Purplish (Colorado Public Radio)

Colorado’s 2019 legislative session is over. The last four months of frantic lawmaking were a test for Democrats, who took complete control of the state Capitol last November. This episode, we look back at everything they were able to achieve — and why arguments over process at times got in the way of their biggest goals. And how Republicans, who lacked the votes to block legislation, found other ways to make their voices heard. The result was a session that showed passing bills isn’t as simple as just having a majority.

The midterm election has come and gone. In Colorado, what occurred wasn't a blue wave, it was a blue avalanche. It was a signal so strong that you could wonder if this is even a purple state anymore.

After eight years as Colorado’s governor, John Hickenlooper appears to be gearing up for a presidential run. On the campaign trail, he’s almost certain to emphasize gun control laws he signed in 2013. He led a purple state as it beat back the gun lobby to pass two controversial measures. But what did he do -- or not do -- to make that happen? And what does the story of those laws say about how Hickenlooper leads? CPR Public Affairs Reporter Bente Birkeland breaks it down. And keep an eye on this podcast feed! It’s where we’ll tell you more about the return of Purplish for the imminent legislative session.

Now that ballots have been cast and counted, CPR is trying to figure out what the future holds for Purplish.

The last couple months have shown the depths of congressional dysfunction. Many think the problem isn’t so much the people who serve there. It’s a process that funnels all power to party leaders, stifling debate among the ranks. In 1988, Colorado voters recognized a similar issue in their state legislature. The remedy was something called the GAVEL Amendment -- an acronym for Give A Vote To Every Legislator.

Colorado is on the verge of becoming the 12th state to join the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact. The plan could someday commit all of Colorado’s electoral votes to the presidential candidate who gets the most votes nationwide -- no matter who wins the state.

Gerrymandering is on the Colorado ballot this November. Amendments Y and Z promise to take the politics out of the drawing of congressional and legislative boundaries. To do it, they would hand the responsibility to a pair of commissions made up of heavily screened citizens -- not politicians or their hand-picked representatives. This week on Purplish, we look back at the troubled 2011 redistricting process and how it led to the current calls for reform. And we discover the amendments aren’t just about putting politicians in line. They also try to balance voters' dueling desires for electoral power and community.

“Purplish” is a show about Colorado's democracy ahead of the 2018 election. The podcast, hosted by Colorado Public Radio reporter Sam Brasch, goes behind the headlines to ask big questions about state government. Each episode hones in on a puzzling piece of news around the election. Explanations come from CPR reporters, experts and voters. The goal is to provide the context that’s often left out of election coverage. Rather than cover the horse race, it tells stories about how democracy works in Colorado and where it might be headed next.

Congressman Jared Polis has spent an unprecedented amount money on his campaign for governor. By the latest count, he’s donated $18.3 million of his own money. That’s more than the total candidate spending in the 2014 gubernatorial race. The Democratic nominee says self-financing buys him political independence. Unlike his opponent, he refuses donations from corporations and special interests, which he argues frees him to push bold proposals. Meanwhile, Republican nominee Walker Stapleton accuses Polis of trying to buy the election. These opposing talking points raise bigger questions. What does it mean for democracy when someone is ready, and able, to spend whatever it takes on a campaign? How does that change the dynamics of a race? And where does it leave voters? This episode looks back at the origin of the candidate’s fortune and how it’s long been a potent force in Colorado politics. And we’ll explore why he’s likely to be far from the last wealthy candidate in the state or the country.

Democratic presidential candidates are on a winning streak in Colorado. The state voted for Barack Obama twice and for Hillary Clinton in 2016. It’s been even longer since Colorado elected a Republican governor. Those results have led some to wonder if the state shouldn’t be considered purple anymore. On the electoral map, it might now be more of a light blue. One expert says not so fast.

Ken Crumb’s story likely sounds familiar. A Front Range resident sees oil and gas drilling in his community. He doesn’t like it and organizes his neighbors to pass a local drilling ban. The thing is, in Ken’s case, this all happened more than 30 years ago. And that community he rallied was Greeley -- not exactly a hotbed of anti-fracking sentiment today. This episode, we look back at perhaps Colorado’s first fractivist. What Ken did ended up limiting local control of oil and gas development. Now, Democratic lawmakers have passed a bill to tilt the scales back in the other direction.

Neglect can be a powerful political force. Southern Colorado spent a century mostly voting for Democrats, but in 2016 many countries in the region voted for President Trump. It was the first time some had supported a Republican in decades. The reason many voters cited was a sense of feeling forgotten by state and national politicians too focused on urban and suburban corridors. Reporters Nathaniel Minor and Allison Sherry recently visited Southern Colorado as a part of CPR’s election road trip series. They talked to voters about whether they feel like politicians are listening now--and what that could mean for November and beyond.

Colorado boasts some of the highest voter turnout in the country. Seventy percent of eligible adults submitted a ballot in the 2016 election, putting the state fourth in the country for voter turnout. But that still means 30 percent of eligible adults sat it out. Why? Many of the common barriers to voting don’t exist in Colorado. The process is easy. The elections are competitive. So we’re turning to one group that can help with some answers: nonvoters themselves.

Unlike in other states, convicted felons in Colorado who have completed parole are allowed to vote. New laws require people leaving the criminal justice system to learn about their voting rights and give parolees the chance to pre-register. A bipartisan coalition is behind those changes, but how far is it willing to go toward re-enfranchising people within the criminal justice system?

In Colorado, voters have incredible power to pass laws at the ballot. The initiative process was born out of the Progressive Era. Reformers hoped that by giving people a say in state government, they could check special interests and their influence over lawmakers. Things haven't gone exactly as planned. Today, the initiative process is often Colorado's highest-stakes political poker game, attracting a wide range of corporations and wealthy donors. So has direct democracy made Colorado voters into scientists in the laboratory of democracy? Or the test subjects?

A name can be a tricky thing for a politician. For Walker Stapleton, the Republican nominee for governor, his name does double duty, tying him to both a controversial Denver mayor and the Bush dynasty. Stapleton trumpeted both those ties at the beginning of his political career. Today, he’s running more as his own man. CPR’s Ann Marie Awad dives into both the legacies embodied in Walker Stapleton’s name--and examines whether either might matter on Election Day.

Security experts say Colorado is one of the most reliable places to cast a ballot. That’s largely because of an old technology: good, old-fashioned wood pulp.

A lot has happened, dear podcast listener, since Sam, Bente, and Megan chatted in our final episode last year.

Colorado’s capitol is current firmly in the hands of the Democrats, so that means smooth sailing for all their policies right? Yeah, not so much.

This week we're talking about some of the ways things can get personal -- very personal -- at the state capitol.

Should Colorado keep the death penalty? As lawmakers once again debate abolition, it's a question that divides parties, and friends, at the state capitol.

We're a month into session, and Capitol newbie Andrew Kenney is starting to realize it's not all pithy quotes and snappy debates. Lawmakers are getting to wrestle with some of the session's most contested proposals.

It's one of the most passionate fault-lines in state politics: how to balance the authority of parents with the need to protect children and advance society's interests. And people at the Capitol have a LOT to say about it.

With presidential candidates -- and the president himself -- flocking to Colorado, we take a look at the state of the race here, and its implication for Cory Gardner's hotly contested Senate seat.

Democrats in the state legislature say they’re ready to step into two big areas where they don’t think Coloradans are being well served: with the cost of their health insurance, […]

When is an election like a bad night of speed dating? When you’ve gone through five candidates and still aren’t so sure about the one you’re finally matched with.

Lawmakers aren't getting ready for 100 years of solitude. Just two weeks or so.

The legislative session is on hiatus, but politics, governing, and Purplish all definitely go on. In fact, policy-making is going on at warp speed, as Gov.

Our hosts locked themselves in their bedrooms, or hid under blankets in their closets, to record this week's episode, which is all about the politics and practicalities of Gov. Jared Polis' statewide "stay at home" order.

Times of crisis generally bring people together, but even in the depths of the coronavirus pandemic, politicians can only sing kumbaya for so long.

What happens to the right to a speedy trial when the court system is shut down during a pandemic? Can testing every last person in a small Western Colorado county yield new insights into the spread of coronavirus? What will life in Colorado look like the day after the "stay home" order lifts? And how much, really, will lawmakers actually try to push through once they're allowed back in the state capitol? Hosts Bente Birkeland and Andrew Kenney tackle those questions and more with CPR's Justice reporter, Allison Sherry.

Remember the start of the legislative session, when all talk was about paid family leave, the public option, and how Jared Polis might use his power as governor in the […]

Lawmakers have a lot of decisions to make before they return to work at the end of May. Those are as big as cutting three billion dollars from the budget, and as small as where people will sit to achieve social distancing.

…But that doesn’t mean candidates won’t try it in this, the most unusual of election seasons.

Lawmakers returned to work Tuesday in a changed world. The first order of business was to start laying aside most of their bills from the first half of session. The second order of business was to argue passionately about how they'll work from here on out. And the third was to set a new, pandemic-driven agenda. We discuss it all on this week's Purplish.

Last week lawmakers were laying aside even the most popular bills to make room to focus on the pandemic. But the past week of protests have pushed a new issue to the top of the agenda: police reform.

The legislature is on its final sprint to adjournment and we'll catch you up on everything they've done, and are still trying to do.

In this bonus episode, we talk to voters about the primary race for Colorado's U.S. Senate seat, between John Hickenlooper and Andrew Romanoff, and review the candidates' records.

CPR's Public Affairs team is back with your weekly dive into the upcoming election: the big races and the big issues, what we're hearing from candidates — and voters, and the moments that make us go wait... what? It's all here in the new season of Purplish.

Some people worry the rapid move to mail ballots nationally is inviting massive fraud. Others fear postal slowdowns could sabotage the whole system. The Purplish team takes a local look at the reality behind the fears here in Colorado, a state with a long-running tradition of universal mail ballots.

It's political gospel that to win a campaign, you've got to reach individual voters, the more directly the better. So how are campaigns adapting their techniques to meet the challenges of the pandemic? Plus, there's about to be a giant Supreme Court nomination fight in Washington. Do Colorado voters care?

What happens when two candidates who are both running as the "nice guy" in the race meet on stage? This week we look ahead to the upcoming run of Senate debates. What's at stake for Cory Gardner and John Hickenlooper? And what about that presidential debate, huh?

Eleven, to be precise. Do we manage to talk about all of them in a half hour? Heck no. But our team does dive deep on a few, while also talking about the larger dynamics at play on the ballot.

You know we’re getting close — the whole Purplish team is finally together in the studio for the first time.

More than a million people have already cast ballots in Colorado. The Purplish team digs into who they are and what's motivating them to get it done so early. At the same time that lots of people are voting, there are also a lot of rumors flying about alleged attempts to prevent that from happening. A special guest joins to help separate fact from fiction.

Obviously the big headlines on election night will be who wins and who loses, which ballot measures pass and which fail. But elections also tell a story -- about where the state is now, and where it might be headed. And that's what our Purplish team looks ahead to in this, our last episode before the election!

You know Colorado voted for Joe Biden, and chose John Hickenlooper over Cory Gardner. But what about all those ballot measures voters said yes to -- what will that mean for your life here? And hey, spare a thought for your state legislature; the balance of power came out basically static, and that's actually rather interesting. Intrigued? Good.

Every election is a time of reckoning -- a chance for the state to look at its choices and divisions and consider where things go from here. To begin that conversation, this final episode of the season turns to two guests with a deep understanding of the state's politics and voters.

Yes, that's actually what it's called.

Caitlyn Kim gives us the scene from DC, recording from the same room she had to hide from rioters in just over a week ago. Bente Birkeland has been back in the Colorado Capitol for the start of a legislative session unlike any other. And Andy Kenney, stuck at home with a baby, has a lot of questions for both of them.

This week, two Coloradans took center stage at the second impeachment trial of former president Trump, while back at the state capitol, state lawmakers are warming up for the restart of the legislative session, with plenty of big policies and political drama waiting in the wings.

How would YOU finish that sentence, after the year we've all had?

It could be THE big issue at the state legislature this year, and we have all the details.

This episode of Purplish is brought to you by the letter P: For Polis, pandemic, policies, persuasion, piñata, and proposal.

Congress signed off on spending an out-of-this-world number of Benjamins this week. The Purplish crew looks at what all that money means for Colorado.

Statehouse Democrats want to go big on climate change this year. Is Gov. Jared Polis ready to go along with them?

How did the Jared Polis of 1918 handle *his* deadly pandemic? After a year of living through COVID we decided it would be interesting to look back and tell the tale of Colorado politics during the Spanish flu. One big difference? A lot more moustaches.

The mass shooting at a Boulder grocery store has Colorado Democrats rethinking how far they might be willing to push for more restrictive gun laws.

You've heard a lot about health care, guns and transportation. But lawmakers are working on a ton of other ideas that will affect your life in ways you might not expect.

Congressional redistricting is a one-in-a-decade political dogfight like no other, and this go-round in Colorado is starting off with some extra challenges.

Look, we know it's complicated. It could also be the biggest thing the state does on health care since the Affordable Care Act.

Renters and undocumented immigrants are two groups that could see their situations change significantly, under a slate of progressive policies at the statehouse.

Some state lawmakers want to make even more changes to how police do their jobs, but their ideas face stiff opposition amid rising crime and changing politics.

Transportation. Guns. The public option. Climate change. We check back in on how four of the biggest policy areas of the session are shaping up.

Issues of race and systemic racism have boiled over repeatedly during this legislative session, in policy discussions and public comments, exposing deep divisions in lawmakers' views, and their lived experiences.

Through new fees and tweaks to the tax code, Democrats are moving forward with policies that could bring in a lot of new money to state coffers, all without having to ask voters' permission.

We're down to the last two weeks of session and that means two things: rush, rush rush, and stall, stall, stall.

Several mysteries unfold at the Capitol as the final days of the legislative session approach.

Everything you need to know about the end of session, from 11th hour bill failures to last minute filibusters to post-session caucus infighting, all brought to you by two hosts who really, really need to get some sleep.

Redistricting: that once-in-a-decade process with huge implications for representation and the balance of power, in Colorado and nationwide. In a special season of Purplish, we look deep into how the state's new process is working and what may come of it.

Colorado's redistricting is in the hands of new independent commissions -- we explain what led up to the change and how the process is works.

Republican relief, a bit of Democratic chagrin, and a whole lot of thumbs hoping to sneak onto all sorts of scales -- we look at the political side of Colorado's new approach to redistricting.

Denver's Northside, historic home of the Chicano movement, has been getting whiter over the last decade. At the same time, some suburbs, like Commerce City, have seen their Latino populations increase. How Colorado's new political maps reflect these changes could have a big impact on the state's Latino representation.

The first draft of the Congressional map puts the state's newest district north and east of Denver. We hit the road to hear what residents think of that idea.

Two stories in this episode about different communities that are hoping to persuade the commissions to take their concerns into account as they draw their maps.

Redistricting commission staff have released a new proposal that -- if adopted -- would make some dramatic changes to Colorado's congressional districts.

Colorado is one of the few states where the rules for redistricting encourage competitive districts. But is competition really all it's cracked up to be?

Marathon Zoom sessions. Painstaking geographic descriptions. And the slow struggle toward something like consensus. We head inside the final days of the Congressional redistricting commission's work to see how they're trying to get it done.

With minutes left on the clock, the congressional redistricting commission approved a new map. We give you the lowdown on what it looks like, what it means, and how commissioners got there.

And it gave us a lot to talk about.

It's beginning to look at lot like politics, at least for our public affairs team; everywhere they go they seem to be hearing about what's ahead at the legislature...

When rioters broke into the U.S. Capitol a year ago, most members of the Colorado delegation were in the House and Senate chambers. A year later, the memories still haunt them.

The legislature has gaveled in its session. The governor has laid out his agenda. The cost of living and rising crime are high on the list of priorities on both sides of the aisle. What lies ahead for this year's policymaking?

With home values and rents rising at a dizzying rate, state lawmakers are rushing to try to address Colorado's housing crisis. They do have one ace up their sleeve: a whole lot of federal money.

Seven percent of the state legislature is currently running for Congress — that’s the largest number in recent years and it speaks to the many ways in which this is […]

Some legislative leaders want to give all local public worker unions the power to collectively bargain, but they're up against a lot of powerful opponents.

For more than a decade, Colorado lawmakers have pursued a range of criminal justice reforms.

Colorado has been a landmark state for both sides of the abortion debate: home to one of the earliest laws to liberalize access to the procedure, as well as the birthplace of the personhood movement. Now, with Roe v Wade in doubt at the federal level, state lawmakers are writing a new chapter Colorado's convoluted history on the issue.

The story of how one county clerk came to believe in false claims about her own voting equipment, what it reveals about the many ways in which our election system […]

And what do the choices made at the GOP state assembly say about the state of that party?

Lawmakers are debating whether to ban menthol cigarettes, flavored vapes and similar products. It's an issue that's pulled in tons of lobbying money and is causing some deep divisions between usual political allies.

Colorado ranks last in the nation, when it comes to mental health care available, compared to the number of people who need it. This year state lawmakers are hoping to make a big difference in the problem.

Over the past 120 days, lawmakers have argued over justice reform, housing, behavioral health and so much more -- we'll wrap up everything they did -- and didn't -- get done.

The party is torn between its grassroots, with their concerns about the 2020 election and their hunger for a more combative tone from lawmakers, and its more traditional voters, who […]

the primary approaches, one big question is what influence an influx of unaffiliated voters might have on the GOP selection contests.

Colorado's Republican establishment is celebrating a night of victories that they believe will give them a leg up on the general election, and could even be a turning point for their party.

Senate candidate Joe O'Dea is getting national attention for his views on abortion, Trump and other issues that set him apart from many in his party. But will his positions be enough to win over the moderate voters so crucial to winning Colorado's elections?

One in six Colorado voters is Latino, a fact the campaigns are very, very aware of. But are candidates and parties forging meaningful connections, or just falling back on transactional habits?

Coloradans are increasingly naming housing as a top issue, and it's one that will appear on ballots this fall in a couple of ways.

There are 11 statewide measures on the ballot this year, and we're here to give you the key points on each of them. Oh, and Andy plays stump-the-hosts with 140 years of initiative history.