An outside firm is investigating workplace conditions within the Colorado Department of Human Services amid high turnover in its leadership team, a cascade of formal complaints and millions of dollars in settlements with departing staff.
www.denverpost.com/2026/04/20/c...
More than anything else this reveals just how impulsive the major questions doctrine revamp is. It all ultimately stemmed from Roberts's personal antipathy to a regulation, and everything since has been a dishonest attempt to dress it up so that he doesn't look like he's just shooting from the hip.
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Senate Bill 121 passes by one vote, 33-32. All 32 nos were Democrats. Republicans all vote yes.
Elsewhere: After hours of progressive filibustering, Colorado House gives initial approval to Senate Bill 121, which would make it harder for some farmworkers to get overtime. Fair split among Democratic lawmakers, who have nearly 2-1 control of the chamber. Final vote will be interesting.
(Hickenlooper did report today that his campaign received nearly $44,000 from AIPAC.)
Both U.S. Sens. Bennet and Hickenlooper vote to oppose sale of weapons and bulldozers to Israel. Forty of 47 Senate Democrats backed the resolution, which was still unsuccessful. It was brought by U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders. Even in failure, an unthinkable tally 12-24 months.
In the ~five days since we wrote this story, there have been ~30 more habeas petitions filed in federal court by immigrant detainees. That’s more than double the total filed in the *entirety of 2024.*
As @michaelkarlik.bsky.social has noted, Feldman’s also already run into issues complying with orders from the federal district court in Colorado, the judges for which appear to be losing patience with their IJ counterparts across town. www.coloradopolitics.com/2026/04/10/f...
The chief judge overseeing both Denver and Aurora immigration courts is Irene Feldman — she’s also overseeing four immigration courts in Arizona.
The Aurora court, which handles cases from that city’s large detention center, went without dedicated judges for months after one judge was fired in July and another retired in August. Judges from non-detained, Denver docket have been Skyping into court on a rotating basis for months since.
For the first time in ~seven months, the Aurora immigration detention court has its own dedicated immigration judges. Among the new hires is Robyn Ross, who previously worked for RFK Jr.’s campaign and, before that, for his anti-vaxxer group. Per NYT: www.nytimes.com/2026/04/09/u...
Immigrants detained in CO by ICE’s ‘deportation machine’ reach for once-rare legal lever
"It was very sad seeing the things that went on there because a lot of guys came here for a dream that ended up becoming a nightmare"
www.denverpost.com/2026/04/12/c... reported w/ @sethklamann.bsky.social
It was also striking how many people are held even after immigration judges grant them relief: LGBTQ people, religious & political minorities who can’t go home, so they stay detained while ICE looks for someone to take them — or waits for them to give up and accept a flight back to a perilous home.
While reporting this w/ @lizzy-hernandez.bsky.social, I was struck by how much of the Trump immigration tactics — arrests at work and ICE check-ins, denial of bail, rapid detentions and transfers — were described, over and over, in habeas filings: www.denverpost.com/2026/04/12/c...
Colorado has seen an explosion of habeas cases: In the first 100 days of 2026, more than 370 detained immigrants have asked judges to grant bail hearings or release them — up from 104 in 2025 and just 12 in 2024 // Story by @sethklamann.bsky.social and @lizzy-hernandez.bsky.social
BREAKING: the judges who dismissed high-profile cases in immigration court against two international students who have advocated for Palestinian causes, Rümeysa Öztürk and Mohsen Mahdawi, were fired yesterday, alongside four other judges.
/w @haleaziz.bsky.social and @nicknehamas.bsky.social
So they’re just going to accept the 80 ballots as legit (which they very likely are).
Also, the system used to scan delegates’ credentials is apparently no longer here.
Hour 9 at the Colorado GOP assembly. The party appears to have received ~80 more ballots than were credentialed (some folks weren’t scanned into the room properly, it seems). So they’re deciding whether to update credential report, wait to see if ~80 votes matter out of 2,093 … or to adjourn.
Elon Musk’s xAI sued Colorado yesterday over the state’s never-implemented AI regulations. It’s likely all a moot point, since the regulations are set to be rewritten in their entirety here in the next month, but for posterity: www.reuters.com/legal/govern...
Fresh dispatch from @samtabachnik.bsky.social and I on the troubled town of Hartman:
ICE Is Detaining DACA Recipients. It’s Growing Harder for Them to Get Out.
www.notus.org/immigration/...
The House moved about 30 mins ago to suspend the reading … until tomorrow morning, when it’ll pick back up (unless Bradley withdraws her request). There’s still ~10 hours left, and the House is very likely working Saturday anyway, so it’s the same difference; everybody just gets sleep now.
Also worth noting: Rep. Weinberg, whose conduct kicked this whole thing off, appeared virtually today. So he wasn’t in the chamber at all.
This is very much a project of the right-wing faction, against both Dem and Republican leadership.
The other big dynamic here is fractures within the Republican caucus. That’s been a problem for years: More right-wing conservatives (who are happy to fight and blow up unspoken rules) butting up against lawmakers who are willing to work with Dems and keep things moving.
Haha the name is specific to the voice they’re using. If they used a different voice to read it, it’d be a different name.
Well — the House followed the ethics process and admonished Weinberg (the subject of the complaint). Bradley’s frustration is she wanted more from it + wanted the results brought to the full House. There’s some ambiguity in the rules about that part, but there *was* an investigation and process.
Re who else has to stay in here: bsky.app/profile/seth...