The Beats

The Voter ID law passed in Texas was promised to be a relatively benign fix to a (non-existent) voter fraud problem. Democrats were wary, and for good reason. Methods for distributing these mandated IDs have fallen far short than what was promised, leaving many likely disenfranchised.

Attorney General John Suthers, acknowledging the altered “reality of the legal landscape” brought to Colorado by recent federal court rulings, announced he is asking judges to suspend all litigation in gay marriage cases wending their way through the state and federal judicial systems here until higher courts decide with finality on the constitutionality of state gay marriage bans like the one voted into the Colorado constitution in 2006.

A Denver police captain was arrested on domestic violence charges. The department tried to cover it up, but the Blue Wall cracked. Internal Affairs is now involved and it looks like the scandal goes to the very highest levels.

Citizens United, the group whose name became synonymous with unlimited campaign funds, may be forced to disclose their donor list under Colorado Law. Contesting it in court, Citizens United is claiming that it's ad-movies aren't electioneering per se, but (laughably) documentaries.

Republicans must do something about immigration reform now or they will find themselves speeding into another presidential election year wrestling with the same “Latino problem” that destroyed any chance for a Republican victory in the last election. But will the Tea Party fringe of the GOP let anything happen?

NBA commissioner Adam Silver gave a seminar in crisis management, after which nearly everyone agreed he had done the bold and courageous and, most important, the right thing in banning the racist lecher Donald Sterling and setting up the process by which he’ll almost certainly be tossed from the league.

Environmentalists and solar power energy supporters gathered at Colorado's Public Utilities Commission to voice their support for net metering, a way for independent, home-based solar power to be siphoned onto the grid. Xcel, the state's main energy supplier, claims that net metering doesn't make it enough money.

In 2000, the Supreme Court ruled that buffer, bubble, zones around abortion clinics were perfectly constitutional. Since then, the court has become more conservative, and states have pushed ever more restrictive abortion laws. When buffer zones are revisited by the court this year – will it change its mind?

Gay rights supporters in Colorado are applauding the New Mexico Supreme Court ruling that affirmed the right of same-sex couples to marry in the state, celebrating the unanimous decision as yet another in a cascade of similar developments coast to coast that underscore the progress the movement for equal rights in the U.S. has made in the last decade.

Colorado Representative Jared Polis fired off a letter to the Colorado Oil and Gas Industry, a powerful oil and gas lobby, decrying their lawsuits against the cities of Fort Collins and Lafayette. Both cities, after ballot initiatives, forbade the industry from fracking near their communities.