Stories below the video<\/p>\n
@nickcoltrain<\/a> <\/p>\n Colorado legislature week in review: $18 million in overpayment, former senator is convicted of felonies, Democrats aim at arena prices. DenverPost.com @The Denver Post #copolitics<\/a> #coleg<\/a> <\/p>\n \u266c original sound \u2013 Nick Coltrain<\/a> <\/p>\n Colorado lawmakers sign off on prison funding after delay, but renew demand for overcrowding plan<\/p>\n Colorado lawmakers voted Wednesday to send millions of dollars to the state\u2019s overcrowded prison system, one week after a key committee rejected the funds and demanded that Gov. Jared Polis provide a plan to release more eligible inmates.<\/p>\n No plan has yet materialized, but lawmakers on the Joint Budget Committee said they were swayed by safety concerns in the prisons and county jails \u2014 and by a new willingness from Polis\u2019 staff to discuss prison overcrowding. The committee voted to fully fund payments to jails, which have housed some offenders as a backup, and for medical payments. For years, Colorado Medicaid mistakenly paid a program\u2019s providers several times too much \u2014 costing millions<\/p>\n In November, Colorado Medicaid officials corrected a mistake.<\/p>\n Five years earlier, they\u2019d told contracted transportation providers in metro Denver to bill the state as if the providers were specialty ambulances. By 2022, those providers \u2014 who transported patients using large wheelchairs \u2014 were billing the state for more than $640 for every pick-up. By 2025, the rate increased more, to nearly $669.<\/p>\n In reality, the pick-ups should have cost $65, legislative staff told lawmakers Tuesday.<\/p>\n \u201cThis just seems like \u2014 what?\u201d said Sen. Judy Amabile, a Boulder Democrat, citing the final difference. \u201cWe paid 10 times what we were supposed to pay?\u201d New Colorado red flag law expansion \u2014 allowing more people to seek a gun-removal order \u2014 clears first hurdle<\/p>\n A proposal to again expand Colorado\u2019s red flag law cleared its first hurdle in the state Senate on Tuesday.<\/p>\n The law, which allows judges to issue extreme risk protection orders, now allows family members, law enforcement, health care professionals and educators to petition the courts to require people to surrender their firearms temporarily. The judge must find the person to be a risk to themselves or others.<\/p>\n Senate Bill 4 would expand that list of petitioners to include behavioral health professionals who are co-responders with police or other authorities in emergencies, as well as health care and educational institutions. Colorado lawmaker drops defamation lawsuit against women who accused him of sexual harassment<\/p>\n A Colorado legislator has dropped a defamation lawsuit he filed against two women who accused him of sexual harassment.<\/p>\n Rep. Ron Weinberg and the two women, Jacqueline Anderson and Heather Booth, agreed to end the suit in a Friday joint filing that was submitted a week before all three parties were set to testify in court. The dismissal was approved by a judge later that day.<\/p>\n No settlement or confidentiality agreements were part of the joint filing, Anderson said in an interview. Are stadium food and beer prices too high? Colorado lawmakers unveil bills targeting costs.<\/p>\n Colorado Democrats unveiled a trio of proposals Monday aimed at wrenching down rising prices that they blamed on corporate greed \u2014 and at forestalling newer attempts at varying pricing for different customers.<\/p>\n The proposals include a measure that would require price transparency for what might be considered \u201ccaptive consumers,\u201d including at sporting events or airports. Another would prohibit wholesalers from giving preferential pricing to large groups. And a third would ban companies from using consumers\u2019 personal data to set prices or wages.<\/p>\n \u201cAffordability isn\u2019t this abstract concept. Everyone has experienced the $20 beer at a Nuggets game, the $10 water at the airport or the $80 Tylenol at the emergency room,\u201d state Rep. Yara Zokaie, a Fort Collins Democrat, said during a news conference at the state Capitol. \u201cWhen people are forced to pay more, simply because they\u2019re trapped, that isn\u2019t the free market. It\u2019s exploitation.\u201d Colorado lawmakers express anger over killing of Alex Pretti in Minneapolis as legislature prepares for first bill debates<\/p>\n Ninety-nine bills have been introduced in the Colorado legislature in the 2026 session\u2019s first dozen days. This week, legislators will begin debating several of them.<\/p>\n But this morning\u2019s proceedings began first with lawmakers addressing the fatal shooting of Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old intensive care nurse, by a U.S. Border Patrol agent during an immigration enforcement operation in Minneapolis on Saturday. Pretti\u2019s parents live in Arvada, and Renee Good \u2014 who was shot and killed by an immigration agent earlier this month \u2014 also had Colorado connections.<\/p>\n The majority Democrats in both chambers started with comments from the floor criticizing Pretti\u2019s killing.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are angry, heartsick and scared,\u201d House Speaker Julie McCluskie said. Colorado Democrats float big changes aimed at reforming income taxes and unleashing state spending<\/p>\n A pair of measures that Democrats are aiming to place on the November ballot would significantly alter the foundation of Colorado\u2019s tax code, upending the Taxpayer\u2019s Bill of Rights.<\/p>\n Taken alone, either of the two proposals \u2014 a graduated income tax that requires the wealthy to pay more and another that raises the state\u2019s spending cap dramatically \u2014 would represent a fundamental change to the state\u2019s rigid tax structure. Taken together, the measures ask voters to reimagine how taxes are collected and spent.<\/p>\n The potential benefits would go to education, in particular, as well as to health care, child care and a slew of other state services that Democrats say have been shortchanged by a system that has been largely untouched for nearly 20 years.
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