“Folks with breathing-related ailments like me — we looked forward to breathing a little bit easier,” Ard-Smith testified before the Senate’s Transportation and Energy committee. “I’m concerned that the progress we’ve made as a state and as a city will be thwarted.”

Colorado Springs Utilities, which operates the Ray D. Nixon Power Plant in Fountain, about 85 miles south of Denver, isn’t alone in prolonging the life of its coal-fired plant. Providers that operate two other such plants — one on the western slope of the Rocky Mountains in Craig, and one on the eastern side in Pueblo — did not shut them down on Dec. 31, as planned. State law and replace it with cleaner-burning alternatives such as wind and solar.

Emergency orders from the Trump administration kept the Craig unit from retiring, while equipment malfunctions and transmission grid constraints contributed to the postponed shutdowns of coal-fired units in Pueblo and Colorado Springs, respectively. Xcel Energy, the state’s largest utility, and Colorado Springs Utilities requested these delays and were supported by the state.

Residents like Ard-Smith, consumer advocates and doctors statewide agreed that allowing these three coal-fired power plants to stay open beyond their scheduled closure dates will worsen public health, contribute to more deaths and increase costs for ratepayers. The tab is alone to keep the Craig Generating Station online, according to one report.

Coal is and dirtier to combust for power generation than renewable energy. Colorado’s are among the state’s worst polluters and major sources of that obfuscates world-famous views in Rocky Mountain National Park.

These plants are also ringed by communities with lower median incomes and greater proportions of people of color who suffer higher rates of .

Per unit of energy, coal-fired power plants belch more fine particulate matter, mercury, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides and ��than any other energy source. These generators also release millions of pounds annually of greenhouse gases that warm the atmosphere, causing more intense and extreme weather events such as heat waves, floods and hail.

And that����ap not all: Several of Colorado’s remaining coal-fired plants did not install modern pollution controls in anticipation of their replacement with cleaner energy sources. Their continued use led Gov. Jared Polis to admit in May that the state won’t reach his goal of 100% renewable-powered electricity by 2040, relative to 2005 emissions levels. Utilities will, however, hit — required by law — in 2030, he added.

Keeping the three coal-fired plants open will also exacerbate the state’s air quality, which already��, as well as increase hospital visits, missed school time for children with asthma and pregnancy complications, physicians and public health researchers told Capital & Main.

“If we think about our three core functions, we have lungs that keep us breathing, a heart that keeps our blood circulating, and a brain that is the circuit board that runs the body,” said Dr. Sara Carpenter, a pediatrician and executive director of Healthy Air and Water Colorado, a nonpartisan nonprofit comprised of healthcare providers.

“Air pollution, and coal in particular, are lethal to all three of those systems,” she added.

Discontinuing coal use leads to measurable health improvements. Scientists at Colorado State University found in ��published in��GeoHealth��that closing coal-fired power plants would reduce deaths in disproportionately impacted communities.

Conversely, keeping them open will increase mortality, said Sheryl Magzamen, a professor in the environmental and radiological health sciences department at Colorado State University and the study’s lead author.

“Ultimately, the longer these plants operate, people will get sick, and people will die,” the epidemiologist said.

More coal plants kept open across nation

The prolonged lifespans of three coal-fired units in Colorado put them among left open in spite of planned retirements since the president took office for a second time in January 2025. He doubled down on his support of what he calls “clean, beautiful coal” this month when he announced $700 million in federal funding, in part to build the first new such plants in the U.S. in more than a decade in Alaska and West Virginia.

Tapping power from such generators is necessary to help meet escalating electricity demand stemming in large part from data centers that fuel artificial intelligence, his administration said.

Colorado’s attorney general and other state litigators��filed suit against the federal government����ap emergency energy orders, claiming that leaving such plants online threatens to unwind hard-fought progress toward a clean-energy economy. About a third of the average global temperature increase since preindustrial times is attributable to coal combustion, according to the International Energy Agency.

The federal orders also prompted Polis to sign into law on June 4����that institutes a cap on greenhouse gas emissions allowed from coal-fired power plants operating past their planned retirement dates.

Backsliding isn’t happening only in the United States, where the White House is actively discouraging investment in wind and solar energy. Worldwide, more than 70% of coal units slated for shutdown last year were kept online, according to from Global Energy Monitor, a nonprofit that tracks global energy use. The U.S. Energy Information Administration projected that retirements scheduled for this year .

A resurgence in coal use was partially to blame for a 2.4% increase in planet-warming emissions in the U.S. last year, after two years of decline, researchers from the Rhodium Group, an independent data provider, revealed in .

In Colorado, power plants continued to use coal as officials warned residents to prepare for the annual “ozone season” — the days between May 31 and Aug. 31 when the state’s unusual topography and unpredictable weather conspire to worsen ground-level pollution.

“Fossil fuel combustion generates a lot of precursors for ozone and they have a pretty substantial rate of spread,” said Jonathan Buonocore, an assistant professor of environmental health at Boston University.

“Air pollution from these things can be cross-continental,” added Buonocore, who worked with other researchers to build a dataset for ��published in November in��Environmental Research Letters��that found that Colorado’s population is among the nation’s most exposed to fossil fuel infrastructure.

Health impacts from smog and ozone

Smog forms when heat and sunlight react with toxic gases released by vehicles, oil and gas rigs, and fossil-fuel-fired power plants, among other sources. Ozone pollution in metropolitan Denver routinely exceeds federal standards throughout the summer, prompting public health officials to issue that direct older residents, children and those with respiratory and other ailments to stay inside.

Colorado’s ozone problems also contribute to failing grades from the American Lung Association for areas near, and within the same region, as coal-fired power units.

Rio Blanco County, located south of the Craig Generating Station, received a “D” grade from the nonprofit for its air quality. Moffat County, where the power station is located, is without monitors that allow the organization to monitor its atmosphere for pollutants.

In , and again in , the U.S. Department of Energy issued a 90-day emergency order that required Unit 1 at the Craig Generating Station, slated to close Dec. 31, to remain operational. Since December, Unit 1 has been fired up for only 16 days to help the regional power authority cope with outages and grid uncertainty, said Mark Stutz, a spokesman for Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association.

The facility includes two other coal-fired units. Unit 2 is slated for closure Sept. 30, 2028, and Unit 3 on Jan. 1 of that year, he added.

Tri-State operates Units 1 and 2 with several other providers as part of a co-op that must pass along to ratepayers repair expenses for Unit 1, which needed repairs when the federal government ordered it to remain operational, Tri-State CEO Duane Highley said in a Jan. 29�� on the order.

About 300 miles southeast in Pueblo, a coal-fired unit at Xcel Energy’s Comanche Generating Station continues to operate until the end of 2026. The state’s Public Utility Commission approved a request from the utility and state officials of Unit 2��to allow for the repair of Unit 3, which was “extensively damaged” and out of service.

Postponing closures, even for a year, matters for children’s health because their developing lungs are sensitive to air pollution from coal-fired power plants, said Carpenter, the pediatrician.

“Puberty has such big growth spurts, and the lungs really increase in size,” she said. “A study in Southern California found that between 1994 and 2011, as air pollution decreased, lung function development in adolescents increased — it was a statistically significant change.”

Thirty miles north in Fountain, Colorado Springs Utilities will be allowed to keep the Ray D. Nixon coal plant�� after Polis signed a bill in May. The three-year extension of the unit����ap life was necessary to allow the utility to meet its clean energy goals as required by state law, Travas Deal, the utility’s chief executive, testified in April at the state Senate’s Transportation and Energy Committee.

The utility needs greater transmission capacity to add renewables like wind and solar, he added, and its customers cannot afford another rate increase beyond the 6.5% a year jump that����ap already in place. The region’s service area led the state in the number of low-income energy assistance program applications in 2025.

“Over the past several years, energy bills have risen faster than wages,” Nicole Means, the utility’s energy assistance program director, told lawmakers. “When energy costs rise, they don’t just strain household budgets, they ripple outward — higher utility bills mean less money for groceries, childcare and healthcare.”

This article was by Capital & Main and is republished here with permission. is an independent, nonprofit investigative news publication that reports on inequality, climate change and other issues.

The vote was 3-3, with Erie Mayor Andrew Moore, Mayor Pro Tem Brandon Bell and Councilmember John Mortellaro voting in favor of the agreement.

Councilmembers Emily Baer, Brian O’Connor and Anil Pesaramelli voted against, while Councilmember Dan Hoback was absent from Tuesday night’s meeting for, he said, a family obligation.

The proposal’s defeat capped months of debate over a potential deal. Opposition to the agreement with SM Energy — including some council members and Erie residents — that too much of the negotiation process with the oil and gas operator occurred in executive session, a type of meeting closed to the public.

In a written statement from Hoback that appeared in a document tied to Tuesday’s meeting, he said: “For the last six months, Erie Town Council has been negotiating behind closed doors for the sale of its mineral rights.”

Speaking toward Erie residents, Hoback’s statement added: “You came out in person both in council chambers and on the street, in emails, and in social media. The message has been clear. Residents are broadly and strongly opposed to the sale of the town’s mineral rights.”

Draco is expected to still move forward. But with the failure of the potential deal to win a council vote, the project will have to adjust its drilling plan to avoid the town’s minerals, the town said in a news release Tuesday night.

A plan for the Draco Pad was approved in March 2025 by the Colorado Energy & Carbon Management Commission, designed to include 26 wells drilled from a pad in unincorporated Weld County, before extending over 7,000 feet underground, turning horizontally and running west for more than 4 miles beneath portions of Erie and unincorporated Boulder County.

But before drilling can begin, SM Energy must demonstrate it has access to the underground mineral resources included within the approved plan to secure a drilling permit from the commission.

The town has said it was first approached in 2025 by Civitas Resources — which earlier this year merged with SM Energy Company — about acquiring Erie’s mineral rights within the proposed drilling area for Draco. Mineral rights allow their owners to access and extract underground resources or lease and sell that access.

In return, Erie could have received more than $21 million in combined cash and future revenue, including a $4.5 million cash payment and 3% of production revenue for the life of the Draco project; Erie officials had estimated that revenue share could exceed $17 million over the next 20 years or more, according to earlier town information.

The deal would have also seen Erie take ownership of three parcels of land totaling about 160 acres on County Line Road, according to earlier town information.

Erie spokesperson Gabi Rae said the town was given “every indication” that the SM Energy agreement “was the ‘best and final’ we were going to get from the company.”

When asked whether there is a possibility of negotiations continuing, Rae said: “I mean… in theory, the Council could vote to try to start up new negotiations, but then SM Energy would also have to be on board with that.”

“Ultimately, whether or not any future conversations happen is a policy decision for Council to make,” Rae told the Camera in an email Wednesday.

Under , SM Energy will now have to avoid Erie’s mineral rights. According to the state ECMC, that could require an amendment to the Draco plan, and new review by the commission before the project can move forward.

“The Draco plan approved in 2025 is in the pre-construction stage; it����ap not uncommon for operators to file amendments before the surface pad has been built and the site has obtained additional ECMC approval for drilling,” John Brown, a spokesperson for the commission, told the Camera in May.

June 16, 2026 – Town Council Special Meeting

Watch recorded Town Council Special Meeting

Yet state Sen. Barb Kirkmeyer, a Weld County Republican who checks all of those boxes, is millions of dollars behind the leading primary competitor in fundraising. She’s fighting to make the case that her experience — not a biography of bravado or no-compromise, conspiratorial conservatism��— makes her the best person to lead the state.

In a state party frequently consumed by infighting and suspicion toward the establishment, along with anyone who works with Democrats, her resume and record of collaboration have threatened to drag down her candidacy in the June 30 primary against Victor Marx and state Rep. Scott Bottoms.

But according to Kirkmeyer’s supporters, she represents the best chance for the GOP to finally emerge from nearly a decade in Colorado’s political wilderness.

“This governor’s race is going to help answer the question, ‘Is this party serious or not?’ ” Republican analyst and Kirkmeyer supporter Dick Wadhams said.

Wadhams, a former state GOP chairman, served as the campaign manager for Gov. Bill Owens in his first victory in 1998 — when he became the only Republican to win the governor’s office in the last 56 years.��

In an interview, Kirkmeyer described her motivation for running for governor as similar to what drove her to run for the state Senate in 2020.

Fresh off her latest stint on the Weld County commission, Kirkmeyer then saw Gov. Jared Polis and the legislature, newly in full Democratic control, as singling out agriculture and the oil and gas industry — and not listening to rural parts of the state.

“I got ticked off, because enough’s enough,” said Kirkmeyer. Earlier, as a commissioner in 2013, she’d played a part in Weld and several other counties asking voters whether they should secede from Colorado — a short-lived movement rooted in the state’s urban-rural divide that she argues was successful in getting state leaders’ attention, at least for a while.

Now, in Kirkmeyer’s view, the problems have only been exacerbated. As Democrats have deepened their control of the legislature, lawmakers regularly need to find $1 billion cuts to the state budget, and opponents can find plenty of surveys that point to rankings and — even as some studies rank Colorado’s and favorably.

“I’ve had enough, again,” Kirkmeyer said. “We’ve had one-party control for the last eight years, and they’ve made a mess out of our state.”

Former gov: Kirkmeyer is ‘the total package’

In the traditional sense, Kirkmeyer is easily the most experienced candidate in the GOP race. She spent 20 years as a Weld County commissioner, served a stint as the acting director of the Department of Local Affairs under Owens, and is now in her fifth year as a state senator. In 2022, she also ran a failed — but close — campaign for Congress in the new, hypercompetitive 8th Congressional District.

Owens, who served two terms between 1999 and 2007, again sees Kirkmeyer as the right person for the job — “the total package,” as he put it.

In particular, that long track record would bring a deep set of contacts for her to tap as governor, he noted. A governor makes hundreds of appointments — not just for people to run individual departments but to serve on policy-making boards like the Public Utilities Commission and the Colorado Parks and Wildlife Commission.

“She will bring in not only folks with government experience, but a lot of additional expertise in the private sector,” Owens said. “I feel like that’s been lacking in recent years. The bureaucracy has been heavily bureaucratized.”

A quick look at the Colorado governor candidates running in this month’s Democratic, Republican primaries

Since late 2022, the senator has served as one of six members on the Joint Budget Committee, helping to steer state spending and digging as deep as anyone into the nitty-gritty of how state government works. The influence she wields on the explicitly collaborative committee, even as one of just two Republicans, has made her one of the most powerful elected Republicans in the state, or even the most powerful one.

Senate Minority Leader Cleave Simpson, an Alamosa Republican and head of the caucus, heaped praise on Kirkmeyer. As a member of the JBC, Kirkmeyer's been able both to hold the line and, despite being outnumbered by Democrats by a ratio of 2-to-1 on the committee, to claim victories in cutting and defending priority programs, Simpson said.

This past year, Simpson credited Kirkmeyer with putting a time limit on how long the state could lower its reserve requirements to cope with the latest budget crunch. She also worked to limit Cover All Coloradans, the Medicaid-like program for immigrants without permanent legal status that had seen its costs explode.

"She's getting beat up sometimes in the primary world because she's JBC and she is voting for the budget,” Simpson said. “But she's doing everything she can from the minority position. … I give her a ton of credit for that."

Asset or weakness?

That experience, however, has also become a potential vulnerability for Kirkmeyer.

Marx, the fundraising leader in the race -- and a self-described "high-risk humanitarian" who leads a nonprofit — offered a tongue-in-cheek apology at a recent debate.

“An outsider, who no one knows, wasn’t supposed to step into this race and ruin your next step of being a professional politician,” Marx, who has never held public office, said to Kirkmeyer at a 9News-hosted debate in early June.

, an anonymous blog that polices conservatives to weed out so-called “Republicans in name only,” the “Evil Queen of Weld County RINOS” for her work on the state budget and other perceived offenses.��

"What a weird paradigm to be in,” Simpson said. “I've heard commentary on radio that she's just part of the problem from a conservative's perspective. Would you rather not have anyone there making arguments about whether the pendulum has swung too far?”

Despite Democrats' near-supermajorities, Kirkmeyer points to a number of accomplishments under the Gold Dome: She was a sponsor on legislation that eliminated the so-called negative factor that long shortchanged funding for education. She was a lead sponsor of legislation that lowered the state’s property tax assessment rates. And she was a lead sponsor of legislation that helped rural hospitals weather the drop-off in patients covered by Medicaid since the end of the pandemic, among others. All of those bills were bipartisan.

“The only people who like to spin (my experience) as a negative are the people who don’t have a record like I do,” Kirkmeyer said.

She also goes to the mat when she sees her values threatened. As a lawmaker, she was at the forefront of the campaign against Proposition HH, the 2023 legislature-referred ballot measure about property taxes and education funding that went down in flames.

She often leads long floor debates when she feels the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights, the constitutional amendment that limits state spending growth and requires voter approval for tax hikes, may be threatened.

"I'm willing to work with people, willing to listen to them -- but when push comes to shove, I'll veto them,” Kirkmeyer said, adding that “we don’t compromise on the constitution."

Keying in on state constitution

That fealty to the state constitution also leads to some positions possibly out of line with other conservatives.

In 2024, Colorado voters overwhelmingly adopted Amendment 79, enshrining the right to an abortion in the state constitution. Kirkmeyer, who describes herself as "pro-life," opposed that change. But she says she respects the vote -- while also noting that the amendment does the state to pay for abortion services. That was enacted through a separate law passed by lawmakers.

“I will follow the will of the voters, and I will protect the constitution. That's what my job is as an elected official,” Kirkmeyer said. “But it doesn't change where my heart is on abortion."��

Owens called Kirkemeyer "a conservative's conservative." And just as importantly, he sees her as having the best chance to win.

"It is a fact that sometimes the experienced candidate is someone who actually has a record that can be criticized. But I would take experience in this case, with a record to prove my point that she is a solid conservative," Owens said.

Wadhams, the former party chair and Owens campaign manager, sees a vote for Kirkmeyer as a vote for a serious policy debate this fall. She would still face an uphill general election against a well-known and well-funded Democrat in blue-trending Colorado, but the debate would at least be focused on things like road quality and the state budget deficit, he said.

He said that nominating Marx, who won't say how many people he's killed, or Bottoms, who's made baseless claims of a statewide pedophile ring, would risk a wipeout for Republicans by miring the general election debate in one about background and fitness for office.

"What I've always seen (in Kirkmeyer) is one tough conservative woman who was very effective," Wadhams said. "There are people in my party, unfortunately, who would rather go with this boisterous, loud temperament that repels voters."

“Where do you stand in regard to ICE?” the woman asked, referring to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Rutinel, who was pressing the flesh on a hot, sunny afternoon��in Thornton’s Carpenter Park, was more than ready with an answer. President Donald Trump’s immigration policies and crackdown on people living in the country illegally have provided reliable talking points for the 31-year-old state representative from Commerce City.

“They’re terrorizing Latino immigrants,” Rutinel, whose mother immigrated to the United States from the Dominican Republic, told the couple. “It’s personal for me.”

Nearly 24 hours earlier and about seven miles away, Shannon Bird — the other Democrat running in the 8th Congressional District — was going door to door in the Sherrelwood neighborhood in Adams County. The former state representative carried a stack of campaign flyers emblazoned with the words: “Fight Trump. Stop ICE.”

Bird, 57, and Rutinel are facing off in the Democratic primary on June 30. They’re each hoping to go to battle this November with Republican U.S. Rep. Gabe Evans to represent the 8th District, which largely covers suburbs and farm fields across parts of three counties north of Denver.

The race revolves around the familiar issues Democrats have been bringing up since Trump regained the White House last year: immigration, the cost of living and the environment. But Bird and Rutinel, separated in age by 26 years, say they bring their own skill sets and perspectives to a district that has landed in the national spotlight.

“This is where you find out where people are at — what they’re all about,” said Bird, as a campaign aide used a smartphone to shoot footage of her walking along Douglas Drive. “I know the community — I have an authentic connection to the people in this community. To win, people have to know you care about them.”

Several people who opened their doors on that hot Friday afternoon pledged their vote to Bird, including 80-year-old Patricia Hall, who has lived in her Albert Court house since 1972.

For Hall, it comes down to Bird’s longevity in the district — a quarter-century of volunteering for Adams 12 Five Star Schools and serving on the Westminster City Council and at the state Capitol for the better part of two terms.

Rutinel has lived in Commerce City for four years, though he spent several additional months in the city in 2020, according to his campaign. Bird has lived in Westminster for 25 years.

“She’s been out talking to the people,” said Hall, who worried about Colorado’s experience deficit in the nation’s capital should U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet be elected Colorado governor this fall. “We gotta get some of the experience back in Washington.”

While the candidates are putting their feet to the ground to talk to voters, the much bigger outreach effort is happening on television and online. Between fundraising by both campaigns and a gush of spending by outside groups, the 8th Congressional District primary has turned into an expensive affair.

Bird and Rutinel together have raised more than $5 million, and outside groups have reported independent spending totaling nearly $5.8 million in the primary.

“The 8th District is still the race to watch,” said Robert Preuhs, a political science professor at the Metropolitan State University of Denver.

The district, Colorado’s newest, covers Denver’s northern suburbs and the agricultural land and oil fields stretching to Greeley. It could play a crucial role in determining control of a closely divided Congress in 2027, given its — a dynamic that has sent representatives from both major parties to Washington in less than four years.

Until recently, the Democratic primary was a three-person contest. But in late May, former Marine Evan Munsing called it quits. He did not immediately endorse anyone in the race.

With an animated — and often angry — Democratic voting base in this election cycle, Preuhs said such angst could play in favor of a relative newcomer to the district, like Rutinel, who has tried to push a more left-leaning��message on the trail.

“Voters are really looking for something different,” the professor said. “They’re seeking that candidate that can push back on ICE. I think he has a natural tie and attraction to Latinos in the district.”

The Latino factor and big outside money

The 8th District is Colorado’s most heavily Latino, with , according to data from the 2021 Colorado redistricting effort.��The Hispanic vote was thought to be a critical part of former U.S. Rep. Yadira Caraveo’s victory in 2022 over state Sen. Barb Kirkmeyer, according to an exit poll conducted during the election.

In late April, the Latino Victory Project pledged a on behalf of Rutinel, who it said “will protect our communities from MAGA’s extremist policies,” referring to Trump’s coalition. The progressive advocacy group spends in support of Latino candidates.

Since then, the group — and its political action committee, the Latino Victory Fund — have ramped up their spending, reporting nearly $1.9 million in independent expenditures in support of Rutinel or opposing Bird, . Another Latino-supporting group, SOMOS PAC, has reported spending nearly $898,000 to help Rutinel.

Those amounts are part of nearly $4.1 million spent by outside groups on ads, mailers and other activities in support of Rutinel or opposing Bird as of Friday. That sum includes $949,000 spent by You Can Push Back, a super PAC that lauds Rutinel’s sponsorship of Colorado artificial intelligence regulations.

Less outside money — $1.7 million, according to FEC filings — has been spent to help Bird, either in support of her or opposing Rutinel. About $1.3 million of that has come from Women Vote, a super PAC associated with Emily’s List, which supports women running for office.

In direct contributions, Rutinel holds a distinct money advantage over Bird, having raised nearly twice as much as she has — Just over two weeks from the primary election, their ads — and those bought by outside groups — have become fixtures on metro Denver TV screens.

Yazmin Torres, who owns the Neveria La Unica food truck, says she connects with Rutinel, a fluent Spanish speaker raised by a single mother. The candidate paid her a visit at Thorntonfest last weekend and she thanked him for his work on a 2025 bill that .

As a single mom herself, Torres said she felt a kinship with Rutinel. She also wanted to follow in his footsteps and become a lawyer. Rutinel earned his law degree from Yale University.

“My dream is to go to law school, so he’s an inspiration to do that,” she said. “It’s nice to have someone to represent us.”

But securing the Latino vote in the district is no guarantee of victory. In 2024, the showed a strong preference among Latino voters for Caraveo over Evans — by more than 20% — but Evans, who is also Latino, prevailed in that contest.

Bird, an attorney before getting into politics, has her own story of growing up with a single mother. She often recounts that her family stayed afloat by relying on tips from her grandmother’s casino dealer job in Reno, Nevada. Those are the kinds of economic struggles she hears from potential constituents while knocking on doors.

“The high cost of living — and now with the Iran war — the cost of gas,” Bird said. “And those energy costs spread throughout the economy.”

Her opponent’s decision to support a state budget this year that included cuts to Medicaid has become one of Bird’s campaign attack lines. At a late May candidate forum in Greeley, she told Rutinel and the audience that she would “absolutely not have voted to cut Medicaid.”

“He should have fought to use the rainy day fund to hold off the worst of these cuts,” Bird said in an interview with The Denver Post. “Both Gabe Evans and Manny Rutinel believe that cutting Medicaid is a way to pass a budget.”

Rutinel dismisses Bird’s allegations, saying he tried to save Medicaid funds in the Colorado budget but was unable to marshal the support amongst his colleagues to do so.

“I did the work to bring amendments to dip into the reserves further,” he said.

Rutinel said he grew up on Medicaid, so he knows its importance firsthand.

“Saving Medicaid is personal for me,” he said.

In turn, Rutinel regularly critiques Bird’s vote against a 2025 bill in the state House that aimed to further curtail federal immigration authorities’ access to public spaces in Colorado, from government buildings to libraries to public schools. He said he is “severely disappointed that Shannon Bird was the only House Democrat to vote against it.”

“She’s trying to pull a fast one,” Rutinel told folks hiding from the sun at the covered Brighton Writers Group booth at Thorntonfest. “We need to be fighting for the people who are struggling.”

Voters in the 8th District, he said, may have wanted more oversight at the southern border than what former President Joe Biden provided, but they don’t want the chaotic — and sometimes violent — mass deportation agenda of this president.

“People tell me Donald Trump and Gabe Evans were going to go after the criminals — and they’re going after the grandmas,” he said. “People are telling me they feel lied to.”

Plenty of agreement

Bird calls Rutinel’s accusation on the ICE bill apocryphal. She said her “no” vote on Senate Bill 276 happened during a committee hearing on the bill, which she said needed improvement before going to a floor vote in the House.

Bird said she regrets being absent the day the bill came up for a floor vote in the House a few weeks later — a missed vote she blames on a family medical emergency.

“It was one of the few votes I missed, and I regret that,” Bird told The Post earlier this year.

Rutinel, she said, has been using that bill to mischaracterize her position on ICE and Trump’s immigration policy. She says she has the only , with requirements for body-worn cameras and officers who are better vetted and trained.

“I think Manny has a record he can’t defend,” she said.

Immigration will prove an important issue in the 8th Congressional District, said Preuhs, the political science professor. Though ICE’s footprint in Colorado has been lighter than in other American cities, the issue is never far from a district with so many Latinos.

“You have a Democratic voting constituency that is adamantly against Trump and they’re looking for a strong advocate for their position,” Preuhs said.

But if the forum in Greeley last month showed anything, it’s that the two Democrats running for the nomination agree on much — including opposition to a federal ban on hydraulic fracturing to extract oil, support for a ban on oil and gas leases on federal land, and support for a boost in the federal minimum wage.

In recent weeks, Rutinel has been on the defensive after ��that he had reversed or softened past positions in support of a fracking ban, cancellation of student debt and a single-payer healthcare system. His campaign pushed back on some of the outlet’s characterizations.

The 8th Congressional District partially lies in Weld County, which is Colorado’s most prolific producer of oil and gas.��Agriculture is also a big presence in the district, and both Bird and Rutinel have slammed Trump’s tariffs, many of which were overturned in February by the Supreme Court, as unfriendly to farmers.

“Congress needs to pass legislation to make it clear who has the power to tariff,” Bird told The Post.

Rutinel, who was an economist for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers before getting into politics, was equally tough on the body he is vying to join when it comes to preserving its power of the purse.

“If we had a willingness from Congress to pull back these corrupt and chaotic tariff policies, we could bring down prices,” he said. “It’s putting so many of the family farms and ranchers at risk.”

The new glut of spending in state legislative races had already soared past $1.4 million as of early June and will almost certainly increase in dramatic fashion before voting ends in the June 30 primary. The arms race — and spending race — is the latest in an ongoing conflict between outside groups backed primarily by business interests, who prefer more moderate Democrats, and the state’s largest unions, which have spent to support more progressive candidates.

The money battle follows a 2024 primary in which outside groups spent $5 million to influence the Democratic races. It’s part of a broader tug-of-war for control over Colorado’s dominant political party, which has grown into near-supermajority control of the state legislature.

This year’s spending is likely to focus on a handful of safe Democratic seats in and around metro Denver. As outside spending has grown in recent years, it has turned some of the safest blue seats in Colorado — like those in Denver — into some of the most expensive contests in the state.

As of Friday, a labor coalition had spent more than $570,000 since May 1 to help more-liberal candidates, while several competing interconnected spending committees had spent nearly double that to help moderates. Six PACS on the moderate side had already raised $769,000, all from two outside dark money groups that disclose few, if any, of their donors.

Most of the money, nearly $500,000, has come from a group called “Fair Economy for Coloradans,” which has no publicly disclosed donors. It was created in January by Scott Martinez, Denver’s former city attorney. Martinez did not return an email seeking comment.

The rest of the cash comes directly from One Main Street, a prominent financial player in Democratic primaries that favors business-friendly candidates over more progressive challengers.

All six political action committees were registered by Jimmy Dickson, who previously managed two state lawmakers’ campaigns, including that of then-Rep. Shannon Bird, who’s now running for Congress. Bird co-founded the Colorado Opportunity Caucus, a group of business-friendly Democratic lawmakers that’s been financially supported by One Main Street. Dickson, who lives in Durango, did not return a message seeking comment.

Martinez is also the registered agent for the Opportunity Caucus and has served as the caucus’s attorney. An email sent to Sen. Lindsey Daugherty, the co-chair of the caucus, and a caucus spokeswoman was not returned.

The six groups backed by One Main Street and Fair Economy — which, despite their financial backers, often seized on the term progressive — are:

• Denver Progressives United, which has run ads backing Denver Rep. Sean Camacho, of Denver, and attacking his challenger, Iris Halpern.
• Adams County United, which is backing Rep. Jacque Phillips, of Thornton, against Gabriel Cervantes.
• Colorado Mountain Progressives, which has directed attack ads against Rep. Mandy Lindsay, of Aurora, and has also spent money backing Chris Floyd for a vacant House seat in the high country, .
• Fighting For A Better Aurora, which is running ads against Rep. Jamie Jackson, also of Aurora.
• Promoting Progressive Women, which has also run ads against Lindsay.
• Progressive Leadership Fund, which has run ads backing Andrés Carrera against Chela Garcia Irlando for a soon-to-be vacant state Senate seat in Denver.

One of Denver Progressives United’s ads accuses Halpern, an attorney, of illegally lobbying, based on a complaint filed against her earlier this year. But that complaint was dismissed by the secretary of state’s office, as first reported by the Colorado Sun.

Halpern told The Denver Post that she’d sent Denver Progressives United a cease-and-desist letter to stop running the ads and had not received a response.

Just like in 2024, opposing the One Main Street-aligned groups is Colorado Labor Action, which discloses its donors and is financed by the state’s AFL-CIO and the Colorado Education Association. It’s spent more than $500,000 thus far to back Jackson, Garcia Irlando and Halpern, along with Rep. Kenny Nguyen of Broomfield,��who found himself in One Main Street’s crosshairs after .

Colorado Labor Action has run ads attacking Camacho and Carrera, as well Anne Keke, who is running against Jackson, and Heidi Henkel, who’s running against Nguyen.

One Main Street has largely refused to reveal its donors, other than several minority donations from trade unions that it publicly reports. In 2022, it received $25,000 from the Apartment Association of Metro Denver. More recently, federal tax records show One Main Street has received donations from a group funded by the oil and gas industry.

During the 2024 round of well-moneyed primaries, One Main Street received $1 million from “.” That group, in turn, received $2.2 million from Chevron and $1.1 million from Coloradans for Responsible Energy Development, another oil and gas group. Tax filings show that One Main Street was the largest recipient of Coloradans for Progress’ funding that year.

Andrew Short, One Main Street’s executive director, did not return a message seeking comment about the primary campaigns. During the 2024 primary campaign, he denied to The Denver Post that One Main Street was funded by oil and gas interests.

Just like the 2024 primaries, statehouse primary spending is spread out and tangled between multiple groups: Fair Economy has also given $50,000 to the “Colorado Affordability Project,” which has been primarily funded by groups representing charter schools, real estate agents and hospitals. Millionaire Kent Thiry, who spent significant sums in the 2024 primaries to support more-moderate candidates, also donated $35,000 to the affordability project group.

Thus far, that committee has launched ads backing Camacho, Henkel, Carrera and Sarah Woodson, who is challenging Lindsay.

Re: “Polis vetoes ‘surveillance pricing’ bill,” June 3 news story

Gov. Jared Polis’ veto of the anti-surveillance pricing bill proves once again he’s just a Republican wearing a liberal costume. His excuse? The bill, which would have banned companies from using AI and “big data” to manipulate prices and wages based on your personal circumstances, might “interfere with the free functioning of markets.”

Sure. Because nothing says “free market” like corporate algorithms tracking your every vulnerability to extract maximum blood from your stone. This isn’t capitalism; it����ap corporate sharecropping scaled to the state level.

Consider this hypothetical: A software engineer gets laid off but has some savings. On the way to a job interview, he pulls up to a gas pump. Between inserting his card and pumping, the oil company runs an instant “wealth check.” Seeing his healthy savings balance, the algorithm spikes his price per gallon.

He arrives at the interview. Instead of offering a salary based on market value and experience, the employer scrapes data on his time out of work, his dwindling savings, and his chronic illness. They craft an offer��just��high enough to keep him from drowning, complete with a health plan that conveniently excludes his condition.

Is this the “free functioning of markets?” No. It����ap an asymmetric data war where citizens are completely outgunned. But hey, as long as Gov. Polis can keep defending the “freedom” of monopolies to pickpocket your data, who cares about the actual people?

For someone who just moved from Florida in part to escape this nonsense, Polis disappoints.

Tom Gawronski, Evergreen

Climate crisis is front-page news

Re: “U.N.: Next five years could smash temperature records,” May 29 news story

Banging the climate crisis drum: Last Friday, The Denver Post relegated a major U.N. climate report to page 12. Ho-hum, the world scientific community keeps banging that old drum about the climate. No big deal. We haven’t gone off the cliff — yet.

But there is a cliff there. Scientists just don’t know when the edge — the tipping point — will be reached.

Have you noticed all the floods, droughts and temperature records we are experiencing (again) this year? Are you concerned about this being a really bad fire year? Drill, baby drill continues as President Trump says we have to produce more oil, while the report concludes that oil and gas is the major contributor to the issue. Ho-hum.

As a committed climate activist, I plan to keep banging that old drum and supporting the rapid transition away from oil and gas to renewable energy.

Marc Alston, Denver

Sarah Woodson for House District 42

Sarah Woodson is a breath of fresh air for the residents of House District 42. A new voice of reason and common sense for everyday Aurorans stressed out by politicians on the far right and left who only support special agendas, not their constituents.

It was 40 years ago that Aurorans trusted another homegrown centrist political newcomer who went door to door to listen to his neighbors and represent them, not the special interest lobbyists that swarm over our Capitol like the miller moths and locusts of summer.

It takes a strong voice from a future leader like Sarah Woodson who listens first to the people and serves them, and not the special political insects. Too many people are again suffering real economic hardships, like how to simply pay for this week’s groceries, while the politicians of the far right and left play off one another and do nothing to help the common people.

It is time again to support a homegrown political newcomer who will serve us, the people, not them, the special interests.

Steve Ruddick, Aurora

Editor’s note: Ruddick is a former Aurora state representative.

To send a letter to the editor about this article, submit online or check out our guidelines for how to submit by email or mail.

remains binding law. It guarantees Ute hunting, fishing, and gathering rights off-reservation in Colorado and reflects a negotiated commitment that has never been abrogated by Congress.

Colorado recently enacted legislation granting free access to state parks for members of two of our sister signatory Tribes, while excluding the Ute Indian Tribe — descendants of bands that occupied what is today the state of Colorado from time immemorial. Most of the mountainous regions in Colorado are our ancestral homelands.

The governor essentially signed a law last year erasing us from Colorado history. It is a national disgrace, violating those guarantees and erasing the Ute Indian Tribe’s enduring history and presence on the very lands at issue.

The statute recognizes only the Southern Ute Indian Tribe and the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe and provides enrolled members of those Tribes free entrance to state parks. Yet the state’s enactment and enforcement of this statute ignore the Ute Indian Tribe and its history in the state, despite the reality that most lands covered by the statute fall within our ancestral homelands. When the Tribe asked to be included, state leaders offered reassurances — and then fell silent.

The Tribe delivered a formal letter requesting inclusion, warning that the bill, as drafted, would perpetuate the erasure of the Tribe and proposing amendments, but after an initial�� acknowledgment from a bill sponsor, the Tribe never received a substantive response, and the bill passed without addressing its discriminatory impact. This exposes Polis’s failure as a leader.

This erasure is indefensible in light of the Brunot Agreement����ap text and history. All bands of our Tribe signed the Brunot Agreement of 1874, the same as the bands that now comprise the Southern��Ute��Indian Tribe and the��Ute��Mountain��Ute��Tribe.

Congress ratified the Brunot Agreement on April 29, 1874. The Agreement has never been abrogated by Congress, nor has Congress expressed an explicit intent to do so. Its operative guarantee is unequivocal: “The United States shall permit the Ute Indians to hunt upon said lands so long as the game lasts and the Indians are at peace with the white people”.

Those rights run with the Ute people as signatories — every band. Because the Ute Indian Tribe signed the Brunot Agreement, we retain the same Brunot rights as the Southern Ute and Ute Mountain Ute, and the state’s contrary treatment discriminates among signatories.

Colorado itself recognizes these off-reservation Brunot rights — but selectively. The legislative declaration of acknowledges that, pursuant to the Brunot Agreement, the Southern Ute Indian Tribe and the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe retain hunting, fishing, and gathering rights outside their reservations, including in areas that now encompass state parks.

The governor cannot lawfully elevate those Brunot rights for some Ute signatories while denying the same rights to others. The Agreement����ap legitimacy does not turn on which bands were later forced across an arbitrary state line.

This moment is inseparable from a longer history of genocide committed against my people. The��Ute��people are the oldest continuous residents of what is now Colorado, a fact even the recent bill acknowledges.

Yet after treaty upon treaty, removal supplanted recognition. In the wake of 19th-century treaties, federal and state actions culminated in the forcible relocation of most of Colorado’s Utes, and by June 1880, Congress required our Tribe to abandon its homelands and relocate to far smaller reservations in Utah, with removal executed at gunpoint the following year.

This was all against the backdrop of a concerted effort to drive us from our homelands. The rallying cry of the times, one perpetuated by newspapers and government agencies, was “The Utes Must Go!” Such coerced displacement did not — and could not — extinguish rights guaranteed by a still-valid agreement.

Indeed, in 1962 the Indian Claims Commission found the consideration paid under the Brunot Agreement so inadequate as to be unconscionable. The moral and legal imperative today is to honor, not erase, the rights that survived that injustice.

The stakes are legal, cultural, and spiritual. Hunting, gathering, and ceremonies connected to the Brunot lands are integral to��Ute��religious and cultural life, with the��Ute��people historically returning to familiar hunting and gathering areas year after year. To exclude the��Ute��Indian Tribe from access and recognition where those rights and practices endure compounds historical harm and repudiates the very text of the Agreement the State purports to respect.

Gov. Polis should correct course immediately, or he should step down as governor. Recognize the Ute Indian Tribe’s status as a Brunot signatory; acknowledge its equal off-reservation rights; and ensure state policies, including park access and resource management, respect those rights on the same footing afforded to the other Ute tribes.

At a minimum, the administration should commit to formal consultation and amend current policies to include the Ute Indian Tribe wherever Brunot rights are implicated. Anything less continues the unlawful and discriminatory distinction the state has drawn among coequal treaty signatories.

Colorado can choose to lead — from acknowledgment to action. Honoring the Brunot Agreement across all Ute signatories is not only a legal necessity; it is a long-overdue step toward justice and reconciliation on the Ute homeland.

Shaun Chapoose is the chairman of the Ute Indian Tribe Business Committee. The Ute Indian Tribe resides on the Uintah and Ouray Reservation in northeastern Utah. Three bands of Utes comprise the Ute Indian Tribe: the Whiteriver Band, the Uncompahgre Band, and the Uintah Band. The Tribe has a membership of more than 3,000 people.

To send a letter to the editor about this article, submit online or check out our guidelines for how to submit by email or mail.

The lowest price reported in the Denver area was $4.29 in Littleton in the morning.

“But even that station’s likely to go up here soon,” said Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy, an app that helps drivers find the cheapest gas.

The highest price for gas on Monday in Colorado was $5.39 in Carbondale, De Haan said.

The Memorial Day weekend could add to the increases, according to GasBuddy.

De Haan attributed the string of $4.99 prices across the metro area to a tendency to follow the leader, both when prices go up and start dropping again.

The search for the best deals has gotten more challenging since the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran started Feb. 28. Oil prices began surging and exceeding $100 a barrel when Iran blocked the Strait of Hormuz. About 20% of the world’s global oil supply flows through the strait.

Oil prices have increased as fighting and threats of more strikes have intensified and have dropped when negotiations and proposed agreements are announced.

“Oil markets don’t like turmoil, and turmoil raises risk,” said De Haan.

A recent temporary shutdown caused by a power outage at the Suncor Energy oil refinery in Commerce City also helped nudge up prices, De Haan said. Suncor is the only refinery in Colorado.

The lowest gas price on Sunday in the Denver area was $4.05 per gallon and the most expensive was $4.99, according to GasBuddy. The lowest price in the state was $3.99 a gallon while the highest was $6.29.

While steep, De Haan said $6.29 is about $2 below the highest prices in the country.

Average gasoline prices in Denver have risen 35.3 cents a gallon in the last week, according to GasBuddy’s survey of 844 stations. Prices in Denver are 80.6 cents higher than a month ago and $1.59 a gallon higher than a year ago, GasBuddy said.

Colorado AAA said the average price for a gallon of regular unleaded gas in the state is $4.66, spokesman Skyler McKinley said.

“It is climbing. I anticipate tomorrow we’ll see a pretty steady jump up” ahead of the Memorial Day weekend, McKinley said.

McKinley recommended that people worried about gas prices should fill up before they head to the mountains.

“If you’re headed out for Memorial Day, you’re always going to find the best prices, the most competitive prices on the Front Range where there’s a ton of competition,” he said.

McKinley said drivers should avoid filling up on Interstate 70 or U.S. 285 if they can. “You’ll generally find cheaper prices at service stations that aren’t immediately adjacent to the highway.”

Asked about concerns over price-gouging, McKinley said, “Anyone who thinks that price-gouging is going on should walk into a convenience store at a gas station and ask how the margins work. Gas is a low-margin item.”

The Colorado Better Business Bureau said in an email that it has received only a handful of customer reviews and complaints about gas stations, but not necessarily regarding gas prices.

Oil companies have reported higher profits since the Iran war started. British oil giant BP said it more than doubled its profits in the first three months of this year over last year, TotalEnergies, based in Paris, raised its dividends and doubled its share buybacks after announcing $5.4 billion in net profits for the first quarter.

This story will be updated throughout the day.

6:12 p.m. update: Lawmakers voluntarily killed legislation that would have provided tens of millions of dollars in tax incentives to build data centers, ending half of one of the year’s most drawn-out and uncertain debates.

proposed to lure data center developers to the state by offering them sales tax breaks in exchange for complying with regulations. Data centers that skipped the tax breaks would’ve been unregulated.

“Unfortunately, we have to continue with the status quo, and I think that’s what is going to happen,” the bill’s sponsor, Rep. Alex Valdez, a Denver Democrat, said during committee debate Thursday night. “And that’s not good for us. Because that means Wyoming wins and Texas wins. No offense to them, but I’m playing and rooting for the home team here.”

In a tacit acknowledgement of the opposition his bill faced, Valdez voluntarily axed the measure.

But the data center fight may go on. A second bill backed by environmental groups is still alive. Senate Bill 102 wouldn’t offer any incentives and would instead impose regulations on large data center development in the state.

That measure still has not passed a single committee vote. Its sponsor, Democratic Sen. Cathy Kipp, said this morning that negotiations were still underway. Another of its sponsors, Rep. Kyle Brown, said the two sides were moving closer together. It remained unclear whether they would reach an agreement — or satisfy all sides — and clear the legislature in its final days, he said.

For his part, Gov. Jared Polis told reporters last month that he supported broad tax breaks for data centers, referring to them as the modern equivalent of 20th-century manufacturing. Critics, however, have pointed out that data centers use significant amounts of energy and offer fewer permanent jobs than the temporary work generated when the facilities are under construction.

5:22 p.m. update: The House sent to Gov. Jared Polis, passing the sole surviving legislation that would allow Coloradans to sue federal agents over civil rights violations.

The bill applies only to federal agents operating in immigration enforcement, and it seeks to plug a unique hole in state and federal law that offers only limited legal recourse against federal-rights violators. It passed the House on a party-line 41-22 vote.

Still, the measure faces an uncertain future. Polis’ office backed a broader bill, which would’ve allowed lawsuits against any federal agent. But that bill died at its first hearing earlier this week, after facing opposition from prosecutors, Attorney General Phil Weiser and local government groups.

That bill’s broader approach likely might have given it a better chance of surviving a likely legal challenge from the Trump administration, which has successfully sued over legislation like SB-5 elsewhere.

In a statement, Polis spokesman Eric Maruyama noted the governor’s support for the broader bill because it “would have protected all constitutional rights in every instance.” He said SB-5 “protects constitutional rights only in limited situations,” and Polis planned to “review the final version of the bill, while keeping in mind the legal issues associated with the legislation.”

4:24 p.m. update: The Senate gave initial support to — a gambit to allow the state to count a recent over-refund given to taxpayers against future budget revenue limits — and immediately triggered a lawsuit threat today from the conservative activist organization Advance Colorado.

The bill would free up this upcoming fiscal year, which will run from July 1 to June 30, 2027, and $153 million the next fiscal year. Lawmakers argue the refund issued for the 2024-2025 fiscal year did not take into account losses to state revenue due to the federal tax changes enacted last summer. This bill would allow them to, in effect, count that overpayment against future refunds due under the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights.

The budgeting maneuver ran into immediate concerns among legislative staff, however. The Joint Budget Committee staff running the bill because of legal risks it posed.

Advance Colorado, which frequently is a conservative foil to the Democratic-controlled state government, stepped in to provide that legal risk today. (See also Advance’s running of a natural gas ballot initiative that Democrats are responding to, below.)��The organization pledged to file a lawsuit over the budget and that specific bill.

“The state cannot attempt to fix its budget issues on the backs of hardworking citizens who are owed their TABOR refunds by law,” Advance Colorado President Michael Fields said in a statement. “Refusing to follow the Colorado constitution for monetary benefit is unacceptable, and we will defend TABOR in court or at the ballot box whenever the government tries to take money that belongs to the people.”

Senate sponsors Sens. Jeff Bridges and Judy Amabile offered little preamble or debate of the bill when it was heard this morning. It’s a key piece to closing the $1.5 billion budget deficit and meeting the state’s constitutional requirement for a balanced budget. Shortly after the debate, Gov. Jared Polis signed the budget into law.

3:30 p.m. update: Days after moving to kneecap one potential fall ballot measure, lawmakers are preparing to introduce legislation that would blunt another proposed ballot initiative — one that would give .

The exact text of the bill has not been released, and it was still being drafted early this afternoon. But the Democratic lawmakers backing it said their proposal would add definitions and “guardrails” to Initiative 177, a two-sentence constitutional amendment that, if placed on the ballot and passed, would give the state’s residents the right to buy natural gas for cooking or heating. It would also give gas producers and utilities the right to sell the product to homes and businesses.

“There are a variety of potential implications from a ballot measure that is so poorly defined,” House Speaker Julie McCluskie told reporters, “and it is really our goal to combat any of those dangerous and concerning outcomes if the ballot measure makes it. Now more than ever, it is not the time to play politics with our energy environment and with our energy partners.”

The initiative, which has not yet qualified for the ballot, is backed by the conservative group Advance Colorado. The proposal has threatened to rip open a two-year-old armistice between environmental groups and the oil and gas industry, which had mutually agreed to pause their ballot and legislative conflicts.

In response to Advance’s proposal, that would hold oil and gas companies liable for various environmental damages. A fourth proposal from the environmental group would ban utilities from charging customers for pipeline extensions or decommissioning costs.

Kennedy-Ezra Kastle, spokesperson for the group, said it “remains to be seen” if Conservation Colorado withdraws its ballot measures.��Kelly Nordini, the group’s CEO, was part of a governor’s office news release Thursday making a “renewed commitment” to the 2024 armistice. Advance was not part of that deal.

But McCluskie and other Democratic lawmakers said the group, which has wielded significant influence over the legislature and the state through its ballot campaigns, should respect the truce reached between the energy industry and the environmentalist community.

“Advance Colorado may not have been part of it,” said Sen. Lisa Cutter, a Jefferson County Democrat, “but certainly when you get such a broad group of stakeholders from all sides of an issue together, working in good faith to make sound policy — to have someone put out an ill-conceived ballot measure, whether or not they’re part of the deal, it seems like a bad faith effort.”

In a statement, Advance Colorado President Michael Fields said he’d seen a draft of the bill and that he didn’t believe it would impact the ballot measure.

“Our measure is going into the Colorado Constitution,” he wrote. “And the constitution obviously supersedes any statute. Our measure is simply about lowering energy costs for Coloradans. We believe people should be able to use natural gas for cooking and heating their homes.”

Fields is correct that the bill would attempt to set statutory limits on what could be a constitutional amendment. McCluskie said she hadn’t thought about potential legal challenges, should both the bill and the ballot measure pass. But she and other lawmakers said the legislature could weigh in on constitutional rights, like the Second Amendment.

“The legislature has had obligations, and courts have accepted that we’re able to legislate to the expectations of how that right would be expressed,” Rep. Jennifer Bacon, a Denver Democrat, said.

In a statement, Conservation Colorado criticized Fields’ ballot measure as “poorly written” and focused on “the interest of corporations.”

“Rep. Bacon’s bill is necessary and appropriate to minimize some of the risks of the initiative, which could increase energy costs, undermine property rights, and endanger public safety,” Nordini, the group’s CEO, said.

The legislature’s effort to neuter Initiative 177 comes a week after Democratic lawmakers unveiled a bill to curb another ballot measure that’s in the signature-gathering phase. That proposal, , would require that the state direct revenue collected from transportation-related sources only to road transportation.

drafted by lawmakers would shift state spending to other obligations while cutting the gas tax, making room for other spending under the spending cap imposed by the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights.

1:40 p.m. update: Gov. Jared Polis signed into law the final state budget of his tenure this afternoon, a $46.8 billion spending plan that required some $1 billion in cuts to make up for changes to federal tax code and exploding costs in must-spend areas like Medicaid.

Polis hailed budget writers for preserving education funding despite making steep cuts for the third time in two years, but he chuckled when talking about healthcare cuts.

“Healthcare costs cannot go up at 10, 11% year to year, “ Polis said. “That����ap ridiculous, and what I’ve been kind of talking (about) is it����ap especially ridiculous because it����ap not like health outcomes are getting better at 10 or 11% (increases). And when health outcomes are the same, it����ap just idiocy to spend more money. When you get the same for less, you do it.”

Polis, who is term-limited from seeking reelection, did not take questions from the media at the bill-signing ceremony.

In a written follow-up statement to respond to a Denver Post question about people worried about Medicaid cuts, Polis said his office worked with disability advocates “to protect the most essential services” and highlighted efforts to expand access and funding in recent years. He warned that federal changes would put even more pressure on Medicaid in upcoming years.

“This budget required hard decisions, but we are protecting important investments in education and public safety, and slowing the growth of Medicaid to protect the sustainability of care for years to come,” Polis said.

Members of the budget-writing committee described lost sleep and tears as they wrestled with cuts, specifically those to Medicaid that would result in less coverage for low-income children. People with children and family members with severe developmental disabilities worry that cuts to their supports will mean they can’t afford to care for their loved ones.

The budget includes $17.4 billion in general fund dollars, which accounts for most of the state’s direct tax collections and its most flexible spending. The general fund increased by about $212 million compared to last year, which is less than the rising costs in Medicaid alone — meaning the state had to cut specific programs within Medicaid and elsewhere to make up the difference.

“This year was incredibly difficult and challenged each of us in a myriad of ways that put our values to the test,” said Rep. Emily Sirota, a Denver Democrat who chairs the Joint Budget Committee. “It’s a zero-sum game. A dollar here means a dollar less over there.”

Rep. Rick Taggart, a Grand Junction Republican on the committee, described “a lot of tears,” particularly when lawmakers listened to testimony from children and adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities.

“That will go down for me as one of the hardest days I’ve ever had. I dropped my head so many times because I couldn’t wipe the tears out of my eyes,” he said. “This was a tough budget, and nobody won.”

Sen. Barbara Kirkmeyer, a Brighton Republican on the JBC who’s running for governor, highlighted a secondary bill that will require a deep dive into the state’s healthcare programs. Colorado Medicaid serves more than 1 million state residents. She called the state’s rising healthcare costs “the No. 1 that we have to consider” in any budget year.

While Polis and others celebrated that the state kept education funding at constitutionally mandated levels, Sen. Jeff Bridges pointed to a pair of that showed the state was still billions of dollars short when it came to education funding. “I don’t love this budget,” said Bridges, a Greenwood Village Democrat, and he called the cuts “extraordinarily painful.”

But he also praised the work of the committee and staff for the thoughtful approach to the cuts.

“We have done the least harm that is possible to do through the cuts that we have been required to make, through changes at the federal level and restrictions that we have here in place in our own constitution,” Bridges said. “That said, this has been the possible outcome.”

The White River Electric Association, a non-profit cooperative, lost several miles of power lines in two fires that burned public and private land just outside of Meeker in August 2025. Power lines are uninsurable, for obvious reasons, and White River has had to take out a $23.6 million loan to rebuild transmission lines and get power to critical gas development projects in the Piceance Basin.

“The loan itself is not a long-term loan. It was issued with the hope that FEMA would help us,” said Alan J. Michalewicz, general manager and CEO of White River Electric Association. “Now, with FEMA being declined, we are exploring the options that are available to us and what it would take to turn this into a long-term loan. It could have up to a 5% rate impact on membership, across the board to all our members.”

Michalewicz said he is grateful for the bipartisan support in Colorado following the fires and lauded the state’s work in the aftermath of the fires. White River rebuilt transmission lines quickly, and full power will be restored next week to oil and gas operators in the area.

We worry that even a 3% rate increase will hurt families, small businesses and oil and gas operations in a time when everyone, including utilities, is facing the pressure of increased fuel prices.

Trump’s denial is the first time in 35 years that the federal government refused to use Federal Emergency Management Act funds to assist a community in Colorado recovering from a natural disaster, but under Trump’s leadership, such denials are now the norm – that is, if you live in a “blue” state.

According to , Trump’s administration has denied 77% of disaster funding requests when the request comes from a state with a Democratic governor and two Democratic senators. When the request comes from a state with a Republican governor and two Republican Senators, Trump’s administration only denied 11% of requests.

Such partisan wielding of federal dollars intended to provide communities and individuals with assistance to rebuild in the wake of natural disasters is unprecedented. Politico went through 45 years of FEMA records and found that no other president, going back as far as Reagan, has denied a majority of requests from any states, let alone singled out states for political retribution using FEMA dollars. While the rate of approval for Republican-state requests has remained mostly unchanged compared to previous administrations, Democratic-state approvals have plummeted.

We are outraged, but far more than anything, we are sad for our neighbors in Rio Blanco, La Plata, Archuletta and Mineral counties.

Sadly, the counties that Trump is denying funds to had a majority of voters support him for president in 2024. In Rio Grande County, 60% of voters cast their ballots for Trump. Now he has denied their request for disaster relief, which will directly result in increased utility costs for the foreseeable future. Did they vote for this? Surely they did not expect Trump to wield federal funds as a cudgel to punish them for the politics of their neighbors.

Colorado’s leaders cannot drop this issue until Trump reverses this bad decision.

Every single member of Colorado’s congressional delegation — Republicans and Democrats — signed off on . Now that Trump rejected the appeal, our elected officials must increase the political pressure.

No one should be talking about this more than U.S. Rep. Jeff Hurd, who represents all four affected counties in Congressional District 3. Hurd is facing a primary for re-election, and he has until June to prove he can deliver for his constituents. Hurd should be spending time on the campaign trail explaining how he is fighting for these federal funds.

But he can’t do it alone. Colorado’s U.S. senators — John Hickenlooper and Michael Bennet — have decrying Trump’s denial of these funds.

“The president is solely responsible for this abdication of responsibility; the consequences of which will continue to be severe and long-lasting,” the statement reads.

But that doesn’t go far enough.

We need our elected officials to be a thorn in Trump’s side, requesting meetings, talking at every public event about the detailed repercussions of this decision and lauding Gov. Jared Polis for his ongoing support of these counties.

The emphasis from our leaders should be on the unprecedented and politically motivated nature of Trump’s decision. Trump is setting a dire precedent. Will future presidents withhold federal disaster aid unless a state’s leaders laud her achievements, bow to her every demand, and kiss the ring?

We want to live in a country that is free from the tyranny of an executive branch with unlimited power and unlimited spite. Now is the time for Colorado leaders to push back on this bad decision and fight for a future where disaster declarations are considered on their merits and qualifications, not on the angry whims of one man.

To send a letter to the editor about this article, submit online or check out our guidelines for how to submit by email or mail.