong quarter, hauling in more than $952,000 to bring his cash-on-hand total to more than $1.76 million. He raised more — and has banked more — than his former state House colleague, Shannon Bird, who joined the race a few months after Rutinel last year.

Bird raised nearly $567,000 in early 2026, and she ended the quarter with just over $1 million to play with as the primary season entered its final three-month stretch.

The third Democrat in the race, Marine veteran Evan Munsing, has outlasted several more established candidates — including Caraveo, who mounted a brief comeback campaign last year. But his fundraising has slipped farther behind Rutinel’s and Bird’s: Munsing raked in $115,000 last quarter, and he spent almost double that.

As a consequence, his cash pile has been halved, from the $213,000 at the end of 2025 to $108,000 at the end of March.

Between the three Democrats and Evans, the CD8 candidates raised more than $2.8 million over the last three months. Between them, the four candidates have nearly $6.4 million on hand.

More than half of that pile lies, waiting, in Evans’ coffers.

“I’m grateful for the outpouring of support from Coloradans who are ready to keep fighting for safer communities, a stronger economy and a more secure future,” Evans said in a statement Wednesday.

Here’s what else was revealed by the latest federal campaign finance reports, which came out just after the major parties’ primary ballots were finalized through assembly votes and petitioning.

Hickenlooper’s haul grows for primary challenge

In his Senate reelection race, Hickenlooper raised nearly $1.4 million last quarter, the first full reporting period since his primary challenger, state Sen. Julie Gonzales, entered the race. That’s more than he raised in the prior quarter.

Though he spent more than $1.2 million in the early part of 2026, the incumbent Democrat will still enter primary season with a hefty $4 million in the bank.

Gonzales, meanwhile, has reported more anemic fundraising. She raised more than $264,000 this past quarter, compared with the nearly $180,000 she posted in her first month in late 2025, showing a slowing pace. Her most recent total in the bank sat at just over $114,000.

In a blog post Wednesday, Gonzales acknowledged that her campaign was “living paycheck to paycheck.” But she appeared undaunted and said she raised $130,000 in the first week of April, after the reporting period’s end.

DeGette’s balance grows as challenger picks up pace

A different primary challenge is brewing in Denver’s 1st Congressional District.

U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette, a Democrat who’s been in Congress for nearly 30 years, is facing two Democratic opponents: University of Colorado Regent Wanda James and Melat Kiros, a lawyer and doctoral student who last month beat DeGette in an assembly nominating vote.

Whether that victory translates to an incumbent-toppling result in June remains to be seen. DeGette raised more than $263,000 last quarter, a bit more than she’d raised at the end of 2025. Her cash-on-hand total ticked up, too, and now sits at $636,000.

Kiros also saw a boost, bringing in more than $174,000, double her prior quarter’s total. With $118,000 in the bank, she trailed DeGette’s total entering primary season.

James’ fundraising went the opposite way. The regent raised more than $72,000 last quarter, below her fourth-quarter total last year. Her spending also ticked up, bringing her cash on hand down to just more than $54,000.

Boebert challenger keeps raking in cash. Will it matter?

Among Colorado’s incumbents in Congress, Boebert has long been a fundraising lightning rod. That remains true, even as she settles into the comfortably conservative 4th Congressional District, which covers Colorado’s Eastern Plains as well as Douglas County, after a district switch in the last election.

Eileen Laubacher, a retired rear admiral in the U.S. Navy, raised more than $2 million for the second consecutive quarter. After a big spend of $1.5 million, she still ended the quarter with more than $3 million in her campaign’s pocket. Another Democratic candidate, Trisha Calvarese, also had raised big money in her second run against Boebert before she dropped out two weeks ago.

Boebert, in contrast, raised just under $90,000 in the last three months, and she reported $160,000 on hand in late March.

It’s important to remember that Boebert now represents a district where, in a 2021 analysis, by more than 26 percentage points. In 2024, Boebert’s win wasn’t even half that — and .

Hurd amasses cash to defend Western Slope seat

In Boebert’s old 3rd Congressional District, her erstwhile Republican opponent, U.S. Rep. Jeff Hurd, is looking to defend a seat that’s reliably, if not comfortably, red. Hurd raised more than $609,000 last quarter, bringing his war chest to just under $2 million.

He also picked up a primary opponent at the Colorado Republican Party assembly last week — former state Rep. Ron Hanks — but his fundraising advantage is hefty.

Two Democrats are jockeying to take on Hurd in November. Alex Kelloff, a Snowmass businessman, has been in the race longer. He raised $192,000 last quarter, adding a bit to his cash-on-hand total of $458,000.

Kelloff’s newcomer primary opponent, fellow businessman Dwayne Romero, raised more than $505,000 in his first month in the race, and, after expenses, had slighty more on hand than Kelloff.

Democrat brings in cash to flip Colorado Springs district

Colorado’s other Jeff among Republican congressmen — Hurd’s fellow freshman, U.S. Rep. Jeff Crank —Ěý raised $345,000 last quarter as he looks to defend the conservative 5th Congressional District. Crank’s war chest now tops $1.1 million.

His likely opponent, Democrat Jessica Killin, brought in nearly $670,000, bringing her on-hand total to more than $1.5 million. Army veteran Joe Reagan, who is challenging Killin for the Democratic nomination, raised $86,000 and ended the first quarter with $33,000 in the bank.

Democrats have been targeting the district, which — after Boebert’s current seat — is the most conservative in the state.

Incumbents’ cash hauls

While DeGette looks to ward off her primary opponents, Colorado’s three other Democratic members of Congress are without well-known Republican challengers. But they’re still slowly building up their campaign bank accounts.

U.S. Rep. Joe Neguse, of the Boulder-based 2nd Congressional District, brought his cash on hand to just under $3 million last quarter. U.S. Rep. Jason Crow, of Aurora’s 6th Congressional District, raked in nearly $940,000 to start 2026 (which, his campaign said, was his largest single-quarter haul), and he had more than $2.5 million under his campaign mattress.

U.S. Rep. Brittany Pettersen, whose 7th Congressional District covers the center of the state up through parts of metro Denver, had more than $915,000 on hand.

Those sums will allow the Democrats to support not only their own campaigns but others’ races and causes, too. Crow’s latest campaign finance report listed a nearly $60,000 contribution to the Rocky Mountain Immigrant Advocacy Network, for instance, while Neguse gave $35,000 to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

The bipartisan Joint Budget Committee set aside $500,000 to stand up a working group to lead the effort in the coming months, the details of which are still being sorted out. Lawmakers have grown increasingly frustrated with Medicaid as they have repeatedly discovered new multimillion-dollar payment errors within the service — as they simultaneously have struggled to make painful cuts to programs that serve immigrant children and people with disabilities.

Those recurring errors have eroded trust between the Medicaid program and the lawmakers overseeing its ever-increasing costs.

“As the (budget-writing) process wore on, I think we all became less and less sure that the numbers we were looking at were an accurate reflection of what¶¶Ňőap happening in that agency,” Sen. Judy Amabile, a Boulder Democrat, told fellow lawmakers during a meeting Tuesday. “That is why, to a large extent, we are going to do a deep dive into what¶¶Ňőap happening there over the interim.”

In Colorado, , or HCPF, oversees the Medicaid program; its budget last year was $18 billion, $4.2 billion of which came from the state’s general fund. Lawmakers’ frustration with the Medicaid program finally hit its limit last month, when nearly every senator signed on to a draft resolution calling for the top official overseeing Medicaid to be removed from office.

That official, HCPF executive director Kim Bimestefer, resigned shortly after Gov. Jared Polis’ office was told about the resolution. Polis is term-limited and will leave office early next year.

Colorado Medicaid serves more than 1.1 million people. The safety-net program’s costs have surged: Over the past 10 years, HCPF’s budget has doubled (more than half of that total comes from federal dollars). The increase in costs has strained the state’s budgets and prompted difficult conversations about what to cut and what to save.

Lawmakers want the Medicaid working group to meet in the summer and fall, draft a report about the service and come up with recommendations for the next governor, along with the officials who will be appointed to oversee Medicaid under the new administration.

That’s partly because Medicaid costs are expected to continue increasing and place a growing strain on the state’s budget. New cuts and work requirements instituted by the massive tax-and-spending bill signed last summer by President Donald Trump will pile on more cost pressures.

Lawmakers want to figure out how to bring down costs within Medicaid in the long term, rather than continuing to make yearly cuts, and to explore other ways to shore up its funding.

“If this seems bad,” Amabile said of this year’s reductions — which brought some lawmakers to tears — “buckle up.”

Earlier this month, Polis announced former state Medicaid director Gretchen Hammer would serve as HCPF’s new executive director. The agency did not respond to an email seeking comment on the new review on Wednesday.

In a statement, Polis spokesman Eric Maruyama said the legislative working group would build upon , which will focus on “cost drivers in the Medicaid program and opportunities to control those trends.”

“We are doing a lot of good work with the (Joint Budget Committee) and General Assembly to begin to reduce costs within Medicaid, but there’s much more work ahead to successfully sustain the important care Coloradans rely on,” Maruyama wrote. He added, referring to the measure signed by Trump last year: “This is especially true as the massive pending cuts in federal Medicaid funding, thanks to the Republicans’ H.R. 1, begin to take effect.”

Amabile said in an interview that the working group would also look at where there have been errors in the past and how to prevent them. The group would likely involve representatives from nonprofits and others involved in Medicaid services, and lawmakers may also be involved.

She listed the array of problems identified within the state Medicaid program in recent months. A program that provides health care to children and pregnant women without legal status has cost far more than state officials first projected. Earlier this year, the budget committee learned that Medicaid was paying as much as 10 times the appropriate amount to providers who picked up patients in extra-large wheelchairs.

The Denver Post then reported that the broader transportation program, which provides rides for Medicaid patients to and from medical appointments, was overpaying drivers generally. It did so based on an apparently faulty analysis that compared sedans in Colorado to ambulances in other Western states.

That overpayment went unfixed for years, and a state advisory panel that reviewed payment rates in that period also did not identify the error. While the mistake went undetected, the transportation program was beset by fraud, and its costs tripled to $303 million a year.

As lawmakers were learning about those problems, federal regulators announced that Colorado Medicaid overpaid nearly $78 million for autism services in 2022 and 2023. The federal Office of the Inspector General recommended the state repay $42.6 million.

In addition to setting up the working group, the budget committee set aside money so that Medicaid staff could conduct a review of claims within the autism program, as well as the transportation service, with an eye toward clawing back money from providers who were overpaid. They also cleared the auditors to use a specific type of statistical analysis to analyze the claims and potential overpayments, and that the review would return at least $36.6 million over the next three years.

Rep. Emily Sirota, a Denver Democrat and the chair of the budget committee, said Wednesday that if the state has to repay autism service funding, “providers who were overpaid should be contributing to this payment.”

Sirota said Medicaid and HCPF staff worked to give legislators information on where costs were increasing and how those costs could be curbed. But, she continued, if lawmakers were going to “keep coming back to this well of Medicaid, we should all be taking a deeper dive together.”

“Clearly,” she said, “things have gone on in this department that require a second look.”

Kirkmeyer, of Brighton, will face off against state Rep. Scott Bottoms and political newcomer Victor Marx in the June 30 Republican primary. Bottoms and Marx, both pastors who live in Colorado Springs, qualified for the ballot through the GOP state assembly on Saturday.

Bottoms, who led a wide assembly field and won support from 45% of attendees, will get the top spot in the race.

Kirkmeyer took the petition route to the ballot. She submitted more than 15,000 valid signatures, including more than 1,500 from each of Colorado’s eight congressional districts, according to the Colorado Secretary of State’s Office, which certified the signatures.

“This campaign has been built by thousands of real people, in real communities, all across Colorado,” Kirkmeyer said in a statement about her ballot qualification. “I’m incredibly grateful to everyone who took the time to sign our petition, share our message, and be part of something bigger. This is your campaign.”

The Democratic slate was mostly set at the end of March with that party’s state assembly. Attorney General Phil Weiser, who won support from more than 90% of that event¶¶Ňőap voting members, will face U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet, who petitioned onto the primary ballot.

Also on Wednesday, the Secretary of State’s office certified University of Colorado Regent Wanda James’s spot in a primary challenge to incumbent U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette, a Denver Democrat. Melat Kiros, a Denver lawyer who stunned DeGette by outpolling her during the county assembly in March, has also qualified for that primary race. Republicans have nominated Christy Peterson, who is unopposed.

Earlier in the week, the Secretary of State’s Office certified Hetal Doshi and Boulder County District Attorney Michael Dougherty for the Democratic primary ballot for attorney general. They will face Secretary of State Jena Griswold and attorney David Seligman in that party’s nominating contest.

Democratic and Republican primary ballots

Here are the candidates who qualified for the major-party ballots in the June 30 primary in statewide races. Voters affiliated with a party will receive its ballot in the mail in June. Unaffiliated voters can participate in primaries and will receive both parties’ ballots in the mail, but they can return only one of them.

The four state offices are all open races this year, with the incumbents term-limited.

Governor

• Democratic primary: U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet, Attorney General Phil Weiser
• Republican primary: state Rep. Scott Bottoms, state Sen. Barbara Kirkmeyer, Victor Marx

Attorney general

• Republican primary: El Paso County District Attorney Michael Allen, David Willson
• Democratic primary: Hetal Doshi, Boulder County District Attorney Michael Dougherty,ĚýSecretary of State Jena Griswold, David Seligman

Secretary of state

• Democratic primary: state Sen. Jessie Danielson,ĚýJefferson County Clerk Amanda Gonzalez
• Republican primary: James Wiley (a former Colorado Libertarian Party official), unopposed

Treasurer

• Republican primary: Fremont County Commissioner Kevin Grantham, unopposed
• Democratic primary: state Sen. Jeff Bridges, unopposed

U.S. Senate

• Democratic primary: state Sen. Julie Gonzales,ĚýU.S. Sen. John Hickenlooper (incumbent)
• Republican primary: state Sen. Mark Baisley, unopposed