Today is Nov. 1, 2023, and here’s what you need to know:

An expert on political extremism testified on Tuesday in Denver District Court that Donald Trump stoked his followers into staging a violent attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, during a hearing in a lawsuit seeking to declare the former president ineligible to appear on next year’s Colorado ballot.

A group of Republican and unaffiliated Colorado voters sued last month to prevent Colorado’s secretary of state from including Trump on the state’s 2024 primary ballot, alleging that he’s disqualified under a rarely invoked post-Civil War clause of the U.S. Constitution that bars certain officials who have “engaged in insurrection” from ever holding federal office.

Representing the petitioners, Eric Olson, a former Colorado solicitor general, argued on the second day of a planned weeklong hearing that attempts by Trump’s followers to keep Congress from certifying Democrat Joe Biden’s 2020 election amounted to an insurrection. The petitioner’s star witness asserted that evidence showed the mob had been under Trump’s command.

Trump’s lead attorney, Scott Gessler, a Republican former Colorado secretary of state, countered that Trump’s remarks in the run-up to and on Jan. 6 were typical political speech, including phrases and sentiments commonly expressed by Democrats.

The Opioid and Other Substance Use Disorders Study Committee turned down the “safe injection sites” proposal, identified in draft legislation as “overdose prevention centers,” based on concerns about a possible veto from Gov. Jared Polis.

A similar effort in the 2023 session died in a Senate committee last spring also for the same reason – a veto threat from the governor.

The draft legislation considered by the committee Monday would have established a five-year pilot program in municipalities that have authorized those facilities.

Five years ago, the Denver City Council authorized such centers, the only local government to do so. However, those centers never opened because the city is waiting on required state authorization to put its plan into motion.

In a statement to Colorado Politics, Polis spokesman Conor Cahill said the governor “has been clear with Coloradans and the legislature that he is opposed to these drug use sites.”

In the last three weeks, backers and critics of the proposal offering property tax relief using state refund dollars were practically neck and neck in raising money through their campaign finance committees that seek to persuade voters to back the measure in next week’s election.

Proposition HH will ask voters next week whether to use Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights surplus revenue – which is usually refunded to taxpayers – to reduce property taxes, fund school districts and backfill counties, water districts, fire districts, ambulance or hospital districts and other local governments.

Property Tax Relief Now raised about $2.5 million through Oct. 30, while the anti-Prop HH committees collectively raised about $2.37 million. 

However, another $566,000 has been spent on TV and newspaper ads by the anti-Prop HH group Advance Colorado Action and not through their committee, No on HH. That spending is reported separately to the Secretary of State’s office. 

That boost for the pro-Prop HH campaign came courtesy of several “dark money” groups, including the Sixteen Thirty Fund, which contributed $350,000 on Oct. 20. That brought the group’s contribution total to $600,000.

A Douglas County judge was wrong to let a man represent himself at trial without ensuring he understood the basic elements of his case first, Colorado’s second-highest court ruled on Thursday in overturning the defendant’s convictions. 

The Court of Appeals’ decision was the second time this year it ordered a new trial for David Antonio Ruffin based on how various trial judges responded to Ruffin’s insistence that he wanted to proceed “pro se,” or without an attorney.

In August, a three-judge panel for the Court of Appeals reversed Ruffin’s convictions for assault and indecent exposure in the Arapahoe County jail because the trial judge did not adequately advise Ruffin about the consequences of proceeding pro se, nor did he account for Ruffin’s mental illness when allowing Ruffin to give up his constitutional right to counsel.

The most recent case to reach the Court of Appeals bore some resemblance to those flawed proceedings.

Colorado House Republican leaders on Monday called for an investigation into why Colorado’s higher education agency allegedly failed to timely report a massive data breach this summer.

In a two-page letter hand-delivered to Gov. Jared Polis and Attorney General Phil Weiser, five state representatives also urged an inquiry into why thousands potentially affected by the breach still have not yet been told individually, as the law mandates.

“I am extremely concerned that the state took so long to notify the public of this breach and the failure to contact potentially impacted individuals in a timely manner appears to be in direct violation of the law,” stated the letter from GOP leadership, a copy of which was provided to The Denver Gazette.

The letter was signed by House Minority Leader Mike Lynch, R-Wellington, and Republican Reps. Rose Pugliese, the House assistant minority leader, Mary Bradfield of Colorado Springs, Don Wilson of Monument and Anthony Hartsook of Parker. Bradfield, Wilson and Hartsook are members of the House Education Committee.