Politics
5,300+ Colorado voters withdraw registration as state prepares to send info. to Trump commission
DENVER – More than 5,300 Coloradans have withdrawn their voter registration over the past month, new figures from the Colorado Secretary of State’s Office showed Monday as the office prepares to send voter roll information over to President Donald Trump’s election integrity commission.
Secretary of State Wayne Williams will send the information over to the controversial commission by the end of business Monday, his office confirmed. Continue reading
In wake of GOP Obamacare repeal’s failure, calls for bipartisan fixes get louder in Colorado
DENVER – In the wake of the failure of Senate Republicans’ efforts to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act early Friday, Colorado’s lawmakers and governor said they weren’t ready to give up on fixing issues with the nation’s health care system that both parties have acknowledged need to be addressed.
While Democrats were pleased that the “skinny repeal” bill Republicans threw together Friday in an effort to get to conference committee discussions with the House failed in a narrow 49-51 vote, they said there was still work to be done going forward. Continue reading
Colorado to send voter info. to Trump commission Monday; no evidence any withdrawals were ineligible
DENVER – Colorado will send the voter roll information requested by President Donald Trump’s election integrity commission over by the end of Monday, after the secretary of state’s office received a new request for the information on Wednesday.
The vice chair of the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity, Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, said in his latest letter to Colorado Secretary of State Wayne Williams that the commission had addressed issues Williams and others brought up by implementing a new file transfer system for the voter roll information that will send it straight to the White House securely. Continue reading
In evening vote, Cory Gardner shows health care hand by supporting failed BCRA procedural amendment
DENVER – In two procedural votes Tuesday, Colorado finally got a look at what cards U.S. Sen. Cory Gardner is holding as Republicans push to repeal and possibly replace the Affordable Care Act.
Gardner voted for the motion to proceed to debate on the bills—something that in and of itself was a victory for Senate Republicans when it passed on a tiebreaking vote by the vice president. Previous Senate versions of the bill had failed to get enough votes to make it to the floor for discussion. Continue reading
Sen. Cory Gardner votes for repeal of Obamacare in failed effort, staying true to his past
DENVER – U.S. Sen. Cory Gardner voted Wednesday to repeal much of the Affordable Care Act in another failed effort by Senate Republicans—keeping in line with how he voted in his first days as a senator in 2015 and holding true to his years-long promise that he’d repeal the health care law.
Gardner and his staff have avoided answering any questions in recent weeks about how he might vote in the latest efforts by the GOP to reach a party-wide compromise to repeal the ACA, also known as Obamacare, and possibly replace it later. But he’d spoken out in recent months against a straight-repeal bill, as well as against any bills that wouldn’t adequately cover the Medicaid population or people with pre-exisiting conditions. Continue reading
Sen. Cory Gardner votes ‘yes’ on motion to proceed to GOP health care bill; what comes next?
DENVER – U.S. Senator Cory Gardner voted Tuesday in favor of the motion to proceed to a Senate floor debate on Republicans’ efforts to repeal, and possibly replace, the Affordable Care Act—despite not knowing what bill the Senate might take up to debate first.
The final vote came down to Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and Sen. John McCain of Arizona, who came back to the Senate just days after being diagnosed with brain cancer to cast a vote. Continue reading
Brauchler says he’ll bring Aurora shooter James Holmes back to Colorado if elected governor
DENVER – George Brauchler says he’ll bring Aurora theater shooter James Holmes back to Colorado to serve his sentence if Colorado elects him as its next governor in 2018.
“As governor, I will return Aurora Theater Shooting mass murderer back to CO to serve his sentence here, where he committed his evil crime,” Brauchler tweeted early Friday. Continue reading
Western Conservative Summit 2017 kicks off in Denver with Gardner, Buck, Sekulow among speakers
DENVER – The Western Conservative Summit kicks off Friday in Denver, and though President Donald Trump won’t be there this year as he was in 2016, the event is packed with high-profile Republicans and comes in the midst of a trying time for the GOP in Washington.
The yearly summit comes as Senate Republicans are expected to try for a last-ditch effort to get one of three possible health care bills to the floor early next week, though some of the senators who have opted to oppose bringing the Senate’s bills to the floor remain on the fence.
It also comes after a week of discord in the White House, as President Trump seemed to throw Attorney General Jeff Sessions under the bus over his recusal from the Justice Department probe into the 2016 in an interview with the New York Times on Wednesday, and White House press secretary Sean Spicer resigned Friday after Anthony Scaramucci was appointed as new White House communications director.
Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke will be at the summit, and announced Friday that Colorado’s Canyons of the Ancients National Monument would remain a national monument after a review of designations made under presidents Clinton, Bush and Obama that was ordered by President Trump in April.
U.S. Sen. Cory Gardner, R-Colo., is scheduled to speak at the summit on Friday evening, though it’s unclear exactly what time or what he’ll talk about.
He’s been among the most under-pressure Senate Republicans regarding the GOP’s attempts to repeal and/or replace the Affordable Care Act, as he’s yet to definitively take a public stand one way or another on any of the three proposals laid out by the Senate GOP over the past two weeks.
Earlier this week, he seemed to tip his hand on how he felt when he said he wasn’t happy with people who he said were “spiking the football” after efforts to get a repeal-now, replace-later bill to a floor vote.
But in an interview with the Denver Post Thursday, he said he “would prefer a solution that would be a replacement” for the Affordable Care Act, perhaps a hint he wasn’t pushing for the repeal-only bill that some of his Senate colleagues have sought to vote on.
But Gardner said he wouldn’t speculate on if he’d support that bill.
“I don’t know that’s what would come up and I don’t want to say that I’m going to vote for this, that or the other before I see it and before I know what’s in it,” Gardner’s told The Post. “I don’t see why anybody should be concerned about fighting for legislation that they believe will do better than what we have.”
But Gardner also told The Post he wouldn’t focus only on health care in his speech to the Western Conservative Summit on Friday.
A group of advocates is expected to gather outside the convention center at 4 p.m. Friday to protest.
Many Colorado’s Republican governor candidates for 2018 will also be at the summit. Victor Mitchell will speak Friday night, and George Brauchler and Doug Robinson are scheduled to talk Saturday.
State Sen. Owen Hill, who is running for Colorado’s 5th Congressional District seat in the Republican primary for 2018, will also speak Saturday afternoon, and Rep. Ken Buck will speak Saturday night.
Also scheduled to speak Saturday night is Jay Sekulow, who President Trump has hired to represent him in the Russia scandal and who on Friday denied reports that Trump and the White House were discussing the possibility of pardons in the future.
The conference kicks off at 1:30 p.m. Friday, and the final session will start Sunday at 9:30 a.m. at the Colorado Convention Center.
Education Secretary Betsy DeVos speaks at ALEC conference in Denver day after protests
DENVER – U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos gave a speech to the conservative American Legislative Exchange Council in Denver around noon Thursday in Denver—one day after hundreds of educators and others protested her appearance at the state Capitol.
DeVos’ speech started just before 12:50 p.m. You can watch a replay of her remarks by clicking here.
DeVos was heavily scrutinized before she was appointed and confirmed as Education Secretary because of her longtime ties to controversial school choice and voucher programs.
DeVos criticized Denver Public Schools in March during a speech at the Brookings Institute in Washington, which ranked the DPS school choice system as tops in the nation for the second straight year this year.
But DeVos implied at the time that DPS was pushing a false agenda when it comes to school choice. She said Denver does not provide parents a voucher program, which the state Supreme Court has twice ruled was unconstitutional.
“Choice without accessibility doesn’t matter, just as accessibility without choices doesn’t matter. Neither scenario ultimately benefits students,” she said.
She also faced criticism from the DPS superintendent, and several of Colorado’s Democratic members of Congress for those comments.
Sens. Michael Bennet and Cory Gardner split their votes to confirm DeVos in early February after weeks of protests against her confirmation. Vice President Mike Pence had to break a tie in the Senate to confirm her as the new education secretary.
Tap the image below for a gallery of images from Wednesday’s protest at the state Capitol, or click here.
See the angry emails Americans sent to President Trump’s election integrity commission
DENVER – President Donald Trump’s election integrity commission has received plenty of criticism about its motives for requesting voter roll information from every state in the U.S., and emails the White House released last week show just how angry some Americans are.
Though some people answered the commission’s request for input from citizens with constructive input on what they hoped the commission would accomplish, the overwhelming majority of responses the White House released were negative.
For more on how Colorado is handling the commission’s request, click here.
Some trolled the commission over the security of its transfer system, while others blatantly told the commission and its vice chair, Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, to shove it (though often in much more flowery language).
Kobach and the commission were again widely mocked Wednesday after the commission’s first meeting, when Kobach said on MSNBC that “we may never know” if Hillary Clinton won the popular vote last year (she did by several million votes), and when he said “absolutely” when asked if votes cast for Trump were also in doubt.
The commission was only formed by the president after his yet-unfounded claims that “millions of people” voted illegally in last year’s election.
We’ve collected some of the responses and put them in one place for easy reading. Tap the image below or click here to see them. (Editor's note: The White House didn't redact email addresses or names, but we have.)
