The Public Employees’ Retirement Association’s board of directors is considering jettisoning its longtime financial adviser after an accounting mistake caused the firm to underestimate the Colorado state pension’s liabilities by $1.3 billion. The error was spotted by an internal audit, triggering what the board president described as a “serious fire drill” to rewrite the pension’s […]
Politics and Government
Posted inNews, Politics and Government
Campaign ads in Colorado: Why they matter and what they tell you about the candidates
If you watch TV, you’ve seen the ads: Radicalifornia, missed meetings, high taxes, and on and on. And it isn’t just the race for governor. There’s the 6th Congressional District, state Senate seats and ballot initiatives. If you watched all the political ads booked so far this year, it would take nearly 68 straight days. […]
Posted inNews
High-country Colorado towns wrangle big-city problems with homelessness
DURANGO — From his vantage point in a homeless camp on a scrubby mesa above Durango, Corey Davis could look down this summer on what resembled a Western-themed diorama. Tiny figures darted up and down Main Avenue as a coal-fired steam train chugged out of a historic depot trailing a black cloud of coal smoke. […]
Posted inHealth, News, Politics and Government
Colorado doctor on influential state Medicaid board resigns after Sun report on pharma money
A doctor who served on a state advisory board that helps decide when Medicaid patients can be prescribed certain drugs has resigned following a Colorado Sun report that he failed to disclose thousands of dollars in payments and perks from pharmaceutical companies. In his email to state officials resigning from the Colorado Drug Utilization Review […]
Posted in2018 Voter Guide, News, Politics and Government
A quick rundown of the top five election 2018 races in Colorado
Here’s a quick rundown of the top five races in Colorado (excluding ballot questions; we’ll cover those later) in less than 200 words: Governor’s race: Democrat Jared Polis v. Republican Walker Stapleton THE NARRATIVE: The two major candidates easily won their primaries, picked little-known lawmakers as their running mates and then spent the summer shifting their messages […]
Posted inNews, Politics and Government
$9.2 million and counting: Mike Coffman, Jason Crow congressional race poised to set TV ad records
Coloradans are on track to view more than $19 million worth of TV advertising — at the least — during the run-up to the Nov. 6 general election. And nearly half is flowing to the 6th Congressional District, where Republican incumbent Mike Coffman is trying to fend off Democratic challenger Jason Crow in a district that backed Hillary Clinton in 2016. The total spent on […]
Posted inNews, Politics and Government
Walker Stapleton talks about his family’s past KKK ties and Tom Tancredo
Republican Walker Stapleton acknowledged the “mistakes” his great-grandfather made in leading the KKK in the 1920s and tried to distance himself from Tom Tancredo in a major TV interview. “For the record, I categorically condemn racism of all forms. I categorically condemn hate organizations and they will have no place in my administration as governor,” […]
Posted inNews, Politics and Government
Jared Polis met with Colorado’s Republican attorney general, Cynthia Coffman, days after winning governor’s race nomination
Days after he won the Democratic nomination for governor, Jared Polis met with former Republican candidate Cynthia Coffman. The conversation didn’t go unnoticed — word trickled back to Republican Walker Stapleton’s campaign — and it raises speculation about whether Coffman would endorse Polis, instead of her party’s nominee. In an interview Tuesday with The Colorado Sun, Polis for the first […]
Posted inNews, Politics and Government
Koch brothers political network makes its election 2018 picks in Colorado
Americans for Prosperity, the political arm of the Koch political network, will endorse Walker Stapleton in the governor’s race along with two state Senate candidates, The Colorado Sun has learned. The organization, backed by The Seminar Network, an effort led by conservative billionaire Charles Koch, is preparing to spend significant sums to elect Stapleton and keep the state Senate in Republican […]
Posted inNews, Politics and Government
Walker Stapleton calls in the cavalry for fundraising help ahead of Labor Day
Colorado candidates face a fundraising test this week as the Wednesday deadline approaches on the pre-Labor Day report and Republican Walker Stapleton is probably the candidate feeling the heat the most. He ended the gubernatorial primary period with just $302,000 cash in the bank, compared to $1.3 million for Democrat Jared Polis. In a recent interview, Stapleton dismissed […]