Author: Denver Gazette Editorial Board

Our Legislature fears and loathes the right of Colorado voters to weigh in on policy directly through the ballot box. Lawmakers have done their level best over the years to monkey-wrench that right, seeing it as an intolerable end run on their own power. Just last week, we applauded a lawsuit by the advocacy group…

Fifth graders, economists and all in between can best understand money by talking to small-business owners. Colorado businesses live on the front lines of every regulation and tax law that affects buyers and sellers. On the November ballot, voting Coloradans will see Proposition HH. This deceitful proposal cloaked in “property tax relief” is nothing but…

Colorado’s Legislature can’t seem to get past its contempt for the citizens initiative. That’s the process in which voters exercise their right to do their lawmaking by petitioning proposals directly onto the ballot. And our elected lawmakers never stop trying to undermine that right. The citizens initiative is voters’ end run on the Legislature when…

The free-for-all that followed the legalization of retail marijuana in Colorado has come home to roost. Not only in terms of our state’s rising traffic casualties and our youths’ precarious mental health but also given the lack of accountability among pot’s peddlers. Which makes it all the easier for marijuana to get into kids’ hands.…

An unprecedented public censure handed down Monday to the former chief justice of Colorado’s Supreme Court represents another important step toward long-overdue reforms at the top of Colorado’s judiciary. It reaffirms the need for transparency and accountability in the state Judicial Department, long cloaked in secrecy and lacking independent oversight. The censure of former Chief…

Property-tax relief? Hardly. Proposition HH on this fall’s statewide ballot is really about growing government. And it attempts to do that by piggybacking on public outrage over skyrocketing property tax bills. The proposal’s purported property-tax “relief” – served up by Gov. Jared Polis and his legislative allies as one part of their dizzyingly complicated scheme…

The United States and Israel need each other. So, give thanks to Colorado politicians who rank among the strongest defenders of our alliance at a time of antisemitic resurgence. There is no greater threat to our partnership with Israel, the only Jewish state in the world, than anti-Israel members of Congress. If their anti-Semitic agenda…

Criminals who go to prison in our state typically don’t serve their full sentence. In fact, they often serve nowhere near the time that was meted out in court. That might come as a revelation to many law-abiding Coloradans, but it is standard procedure. It sure helps explain the epic crime wave that has slammed…

Imagine the governor appoints Elmer Fudd, obsessed with shooting Bugs Bunny, to a Save the Rabbits Commission. It’s like that, but in reverse. Once again, Gov. Jared Polis appointed an animal rights guru to serve as the representative for hunters on the Colorado Parks and Wildlife Commission. “It was a clear message from the governor’s…

Beth McCann’s announcement she will not seek a third term as Denver’s district attorney is welcome news. It’s only too bad her current term in office doesn’t end until January 2025. It would be easy enough to take the polite tack and publicly thank McCann for her time in office, however undeserved those thanks may…