The U.S. House of Representatives has passed a package of spending bills to keep parts of the government open for the rest of the fiscal year.  It passed 339-85, with all five of Colorado’s Democratic House members — Reps. Yadira Caraveo, Jason Crow, Diana DeGette, Joe Neguse and Brittany Pettersen — voting to keep the lights on, as did GOP Rep. Doug Lamborn.  Republican Reps. Lauren Boebert and Ken Buck, both members of the far-right Freedom Caucus, voted against the package. While more Democrats voted for the bill than Republicans, more than half of the GOP caucus, 132 members, sup ..read more

By Steve Peoples and Meg Kinnard/AP Nikki Haley suspended her presidential campaign on Wednesday after being soundly defeated across the country on Super Tuesday, leaving Donald Trump as the last remaining major candidate for the 2024 Republican nomination. Haley didn’t endorse the former president in a speech in Charleston, South Carolina. Instead, she encouraged him to earn the support of the coalition of moderate Republicans and independent voters who supported her. “It is now up to Donald Trump to earn the votes of those in our party and beyond it who did not support him. An ..read more

As expected, Colorado fell in line with most Super Tuesday states — swiftly awarding the majority of its primary votes to President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump. “I voted with my own pocketbook, and I know my bank account was much better when Donald Trump was in office than it is today by a long shot,” said Andy Shawcoft of Colorado Springs. Shawcraft returned his ballot last week, and said he was relieved that Monday’s Supreme Court ruling ensured his vote would count. Donna Shugrue, who also voted for Trump said she doesn’t love the former president, but she does trust hi ..read more

Updated at 7:38 p.m. As expected, President Joe Biden has won Colorado’s Democratic presidential primary while former President Donald Trump has won the state’s Republican contest, according to the Associated Press which called the races just minutes after polls closed at 7 p.m. With Trump’s strong lead against former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Hayley, it’s still unclear how she will fare in a state where moderate Republicans have found more success statewide. In the Democratic contest, it is not yet known how many voters might have cast ballots for the “non-committed delegate” option. The choi ..read more

Some Colorado Springs nonprofits said they will still assist any new immigrants arriving from Denver, despite a resolution passed by the city council in January stating theirs is not a “sanctuary city.” Nine local organizations penned a letter to city council members ahead of the council’s Feb. 13 vote on the resolution. These organizations range from immigration-focused and social justice nonprofits to church groups and the Colorado Springs chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America. “The whole community is negatively impacted by anti-immigrant and anti-sanctuary rhetoric,” the letter re ..read more

Happy Super Tuesday! Colorado and 15 other states and territories from Maine to American Samoa will host presidential primaries and caucuses today. By the evening, more ballots will have been cast in the presidential race than all the previous primaries and caucuses combined.  Coloradans who want to vote in either the Democratic or Republican primaries have until 7 p.m. tonight to either vote in person (remember your ID!) or get their mail-in ballots to a drop box; there are more than 350 across the state. As of Monday morning, around 800,000 Coloradans had cast their ballots.  Tues ..read more

Four years after her daughter Marella Canfield-Jones died at age 38, Shelia Canfield-Jones received an unexpected call from the FBI. The news they gave her was shocking — and heartbreaking: the ashes Canfield-Jones thought belonged to her daughter weren’t ashes at all but in fact powdered cement.  “I found out our daughter had been in Penrose for four years, decaying, piled up on top of other bodies,” she said, adding that her grief will always be there.  “None of it goes away. You live it every day.”  Canfield-Jones had hired Return to Nature, a so-called green burial company ..read more

One of the plaintiffs in the Colorado case to ban former president Donald Trump from Tuesday’s Republican presidential primary said she isn’t surprised the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the Colorado Supreme Court ruling and returned him to the ballot. But that doesn’t mean she was accepting of the decision. “I respect the court, I respect their decisions, but I’m disappointed in the outcome,” Krista Kafer told Colorado Matters senior host Ryan Warner. “I’ve read the decision and it really is not a surprise given their questions (during oral arguments last month). I was at the U.S. Supreme Cour ..read more

Updated at 11:55 a.m. on Monday, March 4, 2024. The U.S. Supreme Court unanimously repudiated the Colorado Supreme Court on Monday when it struck down a ruling disqualifying former President Donald Trump from the GOP primary ballot on the grounds that he committed insurrection. The high court ruled that the state’s lower court overstepped and that states in general have limited authority in deciding who violates the constitution’s Insurrection Clause.  The Justices said that states may disqualify people who want to hold a state office, but that they have no authority under the Constitutio ..read more

A package of bills designed to reduce Colorado’s summertime smog problem through an overhaul of state air pollution regulations is at the center of one of the most contentious lobbyist battles at the state Capitol this year. The trio of bills, filed in February by Democratic lawmakers, would revamp the state’s approach to regulating air pollution through changes to permitting, enforcement, and establishing new industrial pollution rules. The proposal would expand the authority of state air regulators, step up financial penalties for companies that repeatedly violate pollution rules, and pause ..read more