Re: “We can’t let fields become a wasteland of swirling dirt and noxious weeds,” April 5 commentary, and “Even at tax time, it’s good to be a billionaire,” April 5 finance column

Sunday’s Post featured two articles that speak to the necessity of seeing connections between seemingly disparate phenomena. In the Perspective section, Krista Kafer has depicted the dire conditions of Colorado’s parched Eastern Plains. Our diminishing water resources are being directed toward expanding cities. There must be a sincere collaboration between agricultural and residential development if we are all to prosper.

In a similar vein, the Business section featured an article on our inequitable national tax structure, which enables the wealthy to grow their wealth while most people, besieged by income taxes and rising property taxes, struggle.

The Post presents these two pictures, where there is an imbalance of resources — water and wealth. It is imperative to observe and address disparities where people and our natural world suffer due to myopic, self-centered behaviors. We are all connected. When one of us is unduly harmed, we are all inevitably diminished.

Evan Siegel, Westminster

Sometimes, you have to let the weeds take hold

Re: “We can’t let fields become a wasteland of swirling dirt and noxious weeds,” April 5 commentary

Good piece about water rights and noxious weeds. Reclaiming larger vacant rural landscapes with native plants is a very difficult, expensive, and lengthy process.

I spent much of my career as a landscape architect developing strategies for re-vegetating disturbed landscapes. While non-native weeds are a problem, they are here to stay. There is no realistic way to prevent them. We must accept that, while native landscape plant species are desirable in many ways, they generally can’t compete with invasive weeds in the short term. In some ways, non-native plants help stabilize soils while native species get a foothold. Keep in mind that weeds have evolved some very strong strategies to thrive in disturbed soil, despite farmers’ exhaustive efforts to control them.

Each of those farms you mentioned with vacant dry fields requires the resources to stabilize the soil, native grass and forb seeding, mulching and some follow-up repairs. The legal requirements should be more specific. It is not going to happen by itself in our dry, windy climate. I wouldn’t worry too much about the weeds until the vegetation is established.

After all, many of us, including those of European ancestry, are a type of invasive species. We want to live here too.

Frank Miltenberger, Denver

Thankful to lawmakers as they try to tackle state budget in tight fiscal times

žé±đ:Ìę“Medicaid to take brunt of budget cuts,” April 5 news story

Thank you to Nick Coltrain and Meg Wingerter for a well-written, comprehensive look at the impossible budget situation the Joint Budget Committee and our state find itself in.

Bethany Pray of the Colorado Center on Law and Policy summed it up well with her quote, “We have a red-state budget and we have blue-state ideals …”

It is sad that good and humane policy is considered “blue state,” however. Or that restrictive fiscal policy is “red state.” But those are the times we live in. And the clash of ideologies must now be balanced on the backs of many hardworking people trying to keep their children out of institutional care and on the Medicaid providers that support them. The pain will be widespread. But particularly acute among the disabled population.

I am the full-time caregiver of an adult child on a Medicaid waiver. It gives our son access to an excellent day program. The providers barely make a living wage. Medicaid covers his medical needs. Those providers often operate at a loss. He requires 24/7 care, and we can meet his daily care needs without additional Medicaid assistance. But most families caring for a severely disabled child are not so fortunate. They are living on the edge.

Thank you to the public servants wrestling with impossible decisions. I hope our state makes the right choices at the ballot box come November and our leaders continue to explore fundamental changes to this fiscal vise we find ourselves in. Thank you to the reporters for providing an understanding of the complexities and consequences of the choices before the lawmakers. The more we all understand, the better we can all work toward long-term sustainable solutions.

Karen Roberts, Denver

Budget season is a time to reappraise what is important to the flourishing of Coloradans. It is time to dispel nakedly partisan worldviews and find common ground.

Reducing medical funding for the most vulnerable and marginalized in our community sends the exact wrong message about who we are as a state. We are at our best when we support those who face unimaginable physical/economic burdens with pride and dignity.

Rather than cut payments to families with children who have severe disabilities or pregnant immigrant women and children, can we consider withdrawing Medicaid payments for elective abortions?

Elective abortions for low-income women were previously subsidized using private money from the Cobalt Abortion Fund and other abortion advocacy non-profits. This is where funding for such morally controversial medical interventions belongs.

Public funding doesn’t increase abortion access but simply shifts the burden of funding abortions from private sources to the taxpayer. Let¶¶Òőap put those millions of Medicaid dollars to the service of our disabled children and needy immigrant community.

Tom Perille, Englewood

Republican Party hung the heavy price on health care

Re: “Health care costs are forcing terrible trade-offs” April 5 commentary

In reading Sunday’s Perspective section, this column stood out from all the others.

The reasons for our health care situation fall in the lap of the Republican Party. It has been trying to get rid of the Affordable Care Act since it was established, and in all that time, it has never come up with an alternative plan. Instead, it just keeps chipping away at the social safety net of most Americans.

This problem has been exacerbated by President Trump’s Department of Defense/ War, which has us engaged in another costly and senseless war in Iran.

We live in the wealthiest country in the world, and yet millions go without basic health care. This is causing people to skip their medications and actually go without health insurance altogether.

The result of this action is that hospitals still have to treat patients who come to them when their illness has progressed to the point that their care is actually more expensive. This makes absolutely no sense, and when the Department of Defense/War is asking for $1.5 trillion in addition to an enormous budget for ICE, it shows how far off our policies are for the American people.

This is not a Republican or Democratic issue, but rather a very grave policy issue putting the health crisis facing the American people in an untenable position. People will die because of a lack of medical care and ultimately cost our country more money. Basic health care is a right, not a privilege. Let¶¶Òőap start putting our budget where it can do the most good for all of us.

David Shaw, Highlands Ranch

In defense of the Democratic caucuses and grassroots organizing

Re: “Time to end caucuses in Colorado,” March 29 commentary

It¶¶Òőap no surprise, but still disappointing to see the entrenched and moneyed political interests working hard to rid our democracy of grassroots community organizing to get their candidates on the ballot.

Columnist Doug Friednash describes the caucus process as “deeply flawed, and an undemocratic way” to select candidates.

The opposite is true. It is Friednash’s favorites who have enough money to buy their way onto the ballot through the petition process and buy their way into winning the election with the loads of cash that will flow into their primary and general election coffers.

Our two entrenched and uber-well-financed U.S. Senators thumbed their noses at the caucus process. In reality, their centrist pandering to Republican colleagues in the Senate is deeply unpopular. Grassroots caucus activists, with very little or no money, are holding them accountable. Hickenlooper voted for 10 of the president¶¶Òőap 22 cabinet appointments, and Bennet voted for eight. Did they miss the anti-democratic and dictatorial statements of the president prior to these votes?

The Denver Post gave Friednash, a corporate Democratic centrist mouthpiece, the opportunity to take swipes at Melat Kiros, who garnered nearly two-thirds of the caucus vote for the 1st Congressional District race. It¶¶Òőap the incumbent senators and the CD 1 incumbent who are the “extreme radical candidates” who are out of touch with Colorado Democrats and our state’s values.

John Gudvangen, Denver

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Melat Kiros — who’s also a lawyer and a Ph.D student when she isn’t behind the counter at the Whittier Cafe — is picking up momentum in her first-ever political campaign. She’s running against longtime U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette in the Democratic primary for Colorado’s 1st Congressional District in Denver.

DeGette, who was sworn into office the year Kiros was born, has .

But Kiros, a Democratic socialist, rose to prominence after she demolished DeGette in the Democrats’ Denver County assembly last month. And while political observers, including Kiros herself, say the assembly process isn’t actually representative of who will vote in the June primary, the win still marked a surprising development in a race that many considered to be predetermined.

“This has nothing to do with me and everything to do with the fact that Denver Democrats want a fighter — somebody who is actually committed to transformative change,” Kiros said in an interview this week with The Denver Post.

Kiros didn’t keep DeGette off the ballot, but she gave her a scare. Kiros won 646 votes, or the support of 63% of those present at the county assembly. DeGette won 336, or 32% of the votes.

It was the first time DeGette had lost a county assembly vote since she initially won her seat in Congress in the 1996 election.

Two weeks after the county assembly, DeGette, 68, narrowly won her place on the primary ballot at the 1st Congressional District party assembly, receiving 33% support — just above the 30% threshold to make the ballot. A third primary candidate, University of Colorado Regent Wanda James, , but her voter signatures are still under review by the state.

Denver-based state Rep. Javier Mabrey, who endorsed Kiros, said he saw her as part of a larger movement within the Democratic Party: voters who don’t want to see the same types of candidates elected.

Like New York City’s new Mayor Zohran Mamdani, Kiros is a more progressive Democrat than those who currently make up the majority of the party’s members in Congress, he said.

“I think there’s an energy for politics that says, ‘Our problems are more complicated than Donald Trump alone. We’ve got to confront the conditions that led to Donald Trump,” Mabrey said of the Republican president. “I think Melat has tapped into that.”

Kiros will still have a long way to go if she hopes to pull off a win of the June 30 primary, however. The assembly gathered only a tiny sliver of the 416,000 people eligible to vote in the June Democratic primary — 230,000 unaffiliated voters and 186,000 registered Democrats, as of March 1, according to the secretary of state’s office.

A spokesperson for DeGette’s campaign said the congresswoman was proud to have made the ballot through the assembly process.

“This is ultimately only a small first step with a small group of people,” Jennie Peek-Dunstone wrote in an email. “Now, we are talking with hundreds of thousands of Democrats and unaffiliated voters across the District. Diana has deep support across Denver because she’s always fought for us. She’ll keep championing our progressive values by standing up to Trump, fighting for universal health care, and defending our democracy — just as she always has.”

Denver is a Democratic stronghold, meaning that whoever wins the primary is all but guaranteed to win the general election. In 2024, DeGette defeated her Republican challenger with 77% of the vote.

Kiros’ background

A child of immigrants, Kiros was born in Ethiopia but moved to Denver with her family as a baby. She left the city to attend Washington College in Maryland and went on to attend law school at the University of Notre Dame. After passing the bar exam, she began work as a securities regulation attorney at , one of the biggest law firms in the country.

Kiros said that two years in, firm leaders fired her for a by Hamas in Israel, which responded by launching a war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip. In the post, she questioned Israel’s legitimacy as a state and disavowed about the rise in antisemitism.

“This letter rightfully rebukes the anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, and bigotry of all kinds that has spiked in recent weeks, but then goes on (to my confusion) to cite ‘calls for the elimination of the Israeli state’ as anti-Semitism,” she wrote. “… To conflate such bigotry with the geo-political question of Israel’s legitimacy is one of the greatest travesties in this conflict.”

More recently, Kiros has been criticized for sharing last month with a video that said Democrats “fellate Israel” and “suck (expletive).” The video was promoting an online rally for progressive candidates and speakers.

Kiros said she didn’t write that phrasing and doesn’t endorse that language.

After her firing from the law firm, Kiros says she decided to get more involved in politics. Now, she’s pursuing a doctorate in public policy with a focus on “democracy reform” at .

In 2024, she volunteered as the communications director for Democrat John Padora’s campaign in Colorado’s 4th Congressional District — one of the most conservative seats in the state and now represented by U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert.

‘Our party isn’t fighting back’

Kiros’ online ads , calling out not only DeGette but also former U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer. One shows large Xs over photos of former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and former President Joe Biden while Kiros says: “We hear politicians say over and over that we need bold leadership, progress and change. We’ve heard this for years. Decades. But they never deliver.”

“Our party isn’t fighting back like they should,” she goes on to say.

Kiros is endorsed by the Denver chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America and the Justice Democrats. She says that if elected, she sees herself aligning with members of Congress like U.S. Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and Summer Lee of Pennsylvania and Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont.

She would use her position, she said, to “call out the Democrats who are not actually fighting for our values” and pressure them to change the votes she disagrees with. That could include civil protests and threatening quorum.

Her top three policy priorities would be passing “Medicare for All” and universal child care and creating a publicly financed election system similar to the one that Denver uses in city elections, which includes public matching for smaller-dollar donations.

DeGette supporters emphasize that the congresswoman is also a co-sponsor of Medicare for All legislation. Angie Anderson, a Platt Park resident and mother of 2 young children, said she’s heard DeGette talk about it.

“I consider myself pretty progressive, and I think that she represents me very well,” said Anderson, who said she has voted for DeGette in every election since she’s lived in Denver.

Ocasio-Cortez even gave DeGette a shout-out for her support of the policy .

“She is one of the most powerful people in Congress on health care,” Ocasio-Cortez said to the crowd of 30,000 people. “And Diana DeGette is a co-sponsor of Medicare for All. She believes in the guaranteed right to health care for every American. Thank you for electing her.”

Anderson said she thinks Kiros and DeGette are actually pretty similar politically.

“I just think the real difference is that Rep. DeGette has many years of experience and is actually a very skilled policymaker and legislator,” she said. “I take issue with the idea that youth and inexperience is fundamentally required to effect change.”

What did assembly win mean?

After Kiros’ assembly win, a wide swath of political observers jumped in to say that while the event’s outcome was surprising, it wasn’t particularly meaningful for the upcoming primary.

Doug Friednash, a former Denver city attorney and chief of staff to then-Gov. John Hickenlooper, wrote in a Post opinion piece recently that assemblies exclude the vast majority of voters, resulting in a “tiny, highly motivated slice of activists” to determine results.

“More and more extreme candidates in both parties have effectively used these caucuses to fly under the radar and effectively organized a small cadre of activists, like the Democratic Socialists, to show up at the caucus, leading to stunning results that make most voters shake their heads in extreme disbelief,” wrote Friednash, now a partner with Denver-based law firm Brownstein, Hyatt, Farber and Schreck.

At the very least, the win showed that Kiros’ team found a way to out-organize DeGette’s team. But it remains to be seen if that will continue through the primary election.

Kiros and her supporters agree that her assembly win doesn’t mean she’s a shoo-in to win the primary.

“I don’t think that folks who talk about the assembly not being reflective of the general electorate are wrong,” Kiros said. But she noted it was unusual for an incumbent to lose an assembly vote.

“DeGette has been challenged before,” Kiros said. “This is a different kind of campaign.”

Mabrey said finding ways to raise money for her campaign will be one of the keys for Kiros in the remaining months before the primary.

“Melat¶¶Òőap going to need an injection of grassroots campaign cash to keep up,” he said.

Through the end of 2025, she had raised about $204,000 and spent nearly $138,000. DeGette had raised about $729,000 and spent $507,000 through then, while James had raised about $179,000 and spent $86,600.

Despite having lower cash reserves than DeGette, Kiros is getting recognized more often when in public, she said. During a recent hourlong interview with The Post at a Capitol Hill coffee shop, two people stopped by the table to introduce themselves and voice their support for her.

“I’m totally voting for you, dude,” one said. “Your campaign is (expletive) awesome.”

Between now and June, Kiros plans to knock on doors, call voters, work with businesses and use digital advertising to get her message out. Nearly 200 people volunteered at a recent weekend canvassing event, she said.

“The thing that we need to do to win,” she said, “is to give people enough faith that getting involved will make a difference.”

Staff writer Seth Klamann contributed to this story.

The debate over accountability for public officials has sharpened nationally as Gov. Jared Polis has questioned whether justice was evenly applied when comparing the length of the sentence imposed on former Republican Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters with the sentence imposed on former Democratic Colorado State Senator Sonya Jacquez Lewis last week.

In a social media post, Polis noted that Jaquez Lewis was convicted of the same exact felony as Peters, but received a much more lenient sentence. The facts differ, as do some of the legal theories, but Polis notes that the scale of Peters’ punishment has placed her sentence outside the typical range involving elected officials, raising legitimate questions about proportionality.

The legitimacy of our justice system depends on the public’s belief that the rules apply evenly, regardless of party, ideology or notoriety. From my vantage point as a former Democratic lawmaker, and a former Denver city attorney and assistant attorney general who worked on criminal enforcement matters, the Peters case is striking not because accountability was inappropriate, but because the sentence appears inconsistent with other cases and may have been influenced by her polarizing political speech.

Polis’s office has made it clear that he is not considering a pardon for Tina Peters, and neither would I. Instead, he is reviewing her application like anyone else for clemency and likely considering a modification to her sentence.

In my time as chief of staff to former Gov. John Hickenlooper, we carefully vetted many clemency cases, and the public is able to weigh in during this process. It is imperative that Peters takes accountability for her actions and is remorseful.

None of this is to excuse Tina Peters’ conduct. Peters was found guilty on seven charges, including four felonies, for her role in orchestrating a municipal election security data breach of the county’s election equipment in 2021, well after the 2020 election results were affirmed by the county and certified by the state. Peters faced 20 years in prison and was sentenced to 9 years.

Make no mistake: courts are right to treat threats to election integrity with gravity, and deterrence is a legitimate sentencing goal. However, legitimate questions were raised on appeal as to whether her political speech, not popular in Colorado, erroneously informed the trial judge’s sentencing of her.

Colorado Court of Appeals Judge Craig Welling, who served as chief legal counsel for Democratic Gov. Bill Ritter before joining the court, grilled the state’s attorney over the trial judge reciting Peters’ false statements about elections in handing down her sentence and said, “the court cannot punish her for her First Amendment rights.”

During oral argument, all three Court of Appeals judges expressed concern about the fairness of her sentence and highlighted how the district court judge’s political statements made about Peters may have unfairly and unconstitutionally influenced her sentencing. The court has not ruled yet in this case and could easily make the conversation about clemency moot.

Proportionality is not a soft concept; it is a cornerstone of justice. A review of similarly situated cases, demonstrates that Peters’ sentence is an outlier.

Lewis, a Democrat, faced serious allegations tied to her official conduct, drawing headlines and political fallout. Lewis was convicted of four felony charges (one count of attempting to influence a public servant and three counts of forgery). In January 2025, during an investigation by the Colorado Senate Committee on Ethics, Lewis forged several letters reportedly written by former aides to refute allegations that Lewis was mistreating staff. She faced up to 15 years in prison, but received two years of supervised probation and 150 hours of community service. I have yet to hear a single person opposed to leniency for Peters argue that Lewis’ sentence was too lenient or inappropriate.

In 2023, former state Rep. Tracey Bennett, a Democrat from Boulder, faced felony charges related to residency fraud and pleaded guilty to attempting to influence a public servant and perjury about lying about her place of residence to run for reelection in a more favorable political district. She faced up to 8 years but received a deferred sentence, including two years of probation. Again, no outcry about whether her sentence was too lenient. Indeed, most public official-related cases don’t end in jail time, but rather probation, deferred sentencing, community hours and fines.

Context matters, and in Colorado’s political climate, Peters is undeniably red meat for many Coloradoans who, like me, are rightfully concerned about election integrity. Peters became a figure whose actions were not just unlawful but emblematic of broader threats to democratic norms. That political reality does not invalidate the legal process, but it does make the need for visible consistency even more important. Justice must be not only fair, but perceived as fair.

Before critiquing Gov. Polis ask yourself this: would the result have been different if the Peters was the Boulder County Clerk who committed the same crime with the same result? Certainly, the political outcry to Polis’ post about a Democratic elected Boulder County Clerk’s disproportionate sentence would have been more muted.

When similarly situated officials receive vastly different outcomes, it risks creating the impression– whether accurate or not — that punishment can be shaped by the political temperature surrounding a case. And, without question, it is clear that the court itself is openly questioning the severity of her sentence.

In an era when trust in institutions is already strained, that perception carries real consequences.

Doug Friednash is a partner with the law firm Brownstein, Hyatt, Farber and Schreck.

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The majority of survivors are Jewish and were part of a community event on the Pearl Street Mall in Boulder, organized by Run for Their Lives, a global movement. The Boulder chapter held weekly, peaceful walks dedicated to bringing home innocent hostages that were kidnapped over 600 days ago and taken to Gaza during Hamas’ horrific terrorist attack on October 7th. Others coming to the aid of the targeted victims were also injured.

Mohammed Sabry Soliman, an Egyptian national who was here illegally, has been accused of arming himself with at least a dozen Molotov cocktails and a makeshift flamethrower. Eyewitness accounts and videotaped evidence immediately flooded the Internet and showed Soliman throwing Molotov cocktails and using a flamethrower as he shouted “Free Palestine.”  He also was seen yelling, “we need to end Zionists”.

This was not some ambiguous act of violence. It was an obvious act of terrorism and hate crime against Jews.

The FBI wasted no time Sunday in labeling it as a “targeted act of violence,” and a few short hours later, at about 3:30 p.m., FBI Director Kash Patel, posted on X that it was ” a targeted terror attack.” Both statements underscored the agency’s recognition of Soliman’s obvious motive behind this heinous crime.

Many local news outlets reported Patel’s statement quickly, and Gov. Jared Polis posted on X a few minutes after Patel, calling the attack a “heinous act of terror.” A small group of Colorado Democratic leaders, including Sen. Michael Bennet, Congressman Joe Neguse, and Congresswoman Brittany Pettersen, also didn’t hesitate to call it a terrorist attack against Jews in early statements.

Labeling matters, but in those crucial first hours, there was hesitation from much of the mainstream media and local law enforcement, which carefully avoided using the term “terrorism” in the headlines of their initial coverage and in official reports made to the public. And, despite the FBI quickly classifying it as an obvious terrorist attack, many Democratic officials were silent, and those who did speak out often used words like “attack” and “incident” or generic hate with no attribution that this act of terror targeted Jews.

Why didn’t this incident erupt into universal and immediate condemnation? Why haven’t our leaders urgently convened to better understand the full scope of this terrorist attack?

The same lack of outrage happened with other recent high-profile incidents like Gov. Josh Shapiro’s house being set on fire by a person who accused the governor of violence against Palestinians. And, it happened last month when Yaron Lischinsky, 30, and Sarah Lynn Milgrim, 26, were murdered in cold blood after attending a Young Diplomats Reception hosted by the American Jewish Committee at the Washington, D.C., Capital Jewish Museum by a man shouting, “Free, free Palestine.” These acts were perpetrated against Jews because they were Jewish. And each time there is a celebration in certain quarters and less outrage in most, these acts are steadily becoming normalized.

Even now, after Soliman told investigators that he planned the terrorist attack for a year and wanted to “kill all Zionist people and wished they were all dead,” many leaders, as well as progressive and minority party caucuses, have remained conspicuously silent about this heinous act of targeted terror.

Are they afraid to speak out against radical elements within the Free Palestine movement, or do they simply not care enough about Jews being burned? Either way, silence serves to normalize antisemitism.

Of course, not every supporter of Palestinian rights endorses violence. But make no mistake, we have witnessed a historical rise of antisemitism, and a reign of terror against Jews from parts of the Free Palestine movement. A growing radical crusade within these organizations and movements in which they hide their faces like the Ku Klux Klan, carry Hamas flags, use Hamas military symbols, chant “from the river to the sea”, taunt and harass Jews, and outwardly advocate for globalizing the intifada.

They are breeding antisemitism and radicalizing followers under the false guise of social justice. Too many Democratic officials seem reluctant to confront the elephant in the room.  They’d rather cower by staying silent or walking on eggshells in order to avoid being targeted themselves.

Words have consequences, and as we have seen in the Middle East and Europe, it¶¶Òőap only a matter of time before people like Mohammed Soliman, Elias Rodriguez and Cody Balmer are radicalized and more Jews are burned, assaulted, murdered, or have their houses or synagogues set on fire.

According to the Anti-Defamation League, anti-Jewish incidents in 2024 were 41% higher than the previous year. They have skyrocketed by more than 373% since 2020. Colorado ranked ninth in the nation in 2024 for antisemitic incidents. While Jews make up only 2% of the United States population, they represent 68 percent of all reported religion-based crime.

Jews in America, like me, are angry. We have never experienced this dangerous level of antisemitism and violence in our lifetimes. All Colorado synagogues have enhanced their security protocols, even to the point of having a security guard on the roof of local synagogues during services to ensure the highest level of preparedness and a faster response.  There’s not a Jewish day school in America that hasn’t implemented new plans to protect children and students. Many of my Jewish friends have purchased firearms and training for self-defense.

There can be no sitting on the sidelines in the face of terrorism. Refusing to timely and unequivocally call terrorism by its name exacerbates why Jews are targeted. It is not simply a failure of vocabulary, but a failure of our collective responsibility to meet the gravity of the moment.

Jew hatred must be confronted as the serious threat it is, even when it hides behind the banner of “Free Palestine.” As Martin Luther King, Jr. aptly said, “in the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.”

Doug Friednash grew up in Denver and is a partner with the law firm Brownstein Hyatt Farber and Schreck. He is the former chief of staff for Gov. John Hickenlooper.

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Re: “Democratic leaders must reckon with the Biden coverup,” May 25 commentary

I am angry at Doug Friednash and furious at Jake Tapper. Joe Biden is no longer president and has now been diagnosed with late-stage prostate cancer. Do we need to beat a dead horse? I recently asked a friend, “What purpose is Jake Tapper’s tell-all book about Biden except to enrich his own wallet and time in the spotlight?”

I will not read his book, and it is terrible to demean and ridicule a man who served in the public spotlight for five decades, who lost a wife and daughter in a terrible car crash, and one of two sons to brain cancer, and now will be fighting a deadly disease. Can he just be left alone to die in peace?

The piling on to Biden is even more mystifying when Trump has been impeached twice, found liable for sexual abuse, knowingly prompted an attack on the U.S. Capitol while his supporters chanted “Hang Mike Pence,” and then pardoned these insurrectionists and other convicted criminals to go back out into the streets (see Bannon, Stone, etc.)

Friednash has “jumped on the bandwagon” of blame. Does it matter now? The results of the 2024 election (Trump) will be harmful to 90% of the U.S. population as the effects unfold, and history will be not be kind to this administration. They are unqualified hucksters, with a lawyer overseeing all medical decisions of trained doctors, and a Director of Homeland Security that has only the vaguest knowledge about the Constitution and U.S. laws. The attorney general is a puppet who spouts verbatim the same nonsense that Karoline Leavitt does, verbiage that has nothing to do with actual facts.

Looking backward accomplishes nothing at this point. Let the man die in peace. He served his country well, perhaps waning in his last years. No one talks about Trump’s decline, which is also evident to all, and is also being covered up by every single sycophant in his administration and the GOP Congress. It¶¶Òőap obvious in the exact same way Biden’s was.

Wendy Hall, Buena Vista

Was President Joe Biden’s physical and mental condition “concealed” from us? Most likely. Although not justified, this would not be the first time a president¶¶Òőap condition while in office was hidden from the public.

Woodrow Wilson was partially paralyzed, and . Dwight Eisenhower in Colorado and Crohn’s disease. . . Ronald Reagan had Alzheimer’s disease and while in office. Grover Cleveland had jaw cancer.

None of these, including the issue of Biden’s health are criminal or illicit. But the cover-ups of Donald J. Trump are. After the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, Trump labelled it a “Day of Love”, even though more than 140 police officers were injured, four committed suicide within a year, and there was over $2.7 million in damages. Since then, he pardoned 1,500 of the rioters who already pleaded guilty or were convicted and serving jail time. False facts to obscure and shroud that January 6, 2021, was an insurrection.

In the summer of 2023, he tried to delete Mar-a-Lago surveillance footage to obstruct the Justice Department¶¶Òőap investigation into his removing classified, “Top Secret” documents from the White House. In early 2024, Trump was found guilty on 34 felony counts because he covered up crimes in his business records. Two more cover-ups.

Those who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.

Ronald Fischer, Lakewood

Re: Sunday cartoon, May 25

The political cartoon depicts three Democratic donkeys mimicking the three monkeys: “See no evil,” “hear no evil” and “say no evil.” They sit on the head of former President Joseph Biden. I have no issue with this cartoon because I feel it’s true. However, in all fairness, the same cartoon could be redrawn today, subbing in three elephants on the head of our current president. This issue is usually ignored by the mainstream press.

Mariann Storck, Wheat Ridge

Tax cuts for the rich cost the poorest among us

Re: “What to watch as bill moves to Senate,” May 25 news story

The article from the Associated Press about sticking points for Senators considering President Donald Trump’s “” mentions the lack of savings, cuts to Medicaid and food stamps, questions about making the tax cuts permanent, and the extension of the debt limit.

Left out of the discussion is the fact that each of the top earners, whose wealth is counted in millions, if not billions, of dollars, will receive about . This is enough for one individual to repay almost 400 of the lowest earners for the money they will, in effect, be giving to the highest earner.

These lowest earners will have an income loss of about $1,000, considering the losses of medical care and food on the table projected under this bill, in addition to the increased costs due to tariffs.

Also not mentioned is the even more dangerous so-called “poison pill,” a late addition that would protect officials retroactively from punishment for contempt of court, effectively freeing the administration from any obligation to follow court orders. This is the perfect recipe for full autocracy in a formerly democratic United States of America.

David Schroeder, Arvada

Listen to the professional investors

Re: “Economy: Trump ignores warning signs,” May 25 news story

The article has a valid point, but what about you and me? Are we also ignoring warning signs? Yes, we are. President Donald Trump has been involved in major bankruptcy cases and two recent significant legal cases in New York: falsifying business records and misrepresenting his wealth and property value. He is known to be very loose with the truth, and his ethics are in need of improvement.

Thousands of men and women around the world are professional investors who seriously study the economy. They are not playing the political game. When a solid plurality finds Trump’s economic policy suspect, the opinion should be respected.

Why do millions of Americans consider Trump a financial genius and ignore the wisdom of the professionals? We are ignoring the obvious and sowing the wind. We will reap the whirlwind.

Paul Bonnifield, Yampa

What happened to grassroots politics?

Before COVID, I attended a vibrant Denver Political Action Day at Civic Center Park. While I didn’t agree with every booth or viewpoint represented, I valued the open exchange of ideas and the people who were willing to speak their minds. That same week, I went to a community event at the Blush & Blu bar, supporting a local LGBTQ candidate. The energy in the room was electric — people were hopeful, engaged and excited to build something new.

Since then, Denver’s politics have felt more disconnected. While major issues are still front and center, the visible presence of grassroots groups, especially ones rooted in working-class communities, has noticeably declined. In the absence of consistent grassroots organizing, I see a growing dominance of voices backed by out-of-state interests or polished through institutional filters. Many individuals trying to engage by speaking at city council meetings, forming advocacy groups, or running for office seem to experience increasing difficulty in breaking through or gaining meaningful opportunities to pursue important issues.

I’ve started to wonder: Are today’s political alliances and endorsements built on local relationships and mutual struggle, or are they increasingly tied to out-of-state or corporate influences?

A healthy civic culture needs community engagement, strong identity networks and stability in order to foster shared action. Without a vibrant grassroots presence, we risk allowing others — who don’t necessarily reflect the values of many across Denver’s diverse spectrum — to dominate public discourse.

How can we rebuild that vital connection between everyday people and political power?

Rodney Baker, Denver

Examine the law that established public broadcast

žé±đ:Ìę“Pros and cons of PBS content,” May 25 open forum regarding “Make public broadcasting great again by shaking it up,” May 18 commentary

Respectfully, the issue is President Donald Trump’s May 1 executive order “.” The reality is there will be less “to be taken by the lapels and shaken” at PBS and NPR when one’s existence is made more difficult because a revenue stream has been shut down in violation of our First Amendment.

Not agreeing with the narrative is not a legitimate basis for Trump to engage in censorship. The amount of free speech otherwise available will be significantly reduced.

Freedom of speech and the press are what allow leaders to be held accountable by freely questioning and sharing observations and concerns respecting gaps between said leaders’ assertions and reality.

Further, history shows that our 1967 Congress was well ahead of its time. On November 7, 1967, Congress passed the , which created the nonprofit Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

That led to the creation of PBS and NPR. And one of the six congressional declarations of this 1967 law’s policy states “that it furthers the general welfare to encourage noncommercial educational radio and television broadcast programing which will be responsive to the interests of people both in particular localities and throughout the United States, and which will constitute an expression of diversity and excellence.”

Therefore, censoring such legendary and noteworthy nonprofit institutions in such a tyrannical manner is part and parcel with authoritarianism.

Lou Horwitz, St. Louis, Mo.

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Updated June 3, 2025 at 11:25 a.m. Due to a letter writer’s error, an earlier version of the Open Forum falsely said that President Donald Trump was convicted of sexual assault. Trump was found liable for sexual abuse in a New York court.

No one wants to see the former president and long-time senator facing a serious illness, and I hope that his treatment is effective.

This announcement was made the same week of the release of Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson’s explosive book Original Sin. This deeply reported book is based on interviews with over 200 people — many of them Democratic operatives and insiders — and details the astonishing lengths to which President Biden’s team and the broader Democratic establishment went to conceal the president¶¶Òőap cognitive and physical decline from the public.

Original Sin exposes one of the most cynical political cover-ups in modern American history, and it explains why Democrats have a trust issue with the American public. This well-earned lack of trust has led to questions about whether Biden may have hidden his prostate cancer too, although there is no evidence to support that he did.

Based upon recent revelations, there can be no question that Republicans and many others, including myself, were justified in sounding the alarm about Biden’s fitness to serve during the re-election campaign.

At the time, Biden’s team hit back with performative outrage and engaged in kabuki theatre.

His team dismissed concerns about his age and acuity as dirty politics. But those close to Biden knew they were handling a president who was no longer fit for office. According to accounts of Original Sin, his team choreographed nearly every aspect of Biden’s life — including limiting unscripted interactions, scripting meetings down to the minute, and escorting him to and from Air Force One helicopter to prevent a potential, devastating fall. They even contemplated putting Biden in a wheelchair after the election.

The cover-up extended to his cognitive decline too. Biden reportedly forgot key names, including major celebrities like George Clooney and even senior members of his own team. Cabinet secretaries were sidelined, and staff members devised elaborate strategies to avoid placing him in situations that might expose his decline.

Just this past week, audio from Special Counsel Robert Hur’s October 2023 interview with President Biden was released. Biden’s Attorney General Merrick Garland  for refusing to release them. In February 2024, Biden and his covert operations team were apoplectic about Hur’s decision that it would be difficult to prosecute Biden in the classified documents matter because Biden was a “sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory” and it would be difficult to prove the mental state of willfulness. Biden angrily responded that his memory was fine and his team exalted that this was a “partisan hit job”.

The audio proves otherwise as , rambling, and couldn’t even remember when his son Beau died.

Biden’s team continued to trot out his disingenuous talking points, insisting that he was sharp and physically fit.  Deputy Press Secretary Andrew Bates asserted that “not only does the president perform around the clock, but he maintains a schedule that tires younger aides, including foreign trips into active war zones.”  Apparently, however, Biden had difficulty functioning outside of a 6-hour window between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m.

Like the man behind the curtain in Oz, Biden’s team spun a grand illusion, staging a show of leadership while concealing Biden’s fragility, more devoted to self-preservation and power than being honest.

Here’s where the culpability deepens, Democratic leaders knew. They saw the same signs the public saw and in many instances saw it firsthand and acknowledged it privately. Yet instead of standing up, they continued to vouch for Biden’s fitness.

A month before his disastrous debate with Trump, I wrote a column calling President Biden unfit for office.  At that time two-thirds of voters had little or no confidence that Biden was physically fit to be president.  Anyone who has watched a family member or close friend decline with senility, dementia or physical ailments had all of the evidence they needed when they watched even his composed public appearances provide clear and unsettling clues with his often incoherent rhetoric and gaffes, confusion and instability.

And, following his disastrous debate performance, Biden’s team tried to convince us that it was simply a bad night, blaming the debate preparation team for his poor performance. And, in the days following the debate train wreck, Democratic leaders were conspicuously silent, failing to speak out publicly. My column calling for him to withdraw just a few days after the debate, was one of the very first of its kind in the country and published well before any major Democratic leader called on him to publicly step aside.

And, the longer they failed to speak truth to power made it more unlikely the Democrats would win in November.  When they finally did, Biden had no choice but to step aside, but behind closed doors, in classic backroom style, Democrats had already crowned his successor, Vice President Kamala Harris.

This isn’t just a Biden problem that can be conveniently swept under the rug. It¶¶Òőap a Democratic Party problem — a failure of leadership, transparency, ethics and accountability.

The result? Democrats lost national trust and the party’s favorability rating stands at 29%, a record low. To be fair, that isn’t simply about the cover-up and lack of leadership. It also reflects a party in the wilderness, confused about their values, and unable to muster the leadership to meet Americans where they are on key issues. It is no wonder that only 35% of surveyed Democrats are very or somewhat optimistic about the future of the Democratic Party.

Democrats would love nothing more than to move on — to refocus on President Donald Trump and reframe the midterm elections as a battle for democracy. But its not that simple. They can’t claim hindsight when they bear collective responsibility for the outcome of the 2024 election.

Until Democrats acknowledge the cover-up, they undermine their own credibility and won’t be able to regain public trust.

It will surely be impossible for them to authentically critique Trump’s mental acuity and fitness.

Doug Friednash grew up in Denver and is a partner with the law firm Brownstein Hyatt Farber and Schreck. He is the former chief of staff for Gov. John Hickenlooper.

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fell at the measure’s first hurdle on 2-3 bipartisan vote by a committee. The bill would’ve expanded a 31-year-old Colorado law that bars lobbyists from donating to campaigns during the legislature’s 120-day annual session.

Had the bill passed, the proposed year-round prohibition would have bumped Colorado into the ranks of a handful of states that more broadly limit lobbyist donations to the policymakers they’re trying to influence. But it failed to get out of the Senate’s .

Sen. Mike Weissman, an Aurora Democrat, sponsored the bill and is the committee’s chair. He said the bill was intended both to “catch up the law” to modern realities — lawmaking and meetings with lobbyists extend beyond the bounds of the legislative session — and to improve the public perception of government.

Weissman was the subject of a dark money-drenched primary challenge last summer, and a consumer-protection bill he sponsored was among the most-lobbied bills of last year’s session.

“People across the political spectrum are skeptical of government,” Weissman said Tuesday, two days before the vote. “That is a pretty bipartisan thing right now. So part of why I’m doing this is broadly stated: confidence in government.”

He added: “What we’re seeing around the world and beginning to see in this country is that when people cease to believe that representative government works for them, (and) their economic conditions aren’t tenable — they’ll start to entertain other things.”

Sen. Matt Ball, a Denver Democrat who voted against the bill Thursday with the committee’s two Republicans, said he was pleased with the state’s current transparency rules, which require that candidate donations be tracked and published online.

He worried that Weissman’s bill would simply shift spending elsewhere.

$500,000 donated in 2024 campaign — likely more

It’s unclear how much money is donated by lobbyists each year. While tracks donations by donors’ occupations, it’s an incomplete accounting. Donors must self-identify their professions, and while many lobbyists do so, others list their occupation as attorney, consultant or simply “other.” That self-identification may shift from donation to donation, too, further complicating tracking.

At a minimum, though, self-identified lobbyists donated just under $500,000 to statehouse candidates during the 2024 campaign cycle, according to state campaign finance reports.

Lobbyists typically are hired by corporations, nonprofits or government agencies to argue for or against legislation and policies. They are particularly powerful in Colorado: Legislative term limits result in significant turnover in the Capitol, with lawmakers in each chamber.

Some lobbyists, meanwhile, have worked in the building for decades — and, in previous lives, many were legislative aides or officials for state agencies or governors. As lobbyists now, they’re often intimately involved in drafting legislation.

In an interview before the vote Wednesday, Lacey Hays, the president of the Colorado Lobbyists Association, questioned whether Weissman’s proposal would’ve survived a First Amendment challenge. The Constitution’s free speech provision forms the basis for much of campaign finance law, including the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2010 .

“We are individuals,” Hays said, “and regardless of our profession, there are people that we see and get to know on the candidate trail that we believe would be good patrons for their communities. To bar us from helping out their campaigns is just that First Amendment, constitutional (issue) — we think it just flies in the face of that.”

Twenty-nine states prohibit lobbyist donations during legislative sessions, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures, a nonpartisan research group. Six states go further and limit lobbyist donations generally, as Weissman sought to do, NCSL said. Weissman said those policies have withstood lawsuits.

Few lobbyists besides Hays agreed to speak on the record for this story, as is lobbyists’ habit generally. Several prominent lobbying firms did not respond to requests for comment.

But privately, several lobbyists generally shrugged at the idea of limiting their own donations. Some joked that such a prohibition would just save them several thousand dollars every cycle, and others said it would end an expectation from lawmakers that lobbyists donate or hold fundraisers.

One said fundraising calls often begin almost immediately after each legislative session — when the state’s prohibition on lobbyist giving lifts until the next session.

Simultaneously, though, the lobbyists and Hays argued that $450 donations — the maximum allowed to individual candidates — weren’t enough to buy anyone’s vote, and they questioned whether they could be prohibited from offering donations on the basis of their profession.

“A $450 check from an individual is not buying anyone’s influence,” Hays said.

“Take their money … and vote against ’em”

Or, as Republican Sen. Rod Pelton said before voting against Weissman’s measure: “You wouldn’t make a very good legislator if you couldn’t take their money in the morning and vote against ’em in the afternoon.”

Weissman acknowledged that there hadn’t been scandals about lobbyists buying votes or abusing donations in Colorado (though lobbyists privately groused that some legislators made it known that they knew who had donated to them and who hadn’t).

Still, Weissman said, the fact that Colorado “was a bit better off in terms of the culture … doesn’t mean there’s not a good reason to do it, especially now in this era.”

The appearance of impropriety — of greased palms — was part of the motivation for the initial ban on lobbyist giving, said Doug Friednash, a former legislator who introduced the policy back in 1993. Friednash now works for lobbying giant Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck, though he stressed that he was speaking on his own behalf, not for the firm.

When he ran the bill, he expected to get heat from lobbyists.

“What was eye-opening after I did that — the people that came to thank me were lobbyists. … Lobbyists were thrilled that they weren’t getting (pressured) to make contributions,” Friednash said.

As a lobbyist now, he said he liked Weissman’s bill for that reason, too. But he also questioned whether the bill was constitutional, and he echoed Ball’s argument that lobbyists would find a way around the prohibition: They could still give to political parties or certain fundraising arms, for instance, and the companies or groups that hired them could continue to donate, too.

“The system always finds a way for a workaround,” Friednash said. “Because parties raise money for candidates, (lobbyists) give to some party event or something with money that’s going to specifically go to these same candidates or candidate. I think it’s a lot more complex and complicated than just that simple narrow piece” of lobbyist donations.

Even before taking office, Trump has repeatedly threatened Hamas and it¶¶Òőap puppet-masters in Iran that “all hell will break loose” if the estimated 100 hostages, about 70 of whom may still be alive, are not released before he takes office on January 20th. For those keeping track, Trump will assume office 471 days after the October 7th massacre.

Forty-three Americans were murdered, dozens more injured, and American hostages were kidnapped and taken to Palestinian territory in Gaza. The hostages were used as human shields by Iran’s armed terrorist proxy force. Multiple American hostages are believed to still be alive and it’s time to deprive Hamas and Iran of this latest inhumane bargaining chip.

The deplorable conditions the hostages have faced should make your blood boil. this week detailing the neglect, physical abuse, torture, humiliation and sexual abuse endured by the innocent hostages.

Teenagers were forced to perform sexual acts on each other and their monstrous captors performed sexual acts on them, including whipping their genitals. Two young children were burned. Male captives have suffered severe torture, continued starvation, and been forced to defecate on themselves. Many of the hostages have been murdered or died from medical complications.

Over 450 days into this crisis, the Biden administration has failed to secure the safety or return of these hostages. By its own admission, the Biden administration’s public pressure on Israel made matters worse and caused Hamas to pull back from a hostage deal. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken told the New York Times, “whenever there has been public daylight between the United States and Israel, and the public perception that pressure was growing on Israel, we’ve seen it:  Hamas has pulled back from agreeing to a cease-fire and the release of hostages.”

Conversely, there is no daylight when it comes to Trump and Israel. Trump is a proven supporter of Israel and is expected to take an assertive posture to conflicts with Hamas, Hezbollah, Houthis and Iran as further evidenced by his initial appointments to key administration posts. Trump praised his incoming Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, who is on his way to Qatar and has been engaged with the Biden team.

History may repeat itself as this hostage crisis is reminiscent of the first Iranian hostage crisis 44 years ago.

On November 4, 1979, a group of armed militant Iranian college students who supported the Iranian revolution, stormed the United States Embassy in Tehran and took 66 hostages. Shortly thereafter, they released some of the hostages.

Ayatollah Khomeini, Iran’s new political and religious leader refused to release the remaining 52 American hostages.  Day after day, American hostages, in handcuffs and blindfolds, were terrified and even paraded in front of hostile crowds chanting “death to America.” These hostages were treated inhumanely and didn’t know whether they would be tortured or murdered.

The American hostage crisis became a symbol of President Jimmy Carter’s presidency and was a key factor in his failed re-election campaign. On January 21, 1981, a few hours after President Ronald Reagan was sworn in, the hostages were released after being held captive for 444 days.

Carter and Biden each served one-term as president and have been viewed by these adversaries as weak. Both fumbled the ball when it came to solving this issue diplomatically. In Biden’s case, Hamas and Iran have taken advantage of Biden’s public disagreements with Israel. Carter and Biden were followed by Reagan and Trump, who ushered in a new era of conservatism and created an aura of strength as they juxtaposed their positions against them during the presidential campaigns.

Ironically, the hostile and dangerous Iranian regime, which took power with a deep animus toward both Israel and the United States, has sown the seeds of the current crisis through its massive financial and military support of Hamas.

Four decades later, Iran, like its proxies, finds itself on the ropes. Israel has decimated Hamas and Hezbollah while embarrassing and exposing Iran’s military weaknesses. Trump also has a personal vendetta after suggesting assassination attempts were tied to Iran. Two months ago, Attorney General Merrick Garland announced that the Justice Department charged an asset of the Iranian regime “who was tasked by the regime to direct a network of criminal associates to further Iran’s assassination plots against its targets, including President-elect Donald Trump.”

Here’s the bottom line: Hamas and Iran don’t know what Trump will do. They do, however, know that Trump isn’t going to engage in endless negotiations that don’t bear fruit. If the hostages are released now it will only be because of Trump’s coercive diplomacy.

If all hell were to break loose, the Iranian regime that started the first hostage crisis may find itself coming to an end as a result of the second one they perpetuated. And, Iran will carry much more than blood on their hands.

Forewarned is forearmed.

My bet is that to save themselves, Iran will order Hamas to end it, just as they did forty-four years ago when Reagan walked into the White House.

Doug Friednash grew up in Denver and is a partner with the law firm Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck. He is the former chief of staff for Gov. John Hickenlooper.

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In the days since Trump won, Colorado officials have cautioned that a sea of unknowns remain. It’s unclear whom he will choose for his cabinet or how closely he’ll follow the Republican-drafted , a guide for a second Trump administration from which the president-elect sought to distance himself during the campaign.

Still, state legislators and policy advocates have raised concerns about how potential swings on key national issues, like new abortion restrictions or the mass deportations Trump said he would start in Aurora, might wash over a Democratic state that’s positioned itself as fundamentally opposed to many of Trump’s positions. On multiple fronts, they said, they expect Trump to act more quickly and aggressively to impose his agenda in a second term.

“Obviously, this (new administration) is going to be more challenging,” Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser said. “It¶¶Òőap something we’re prepared for, something we’ve done before — and we’ll do it again.”

Uniquely Colorado concerns — like keeping the previously contested headquarters of the U.S. Space Command and protecting the state’s extensive public lands — suddenly feel imperiled. Democratic state lawmakers, who last week maintained their large majorities amid a national political shift to the right, braced to act as a bulwark against federal deregulation and conservative U.S. Supreme Court decisions.

Here’s how the second Trump term, set to begin Jan. 20, could impact Colorado’s immigrants, public lands, abortion access, statehouse agenda and the location of Space Command.

Immigration actions likely

In October, Trump traveled to Colorado and announced his plans to launch “Operation Aurora,” which would use a nearly 230-year-old law to deport undocumented immigrants with gang ties. He’s pledged to undertake a broader mass deportation operation to expel in the country — starting with Aurora.

Colorado is home to roughly 156,000 undocumented immigrants, according to by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. Denver Mayor Mike Johnston told The Denver Post last week that his city would “not participate” in Trump’s mass deportation plans.

State law prohibits local law enforcement from holding someone in jail beyond their release date solely on a “detainer” request, which is used by federal authorities to ensure they’re notified before an undocumented immigrant is let out.

Doug Friednash, who was chief of staff to then-Gov. John Hickenlooper until late 2017, predicted that immigration enforcement and deportations would be among the first legal fights that Colorado has with the new Trump administration.

Colorado could become “ground zero” for battles over Trump’s plans, he said.

“What happens when Trump decides on Operation Aurora, or that we’re going to start deportation, and he looks to the state? Not just with (U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement), but he looks to the National Guard to enforce that. What does Gov. (Jared) Polis do, and what does the state do?” said Friednash, a lawyer who’s now at the law and lobbying firm Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck.

Through a spokeswoman, Polis, who made frequent national TV appearances during the campaign in support of Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee, declined requests for interviews about Trump’s potential impact on immigration and other issues in the state.

U.S. Rep. Jason Crow, a Democrat who represents Aurora in Congress, was defiant.

“If (Trump) wants to carry out mass deportations and break up families and devastate our economy,” Crow said Thursday, “then we will of course resist that with all of our force.”

Trump’s win brought disbelief and uncertainty to Colorado’s immigrant community, said Mekela Goehring, the executive director of . It also underscored the need for the group’s mission of providing free legal and social services to immigrant children and to adults in immigration detention, she said.

She expects new actions in line with immigration policies implemented by Trump during his first term.

“Now, the most critical component is ensuring there are lawyers in the system so there is some accountability and a check of due process,” Goehring said. “Separating children from their parents (or) forcing people to be in a prison-like setting while navigating immigration proceedings is incredibly harmful to community members.”

Pivot on public lands policies

“Drill, baby, drill” has served as one of Trump’s clearest and most consistent policy messages — and it’s a policy that will play out across some of the 24 million acres of federally managed public lands that cover nearly a third of Colorado.

Trump’s victory is a boon to oil and gas producers in the West, said Kathleen Sgamma, president of Western Energy Alliance, a Denver-based trade group.

“We’ll be working with the new administration to reassess some of the rules, some of which Western Energy Alliance is suing on,” said Sgamma, . “We’ll be looking to move forward on leasing, which the Biden-Harris administration has all but stopped” on federal land.

Sgamma hoped the new administration would reassess National Environmental Policy Act review processes that she said had slowed oil and gas development.

She also expressed hope that the administration would roll back the Bureau of Land Management¶¶Òőap Public Lands Rule, which made conservation an equally important use of BLM land as grazing, recreation, energy development and other uses. The administration should also reverse a Biden administration change that increased BLM land-leasing costs for energy development, she said.

The BLM manages 8.3 million acres of land in Colorado, primarily on the Western Slope. Presidential appointees in Trump’s first administration moved the BLM headquarters to Grand Junction, a move that Biden later reversed.

A second Trump administration will likely act faster and be better prepared to roll back environmental regulations than its previous iteration, said Aaron Weiss, deputy director of the Center for Western Priorities, a Denver-based conservation and advocacy organization.

“I think you have to consider every conservation effort over the last three decades to be at risk, because they do not see any value in seeing public lands protected for recreation, fishing or hunting,” he said. “They look at public lands as sources of income.”

Weiss expects the Trump administration will open up more U.S. Forest Service land — which covers 11.3 million acres in Colorado — to logging under the guise of wildfire mitigation.

“That just means: If we chop down all the trees, they can’t burn,” he said.

National monuments, too, could come under scrutiny by Trump’s administration — especially those created by Biden, Weiss said. In his last administration, Trump slashed the size of Utah’s Bears Ears and Grand Staircase Escalante national monuments.

Biden created one new monument in Colorado: the 53,804-acre north of Leadville. In western Colorado, a coalition of rafters and environmentalists for months have urged Biden to create a new monument along the Dolores River — an effort that would face a much steeper uphill climb under Trump.

Colorado depends on millions of dollars in federal funding for environmental protection work, so cuts to regulatory agencies like the Environmental Protection Agency could have downstream ripple effects here, said . She is a professor and co-director of the graduate certificate of environmental justice at the University of Colorado Boulder.

Trump pledged during his campaign to stop any spending from the Inflation Reduction Act, which Biden’s administration called “the largest investment in clean energy and climate action ever.” But Trump may find that hampering the law — which has poured more than $1.7 billion into Colorado projects — is politically unpopular, Pezzullo said.

“I think a lot of things were said bombastically on the campaign trail, so we’ll see when the rubber hits the road,” she said.

Also unclear is the mark Trump might make on spending and grants under the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, which local transportation leaders have begun tapping for the Front Range Passenger Rail initiative. Federal officials have designated it as a priority transit corridor.

Colorado leaders and lawmakers’ strong bipartisan support of environmental protection for air, water and land gave Pezzullo hope that state policy could serve as a buffer to potential federal deregulation.

“I would feel much more worried if I lived in a state that didn’t have the leadership we had on the environment,” she said.

Space Command’s future

In the waning days of the first Trump administration in January 2021, the Pentagon announced that U.S. Space Command would move from its interim home in Colorado Springs to a permanent headquarters in Huntsville, Alabama.

Then, in summer 2023, the Biden administration reversed that decision and kept the headquarters in Colorado, where it achieved operational readiness late last year.

Now, Space Command may be set to move again. Wednesday that Trump is “expected” to move Space Command back to Huntsville.

U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers, an Alabama Republican and the chair of the House Armed Services Committee, told Politico that Trump would enforce what two U.S. Air Force secretaries had determined: “That is, Huntsville won the competition 
 and that¶¶Òőap where it should be and that¶¶Òőap where he’s going to build it.”

Should that happen, it would be the latest turn in a series of ping-ponging decisions affecting the newly reestablished military command. Such a move would also jeopardize more than 1,000 jobs and $1 billion in annual economic benefits in Colorado, according to 2023 estimates from the Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce.

Any renewed effort to move Space Command from Colorado would spark a united and bipartisan fight from Colorado’s congressional delegation. U.S. Rep.-elect Jeff Crank, a Republican who will represent Colorado Springs in Congress, told The Post he hadn’t yet dug into Trump’s potential impact on Space Command. But he said he would defend its presence in his new district.

“Obviously, I believe that if it¶¶Òőap down to military value, (then) Colorado is the place for it to be,” Crank said Wednesday. “And I think that continuous studies have shown that. If it¶¶Òőap based on political decisions, it could move somewhere else. But I think it makes eminent sense to keep it here.”

Crow said he would “resist any attempt” to move the command’s headquarters, though he said it wasn’t yet clear if that could happen.

“With Donald Trump, you never know,” he said. “He changes his positions and his stance on issues by the day, and sometimes by the hour. If he wants to build out the Space Force and Space Command and have it meet the national security moment and our threats, then he will keep it here.”

Defending abortion access

Trump’s victory dampened celebrations by abortion-rights advocates in Colorado who, in the same election, ran a successful ballot initiative to place the right to abortion in the state constitution.

“Even though people thought we couldn’t do it — that we were being too bold — we stuck to our position because we know it¶¶Òőap the right thing to do,” said Dusti Gurule, CEO of the Colorado Organization for Latina Opportunity and Reproductive Rights. “Now it¶¶Òőap even more critical that we did what we did.”

Although Trump’s stance on abortion has repeatedly shifted, he said in the final stages of his campaign that he would favor allowing states to decide whether abortion should be legal.

If he and Congress abide by that position, Colorado will have some of the strongest abortion protections in the country thanks to the success of Amendment 79, said Karen Middleton, the president of Cobalt Advocates, an abortion-rights group. But abortion providers and advocates are still preparing for regulatory changes that could impact access and options here.

“Yes, we’re worried, but we’re also prepared,” Gurule said. “We’re not going to stop fighting.”

Middleton said advocates in Colorado planned to pursue state legislation to protect against further challenges to a federal law that requires emergency rooms to provide care to stabilize patients, including emergency abortions.

The passage of Amendment 79 also could allow more Coloradans to receive insurance coverage for abortion, including state employees and people who use Medicaid. That will free up capacity for outside providers to care for people coming to Colorado for services from states where abortion is banned, said Nicole Hensel, executive director of New Era Colorado.

Other challenges to abortion rights and access could come through the revival of a century-old federal law, the Comstock Act, that, if enforced, would make it illegal to mail or receive medical equipment used in abortion procedures, said Jack Teter, regional director of government affairs for Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains.

Weiser, the state’s attorney general, speculated about possible Trump administrative action to limit access to the abortion drug mifepristone. Any such effort, Weiser said, would lead to legal challenges from his office. Medication abortion using drugs like mifepristone , making it an increasingly common abortion method.

Despite the potential challenges in coming years, Planned Parenthood’s providers will keep working to care for Coloradans and people from all over the country, Teter said.

“We’ve been here for 100 years,” he said, “and we’re not going anywhere.”

How will the statehouse react?

In the days after Trump’s victory, Colorado legislators were still sifting through what a second Trump administration could mean for the state — and how that would affect their work and the very posture of state government.

House Speaker Julie McCluskie, whose Democratic caucus defended nearly all of its large majority in last week’s election, cautioned that it was too early to determine how the legislature may respond to a Trump administration. Affordability remains a top concern for voters, she said, and that will be the focus for legislators in 2025.

Still, she said, “there’s some issues that I think are clearly on the horizon for us. I would point to immigration (and) the statements that Trump made when he visited Colorado — that (his) mass deportation effort would start here. That is something where I think we will respond and react.”

Other Democratic legislators said Trump’s victory would change their agenda in 2025 and beyond, even if the exact contours of a second Trump term remain unclear.

“It will impact the legislative agenda. It will,” said Denver Democratic Rep. Jennifer Bacon. “I don’t know to what extent. But if it did (in recent years), when we were dealing with the residuals of his (first) term — imagine that we’re in it.”

She noted the likelihood that Trump will fill another Supreme Court seat, after his earlier appointees joined court majorities that “undid administrative law, they undid reproductive rights, and I do believe they’re going to come for civil rights, when it comes to law enforcement.”

Federal action has sparked state legislative changes in the past, among them the “residuals” Bacon referred to: Legislators enshrined for arrestees in state law after a Supreme Court decision undercut them. The legislature passed sweeping abortion protections ahead of the Dobbs decision that overturned Roe v. Wade. And concerns about the future of marriage equality spurred the legislature to refer a successful ballot measure removing defunct language banning same-sex marriage from the state constitution.

Bacon listed Medicaid and Pell Grant funding as specific concerns for potential funding cuts. She and other Democrats also pointed to air quality and the future of the EPA, which will likely have different priorities under Trump. State lawmakers last session created state regulations protecting certain waterways after a U.S. Supreme Court decision undid federal protections.

If Trump rolls back regulations, Bacon said, the state may need to reconsider its role in oversight.

State Sen. Julie Gonzales, a Denver Democrat who has championed immigrants’ rights bills in the legislature, said Colorado officials will continue their work to protect marginalized communities, including immigrants and people who are transgender.

She called Colorado “a state that lives its values of treating people with dignity and respect” and said state-level results — showing Democrats retaining strong majorities in the Capitol — reinforced those values. Gonzales expects more work on that front in the coming months, though it¶¶Òőap too early to say exactly what those policies might look like.

“Immigrant communities, particularly, have been down this road before,” Gonzales said. “We’ve seen the pain, division and fear-mongering that the first Trump administration wrought on our communities. This time we know what to expect. And it’s why, over the past several years, at the local and state level, we’ve worked to enact policies to protect all Coloradans’ safety and well-being.”

Staff writers Joe Rubino, Nick Coltrain and Elizabeth Hernandez contributed to this story.

Re: “Media bias against Israel is fueling antisemitism,” Oct. 20 commentary

I read Doug Friednash’s op-ed, again highlighting rising antisemitism as a result of the media bias and escalating retaliatory acts between Israel and Hamas.

As a descendant of Lebanese heritage, I find it insulting and remiss that Friednash can’t seem to acknowledge the toll this conflict is exacting upon innocent Lebanese civilians caught in the middle of this conflict. By his logic, failing to mention the collateral damage to the Lebanese people is actually anti-Lebanese.

Please, readers and the American public, appreciate and disavow the unintended consequences of these unending aggressions on Lebanese soil.

Peter Murr, Denver

I liked the piece in Sunday’s paper by Doug Friednash. It’s about time somebody said something. I was surprised to see it in The Post, as the paper is becoming known as the New York Times West!

The question that is never answered is why? Why is our media doing this? These are established American news companies, supposedly staffed by patriotic Americans, yet they slant their coverage to favor the terrorists.

Ralph H. McClure, Greeley

In his attempt to blame the media for presenting a false picture of Israel, Doug Friednash seems to assume that Americans are unable to understand the multiple layers that exist in that region of the world.

I am pro-Israel, but only within its pre-1967 borders. Since Israeli policy denies the right of return with full civil rights to the descendants of the indigenous people who lived there before Israel was established, I am also in favor of a fully sovereign Palestinian state in all of the West Bank and Gaza with East Jerusalem as its capital, which makes me pro-Palestine.

I have many Jewish friends — but that does not blind me to the fact that AIPAC’s lobbyists wield an effective veto over U.S. policy in the Middle East. That said, antisemitism is as stupid as racism or being anti-Chinese or anti-immigrant.

Because Zionism is a colonial project that continues to seize Palestinian land, I am an anti-Zionist. I am also vehemently anti-Netanyahu because his policies have killed many more non-Israeli civilians for each Israeli civilian who was killed on Oct. 7.

Friednash seems to expect unquestioning support for all elements of Israeli policy. If not, by some twisted calculus, one is antisemitic. This is nonsense. His real complaint is that for the first time in over 75 years, the American public is finally getting factual reporting on the Middle East instead of the steady diet of pro-Zionist “news” that had been common in the past.

The current policies of the Netanyahu government have covered Israel with shame. What is worse is that they are providing the fodder that has fueled the rise of antisemitism — worldwide. Since it is impossible to kill the idea of Palestinian nationalism with a bomb, this is surely a lose-lose situation for both Israel and the Jewish people.

Guy Wroble, Denver

TABOR demands permission, and ballot is asking

Re: “Don’t mess with my TABOR refund: vote no on JJ, KK and JeffCo 1A,” Oct. 20 letter to the editor

The letter writer apparently is a bit befuddled; he starts with “all these ballot issues would otherwise violate the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights (TABOR),” then admits that “TABOR requires that government ask voters for such approval.”

Ideologically, doesn’t the reality of TABOR go against what conservatives always say: “Let the people decide?” That should apply at the get-go of our gross earnings because, personally, I don’t need or want the state to be an annual savings account for me.

His ending, “don’t mess with my TABOR refund,” is reminiscent of the protest signs in a past presidential election that said, “Keep your government hands off my Medicare.”

Ken Valero, Littleton

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