By Quentin Young | editor
“This actually is a really important notice to every other municipality that off-cycle elections in some contexts do create a racial vote turnout gap.”
– Aly Belknap, executive director of Common Cause Colorado
People hand out “I voted” stickers at the ballot drop off box outside the El Paso County Clerk’s Office in Colorado Springs on Nov. 2, 2021. (Photo by Julia Fennell/Colorado Newsline)
By Lindsey Toomer
Voting rights groups unsuccessfully sued Colorado Springs in 2022, arguing the timing of the city’s municipal elections led to a racial disparity in voter turnout. They’re trying again now that a new Colorado law creates a local enforcement mechanism. Plaintiffs want a court order that declares Colorado Springs’ off-cycle elections, which don’t occur in November alongside state and federal elections, amount to unlawful voter suppression under the Colorado Voting Rights Act.
The watchtower of CoreCivic’s former Prairie Correctional Facility, in Appleton, Minn., which will now be used as an ICE detention center, on Aug. 20, 2026. (Photo by Nicole Neri/Minnesota Reformer)
By Ariana Figueroa
Government investigators Thursday released a report that found the Department of Homeland Security wasted more than $20 million in federal funding in its rapid expansion of immigration detention, including warehouse purchases strongly opposed in numerous U.S. communities. The nonpartisan Government Accountability Office found that millions were wasted because DHS began expanding detention operations without putting a plan in place to meet U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s goal of detaining up to 100,000 immigrants.
Former Colorado Supreme Court Chief Justice Brian Boatright swears in Chief Justice Monica Márquez in a private ceremony July 26, 2024. (Colorado Judicial Branch)
COMMENTARY
By Quentin Young
Colorado law says state criminal courts must offer livestreams of their proceedings, but the state’s top judge has little use for that mandate. Citing abuse of the livestream feature, Monica Márquez, the chief justice of the Colorado Supreme Court, last week ordered a 90-day pause on the requirement that courts livestream their proceedings. It was a sweeping, unilateral elimination of transparency, which was especially alarming given that the activities at issue involve the awesome power of the state to deprive residents of their liberty.
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
Colorado health insurance premiums expected to jump by 10% next year | By Sara Wilson
Voters to decide fate of state taxes this fall | By Anna Claire Vollers
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