Colorado Legislature

If the legislature and then voters sign off on the plan, every dollar of the surplus used for a tax credit over the next decade or more would be a dollar that could have otherwise been used for the general fund.

The bills were in the works before Alex Pretti and Renee Good were killed in Minnesota last month. But their deaths and the scale of the immigration crackdown in the Twin Cities have delivered new urgency.

Sonya Jaquez Lewis, a Boulder County Democrat, was convicted by a Denver jury of attempting to influence a public servant and forgery.

The proposals would add to the list of who can petition to have someone’s guns removed under the state’s red flag law and add new rules for selling and tracking gun barrels.

Many business groups are already lobbying against the measures. Gov. Jared Polis, as well as more moderate Democrats at the Capitol, could pose a roadblock to the bills becoming law, too.

Nonpartisan staffers told lawmakers this month that the way they spent billions of dollars in one-time federal funds given to Colorado during the COVID pandemic contributed to the state’s budget shortfall.

Democratic Gov. Jared Polis has a few months to get his final legislative goals done. He’s also navigating the Trump administration, which seems bent on punishing Colorado.

Lawmakers rejected a request to add hundreds of new prison beds, saying the state must first address staffing shortages and parole backlogs.

The legal settlement covers attorneys fees for religious rights groups that sued on behalf of a Catholic health clinic in Englewood and a nurse midwife.

The funds will likely be mostly spent on the primary given that whoever wins the Democratic faceoff will likely become governor in November.