MONTANA

US won’t restore protections for wolves in Rockies

Federal wildlife officials on Feb. 2 rejected requests from conservation groups to restore protections for gray wolves across the northern U.S Rocky Mountains, saying the predators are in no danger of extinction as some states seek to reduce their numbers through hunting.

The U.S Fish and Wildlife Service also said it would work on a first-ever national recovery plan for wolves, after previously pursuing a piecemeal recovery in different regions of the country. The agency expects to complete work on the plan by December 2025.

The rejection of the conservation groups’ petitions allows state-sanctioned wolf hunts to continue in Idaho, Montana and Wyoming. Federal officials estimated the wolf population in the region that also includes Washington, California and Oregon stood at nearly 2,800 animals at the end of 2022.

Conservationists who say wolves remain imperiled after coming back from near-extinction last century blasted the decision, complaining that Idaho and Montana have approved increasingly aggressive wolf-killing measures including trapping, snaring and months-long hunting seasons.

Map released showing where Colorado wolves roamed

Antipathy toward wolves for killing livestock and big game dates to early European settlement of the American West in the 1800s, and it flared up again after wolf populations rebounded under federal protection. That recovery has brought bitter blowback from hunters and farmers angered over wolf attacks on big game herds and livestock. They contend protections are no longer warranted.

Congress in 2011 stripped Endangered Species Act protections from wolves in the Northern Rockies region.

Despite the hunting pressure that they are under in some states, wolves from the Northern Rockies region have continued to expand into new areas of Washington, Oregon, California and Colorado. Colorado this winter also began reintroducing wolves to more areas of the state under a plan mandated by voters under a narrowly approved 2020 ballot initiative.

UTAH

State regulates bathroom access for transgender people

Utah became the latest state to regulate bathroom access for transgender people after Republican Gov. Spencer Cox signed a law on Jan. 30 that requires people to use bathrooms and locker rooms in public schools and government-owned buildings that match their sex assigned at birth.

Under the legislation, transgender people can defend themselves against complaints by proving they had gender-affirming surgery and changed the sex on their birth certificate. Opponents noted not all states allow people to change their birth certificates and that many trans people don’t want to have surgery.

The legislation also requires schools to create “privacy plans” for trans students and others who may not be comfortable using group bathrooms, for instance by allowing them to use a faculty bathroom — something opponents say may “out” transgender children.

Colorado legislation requires public schools to call students by 'preferred name'

The sponsor, Republican Rep. Kera Birkeland, said she was trying to make it illegal for a naked man to be in a bathroom with an 8-year-old girl. She said that situation happened at a public facility in Salt Lake County and that officials said they couldn’t do anything about it because the man said he was trans.

Saying the bill perpetuates discrimination, opponents argued the legislation should target the behavior and not transgender residents and visitors.

Those who violate the law could be charged with trespassing, loitering, lewdness or voyeurism, depending on their behavior.

NEW MEXICO

Democrats push to criminalize fake presidential electors

SANTA FE — New Mexico Democrats who control the legislature want to make it a crime to pose as a fake presidential elector in one of the few states where Republicans signed certificates in 2020 falsely declaring Donald Trump the winner.

Legislators advanced a bill on Feb. 2 on a party-line committee vote that would make it a felony starting in the 2024 presidential election to submit a fake elector certificate “knowingly or recklessly.” The legislature’s Republican minority would need Democratic support to vote down the legislation, which carries criminal penalties like those being considered in a handful of other states.

Republican electors signed certificates in seven states — mostly with battleground contests — indicating falsely that Trump had won the 2020 election, a strategy at the center of criminal charges against Trump and his associates.

In New Mexico, President Joe Biden won by 11 percentage points, or about 100,000 votes — the largest margin among the states where so-called fake electors have been implicated.

Supreme Court interrupts its break for landmark Trump ballot case

New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez, a Democrat, in January announced his decision not to prosecute local Republicans who signed the elector certificates — while urging lawmakers to provide legal authority for prosecuting similar conduct in the future and enhance the security of the state’s electoral process.

In Santa Fe, Republican state Rep. Bill Rehm of Albuquerque said the legislation is “politically motivated against a different party”and voted against it, noting that felony provisions are especially stiff. Violations would be punishable by up to three years in prison and a fine of up to $5,000. Fake electors didn’t change Biden’s win in 2020, he said.

Plan advances to boost annual state spending by 6.5%

SANTA FE — New Mexico’s Democratic-led House of Representatives endorsed an annual budget plan on Jan. 31 that would extend — but slow down —- a spending spree linked to a windfall in income from oil production.

The House voted 53-16 to send the spending plan to the Senate for consideration and likely amendments. The bill would increase annual general fund spending by roughly $620 million to nearly $10.2 billion — a 6.5% boost for the fiscal year that runs from July 2024 to June 2025.

It would also divert portions of a multibillion-dollar surplus to a series of endowments and trusts aimed at sustaining future investments in public education, environmental conservation programs, housing and more.

Colorado state budget benefits from decrease in Medicaid enrollment

The state is forecasting a $13 billion windfall in general fund income for the coming fiscal year, providing a $3.5 billion surplus over current annual spending obligations.

Legislators have until Feb. 15 to deliver a state budget to Democratic Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, who can veto any and all provisions — but not make additions. Annual spending on K-12 education would increase by 6.1% to $4.4 billion under the House-approved budget plan.

The governor wants the state to devote $1 billion — partly through debt obligations — to initiatives that spur housing construction and the treatment and recycling of used water from the oil industry and other desalination projects to quench industrial demands for water in the arid state.

The proposed budget increase is smaller than double-digit expansions enacted by lawmakers last year and the year before as New Mexico’s unprecedented surge in oil production begins to level off and lawmakers prepare for an eventual decline amid major U.S. government investments and incentives toward a transition away from fossil fuels.

KANSAS

Donations pour in to replace destroyed Jackie Robinson statue

Donations poured in on Jan. 31 to replace a destroyed statue of Jackie Robinson on what would have been the 105th birthday of the first player to break Major League Baseball’s color barrier.

Major League Baseball pledged support. And the total raised just through one online fundraiser surpassed $145,000, which is far in excess of the estimated $75,000 value of the bronze statue that was cut from its base the previous week at a park in Wichita, Kansas. Police are searching for those responsible.

Only the statue’s feet were left at McAdams Park, where about 600 children play in a youth baseball league called League 42, which is named after Robinson’ s uniform number with the Brooklyn Dodgers, with whom he broke the major leagues’ color barrier in 1947.

Colorado's Polis issues proclamation condemning antisemitism

Fire crews found burned remnants of the statue on Jan. 30 while responding to a trash can fire at another park about 7 miles away. A truck believed to be used in the theft previously was found abandoned, and police said the theft was captured on surveillance video.

Bob Lutz, executive director of the Little League nonprofit that commissioned the sculpture, whose friend, the artist John Parsons, made the statue before his death, said the mold is still viable and anticipated that a replacement can be erected within a matter of months.

Robinson played for the Kansas City Monarchs of the Negro Leagues before joining the Brooklyn Dodgers, paving the way for generations of Black American ballplayers. He’s considered not only a sports legend but also a civil rights icon. Robinson died in 1972.

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