Author: LYNN BARTELS Special to Colorado Politics

Republican Don Coram estimated he got more than 100 phone calls leading up to the day Congress was scheduled to reaffirm Democrat Joe Biden’s victory in the presidential election. A few urged the Montrose lawmaker to ratify the results of the Electoral College, which in December affirmed Biden had defeated Republican Donald Trump. Most callers…

Add former state Rep. Dan Thurlow of Mesa County to the list of Coloradans who have dropped their party affiliation to join the ranks of the state’s largest voting bloc.  Thurlow made the switch from Republican to unaffiliated at the start of the year and then went on Facebook to explain his decision. He had…

They’ve loved being a county commissioner and made some fantastic friends, but when their terms end in mid-January there are some things they won’t miss. “I’ve been chewed out more than I’ve been chewed out in my life,” Montezuma County Commissioner Larry Don Suckla said. Weld County Commissioner Barb Kirkmeyer and Mesa County Commissioner Rose…

So, 2020 is going to end just like it began, with Colorado’s Michael Bennet asking for money for his campaign. At the start of the year, the U.S. senator was engaged in a longshot bid to win the Democratic nomination for president and his campaign regularly sent fundraising appeals. “Hey – can you spare $5…

I love Christmas but I’m struggling to find the right words to explain the magic, probably because I’m binge-watching “Orange is the New Black.” The language in the TV show about a women’s prison parallels some of the words my late, great dad used to say when assembling Christmas toys. “This thing must have been…

If ever there was a year to give, this jobs-lost, restaurants-closed, hospitals-overwhelmed kind of a year is the one. “I don’t know how much worse my situation can get,” a neighbor recently wrote on Nextdoor. “I am out of work due to COVID …” I felt overwhelmed on Colorado Gives Day on Dec. 8. I…

Republicans, I want you to get stronger, to get well, to take on Colorado Democrats as equals and not as some gutted minority party, but on the opening day of the special session what happened? You made wearing masks an issue. Yes, and during a special session to deal with the pandemic that has terrorized…

It was a headline I knew was coming for weeks, yet there was a catch in my throat when I read it in The Denver Post: “If Washington can bury the Redskins name, why is Lamar still standing by its Savages?” The Eastern Plains town has successfully fought various attempts to change its high school…