Today is Oct. 27, 2023, and here’s what you need to know:

Here’s an overview of the case to date and the disputed issues heading into the courtroom:

What is this legal proceeding about?

On Sept. 6, four Republican and two unaffiliated voters in Colorado filed a petition against Trump and Democratic Secretary of State Jena Griswold. They seek to bar Griswold from placing Trump’s name on the 2024 Republican presidential primary ballot or any future ballot. They argue Trump stoked an insurrection against the United States, in the form of an attempted overturn of the 2020 election results and the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Under the 14th Amendment, Trump is disqualified from holding future federal or state office, their petition contends.

The petitioners include Republican former state representative and senator Norma Anderson and former U.S. Rep. Claudine (Cmarada) Schneider, R-R.I. They have asserted an interest in voting in the Republican presidential primary for only constitutionally eligible candidates, of which Trump may not be one.

The watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington is also involved in the litigation.

Since taking the reins at ProgressNow Colorado just over two years ago, Sara Loflin steered the venerable progressive advocacy organization through a general election that saw Democrats retain control of Colorado government and boost the party’s majorities to historic levels in the General Assembly.

Colorado Politics: You’ve been at the helm of ProgressNow Colorado now for, what, just over two years?

Sara Loflin: I have, but I was not anticipating when I took this job on that three months later I would be diagnosed with stage three breast cancer. As of today, I’m cancer free. In December of 2021, my doctors and I discovered – they think it was as big as a six-centimeter tumor. And so I spent all of 2022 doing my job and being a mom and doing my job as Erie trustee and fighting breast cancer. Six months of chemo, surgery and six weeks of radiation. So, I’m looking forward to 2024, where I won’t be juggling that into an election year schedule!

CP: That’s good to hear – congratulations on being cancer-free. You passed another major milestone this month, right? ProgressNow just turned 20.

Loflin: I think it was first filed on the 15th of September of 2003, but, as you know, it takes a month or so to get these things up and running. So, this is a big milestone. And Colorado looks a little different than it did 20 years ago.

A Colorado University university official on Thursday sought to distance the educational institution from a department’s accusation that Israel’s retaliatory strikes amounted to an “unprecedented genocidal attack,” a development that mirrors the tension roiling America’s colleges after Hamas militants crossed the border from Gaza earlier this month and killed 1,400 Israelis.

Israel’s retaliatory strikes killed 8,000, according to Gaza’s health ministry.

Philip DiStefano, chancellor of University of Colorado Boulder, stopped short of admonishing the Department of Ethnic Studies – which called Israel’s response following the Hamas attack “another unprecedented genocidal attack on the Palestinian people” – but he said the latter’s position does not reflect the university’s stance on the conflict.  

“While the principles of academic freedom and freedom of expression protect the speech of University of Colorado Boulder faculty, staff and students, that does not mean their points of view represent the perspectives of the university – nor that we endorse them,” DiStefano said.

CHEYENNE – When Gov. John Allen Campbell signed an act granting women’s suffrage in 1869, Wyoming became the first state in the country to give women the right to vote. The room where the act was signed, known as the Historic Supreme Court Room, resides within the Wyoming State Capitol and is open to the public.

The state’s historic contribution to women’s suffrage earned the Wyoming State Capitol a spot on the National Register of Historic Places in 1973, before it was designated as a National Historic Landmark in 1987.

As of 2017, Wyoming was one of 35 states to have its capitol recognized as a National Historic Landmark, a federal list of historic properties with outstanding historical significance.

In this column, Eric Sondermann says that, three weeks have passed since Hamas launched its barbaric and diabolical attack on Israeli civilians, the the grief and preoccupation have been hard to shake:

A volatile part of the world is now aflame. Israel has retaliated largely from the air against Hamas’ base in Gaza. A ground incursion is almost inevitable before much longer.

In many parts of the world, far removed from the immediate violence, the war is largely rhetorical, but with red-hot hatred aplenty. As is too often our wont these days, one-dimensional, black-and-white thinking is the rage while nuance, perspective and complexity are casualties.

Seemingly everyone has felt the need to weigh in, even when they, too, often have very little to say. One college or university president after another has been heard from with stunning vacuousness. We can only hope their content-free statements are not indicative of what constitutes learning in their halls. 

The president of Indiana University could only bring herself to offer, “IU is heartbroken over the horrific violence that has occurred over the past few days.” Wow, bold stuff, insightful, really sticking your neck out there to assign responsibility.