Today is April 21, 2023 and here is what you need to know:

The seventh major gun bill of the 2023 session encountered one of the shorter paths to its first committee victory, given its support from Democratic and Republican mayors, as well as from district attorneys and law enforcement officials.

Senate Bill 279 would ban “ghost guns,” also known as un-serialized weapons. 

The Senate State, Veterans and Military Affairs Committee on Thursday approved the measure on a 3-2 party-line vote after a three-hour hearing.

The use of ghost guns – firearms that can be assembled from kits or printed by a 3D printer – has exploded in the last several years. The federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms reported that 20,000 suspected ghost guns were recovered by law enforcement in criminal investigation in 2021.

In Colorado, two recent mass shootings were tied to individuals who used ghost guns. A 17-year-old at East High School last month reportedly used a ghost gun to shoot two school administrators and later took his own life with the weapon. The shooter at Club Q last November, where five people died, also reportedly used a ghost gun.

The bill proposed by Sens. Chris Hansen, D-Denver, and Rhonda Fields, D-Aurora, would ban ghost guns in Colorado. For those who already possess ghost guns, the bill provides a compliance period through the end of 2023 to get the firearm serialized, which could be done by licensed firearm dealers.

An audit of Denver’s homeless encampment response revealed major holes in the program, notably that the city does not track how much it actually spends on enforcement, outreach and clean-up activities.

The city also does not “sufficiently” oversee the invoices for services it contracts with, including the amounts it pays vendors and how well the latter are performing, the audit said.

The city’s auditor released its report at a time when the city struggles to confront its homelessness crisis. A point-in-time count, which offered a snapshot of the problem in January of last year, showed that 4,794 people were homeless in Denver, 27.4% of whom were unsheltered.

The number of homeless people have been increasing since 2019, but the unsheltered population, in particular, exploded from 554 in 2019 to 1,313 in 2022. Many contend that this point-in-time data undercounts the magnitude of the crisis.   

“Addressing unsheltered homelessness and encampments in a humane and equitable way is a big area of concern for the public,” Auditor Timothy O’Brien said in a news release. “Yet, despite creating the Department of Housing Stability after our last audit, the city’s multi-agency response remains lacking in formal structure and fundamental guideposts like a clear budget and expense tracking mechanism.”

In just over six weeks, Denver voters will elect the city’s 46th mayor.

They’ll choose between Mike Johnston and Kelly Brough, who led the field of 16 candidates in the first round of voting on April 4. Since none of the contenders topped 50% of the vote, those two are headed to a runoff election, with ballots due on June 6.

In the 10 mayoral elections since Denver entered its modern mayoral era – in 1983, when voters turned out the beloved machine politician who’d been running the city pretty much the same way as his predecessors had been for decades – voters have faced seven runoffs on the way to electing and reelecting just four mayors: Federico Peña, Wellington Webb, John Hickenlooper and the term-limited incumbent, Michael Hancock.

Johnston, a former two-term state senator from Northeast Denver, most recently served as president and CEO at Gary Community Ventures, a major local philanthropic organization. The former public school teacher and principal ran for governor in 2018, finishing third in the Democratic primary, and mounted a campaign for U.S. Senate in 2020 but withdrew after Hickenlooper – who served two terms as governor after his run as mayor – jumped in the primary.

Brough was president and CEO of the Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce for a dozen years before her most recent gig as chief strategy officer at Metropolitan State University of Denver. Prior to running the business group, she held top positions at city hall, including as director of human resources and as Hickenlooper’s chief of staff.

Months after the Colorado legislature began investigating the state’s skyrocketing energy bills, Democrats advanced a proposal they say will help address the issue. 

Senate Bill 291 seeks to lower costs of utility bills and reduce future volatility by making several changes to the regulation of Colorado’s investor-owned electricity and natural gas providers, such as Xcel Energy, including adjusting the expenses that are paid by utility providers versus customers. 

The Senate Finance Committee passed the bill in a 4-3 party-line vote on Thursday. The bill will next face the Senate Appropriations Committee for consideration. 

“The intent of this bill is to provide more tools, more resources at the Public Utilities Commission to begin to do a better job of controling costs,” said bill sponsor Sen. Steve Fenberg, D-Boulder. “It is incumbent upon us to constantly be asking ourselves if the system is set up the right way, are there appropriate guardrails.” 

he Supreme Court is facing a self-imposed Friday night deadline to decide whether women’s access to a widely used abortion pill will stay unchanged or be restricted while a legal challenge to its Food and Drug Administration approval goes on.

The justices are weighing arguments that allowing restrictions contained in lower-court rulings to take effect would severely disrupt the availability of the drug, mifepristone, which is used in the most common abortion method in the United States.

It has repeatedly been found to be safe and effective, and has been used by more than 5 million women in the U.S. since the FDA approved it in 2000.

The Supreme Court had initially said it would decide by Wednesday whether the restrictions could take effect while the case continues. A one-sentence order signed by Justice Samuel Alito on Wednesday gave the justices two additional days, without explanation.