That threshold — the 60-day mark — will hit Saturday, when lawmakers will (likely … hopefully) be home for the weekend. Before that happens, legislators in the House will vote on several bills that have been tabbed as priority measures by the Democratic lawmakers who have near-supermajority control of the statehouse.

Today, the House is set to vote on House Bill 1005 and send it to the Senate. The bill would repeal a unique provision of Colorado’s labor law, which requires that newly formed unions pass a second vote before they can begin negotiating the collection of union dues.

Colorado lawmakers aim to ‘assert state authority’ amid federal gaps on vaccines, worker safety and other issues

The bill is almost certain to pass the House today and the Senate later this session. It's a priority for the unions that form a significant part of the Democratic base, and a similar version of the bill passed last year.

From there, though, HB-1005 is likely to run into the same end that met its 2025 version: a veto at the hands of Gov. Jared Polis.

Elsewhere today, the House Finance Committee is scheduled to vote on three Democratic measures that would limit several business-friendly tax incentives. The state would direct the savings from the bills toward a new tax credit, which would go to lower-income families with children, mirroring another credit that's run into trouble. The measures are House Bills 1221, 1222 and 1223.

Here's what else to expect this week, with schedules subject to change.

AI task force recs

For the radar this week: Polis' latest artificial intelligence task force, which has been tasked with rewriting Colorado's artificial intelligence regulations, is finally nearing its last hours. The task force is expected to vote at some point soon on a framework that can then be sent to the legislature for consideration for a new AI bill.

Tuesday

The House's Judiciary Committee will vote on Senate Bill 11, which seeks to expedite how quickly social media sites and other tech companies respond to search warrants. That bill has already cleared the Senate.

Wednesday

The Senate Judiciary Committee will vote on Senate Bill 97, which would decriminalize prostitution across the state. The Senate Education Committee will also weigh whether to provide initial approval for Senate Bill 125, which would institute state-level protections against disability discrimination in Colorado schools.

Thursday

The House Business Affairs and Labor Committee will debate House Bill 1210, another Democratic priority bill. The measure would prohibit companies from using data they've picked up through digital surveillance to customize either the prices they charge or the wages they pay to workers like Uber drivers.

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Sgt. Benjamin Pennington, a 26-year-old man from Kentucky, died Sunday from injuries he sustained in a March 1 attack on U.S. troops stationed at Prince Sultan Air Base in Al Kharj, Saudi Arabia, according to a news release from the U.S. government.

“It is with a heavy heart that we render a final salute to U.S. Army Sgt. Benjamin Pennington, 1st Space Battalion, 1st Space Brigade, Fort Carson, Colorado, in honor of his service to the nation,” space command officials said in a statement. “We mourn a life cut short and extend our heartfelt gratitude and sympathies to the family, friends, and community of Sgt. Pennington as we honor his ultimate sacrifice.”

Pennington enlisted in the U.S. Army in 2017 and was assigned to the Fort Carson unit in June 2025, according to the U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command. His awards include three Army commendation medals, an Army achievement medal, two Army good conduct medals, a National Defense Service medal and a Global War on Terrorism Service medal.

The First Space Battalion of the First Space Brigade is headquartered at Fort Carson and supports the U.S. Army with “multidomain planning and operations,” according to the Space and Missile Defense Command.

“He gave the ultimate sacrifice for the country he loved,” Lt. Gen. Sean Gainey, a commanding general at Space and Missile Defense Command, said in a statement. “That makes him nothing less than a hero, and he will always be remembered that way.”

All seven casualties from the war in Iran were Army soldiers. The first six deaths were Army reservists killed in a March 1 attack on a command center in a Kuwaiti port.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Photos by Seth McConnell, Special to The Denver Post

Estimating that as many as 5 million people, including 140,000 Coloradans, used psilocybin over the past year, the Colorado Department of Transportation and State Patrol officials announced they’ll team with facilitators at healing centers to encourage safe rides home. Colorado’s laws against driving under the influence of alcohol and cannabis also apply to natural psychedelics and synthetics such as LSD.

“With psilocybin growing in popularity, hundreds of thousands of people across America may now be microdosing,” CDOT spokeswoman Tamara Rollison said. “We know many of these people must be driving.”

As part of the campaign, state social media postings warn that users’ perceptions, reaction time, and decision-making can be altered for hours, advising would-be drivers to “plan your trip before you trip” and stating that “decriminalization doesn’t mean driveable.”

Psychedelics can lead to visual and auditory hallucinations, disordered thinking, loss of muscle control, and “seeing colors and hearing sounds that are not real” — potentially impairing a driver’s ability to operate a vehicle, according to state campaign materials.

“There isn’t a model that we’re following, but there wasn’t one when Colorado legalized recreational cannabis either,” Rollison said.  “We created that playbook, and we’re doing the same with psychedelics. It’s about applying established impaired-driving safety principles to a new policy environment.”

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The jury found Thomas Cushing guilty of sexual assault on a child involving a pattern of abuse, a felony, court records show. The abuse happened over several months between July and November 2024.

Cushing turned himself in to the Colorado Springs Police Department in November 2024, after the unidentified victim’s father learned of the assaults and a warrant was issued for Cushing’s arrest.

“We are grateful to the jury for their time, attention, and commitment to this case,” District Attorney Michael Allen said in a statement. “Cases that involve charges like this can be extremely difficult to hear. And we’re thankful for their work in helping us all keep this community safe.”

Cushing will next appear in court for a sentencing hearing on May 28, court records show.

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They unveiled the finalists following a dozen Front Range Passenger Rail District brainstorming sessions over two months that whittled down 100 ideas:

•  Colorado Connector (CoCo)
•  Colorado Ranger
•  Rangelink
•  Front Range Express Destinations (FRED)

“If there’s a clear winner, then we have an answer,”  district director Sal Pace said, pointing to Amtrak’s new Mardi Gras Service twice-a-day trains linking Mobile, Alabama, with New Orleans. Those trains started Aug. 18, and ridership in the first five months exceeded the annual target.

“It’s a reminder to us about how important it is to come up with a good service name that really epitomizes Colorado and Colorado’s Front Range,” Pace said. “The name should be something the communities of the Front Range can relate to. It’s going to be the brand of the service. This is going to be a multi-generational service — not just for today’s Coloradans but our grandkids as well.”

Gov. Jared Polis kicked off the voting on Monday morning. “Front Range Passenger Rail will connect communities across the Front Range, increase transportation options for Coloradans and visitors, reduce traffic and pollution, and save us time and money,” Polis said in a statement.

Coloradans can vote online at ridethefrontrange.com/namethetrain through March 23. Voters’ preference, combined with “public and stakeholder input gathered across the Front Range,” will help decide the name of the train, district spokeswoman Tara Trujillo said.

A decision on whether a half-cent tax increase will appear on the November ballot could be made as late as August, Pace said. The proposal that FRPRD officials are refining would give municipalities along the 180-mile corridor shares of the revenues raised for 25 years, ranging from $1.5 million to $4 million a year based on population, to help fund local train-related development projects.

Starting in 2029, a Front Range “starter service” linking Denver, Boulder, Longmont, and Fort Collins would rely on funds from the Regional Transportation District and Colorado’s fee on rental cars, Pace said. District officials have estimated the cost of the full Front Range service from Trinidad to Fort Collins at $2 billion to $14 billion, including annual operating and maintenance expenses of around $76 million.

Front Range trains would use existing tracks and right-of-ways and run at speeds up to 79 miles per hour, competitive with driving along Interstate 25, depending on traffic, according to district documents. District staffers have been considering ticket prices of around $12 to $15 for a one-way trip from Denver to Colorado Springs.

The names brainstorming was done with help from marketing firms and attorneys who vetted ideas that would have infringed on trademark protections. “The Colorado Eagle,” for example, reviving the name of a train that linked Denver and Pueblo half a century ago, clashed with the name of the Colorado Eagles, a minor league hockey team based in Loveland, and Amtrak’s Texas Eagle train linking Chicago and San Antonio.

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The Denver Police Department first posted about the crash near East Eighth Avenue and Josephine Street at 1:34 a.m. Monday. The intersection is just west of Congress Park and south of Denver Botanic Gardens.

Police originally said three drivers were involved in the crash, with one driver leaving the scene and making it a hit-and-run. Officials later corrected that statement and said only two drivers were involved, both of whom remained on scene.

Paramedics took two people to the hospital with unknown injuries, but police did not specify which vehicles those people were in.

Additional information on the crash was not immediately available.

This is a developing story and may be updated.

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Residents in this well-heeled Douglas County city, along with the mayors of nearby Parker and Castle Rock, say the 800-acre Crowsnest annexation request would pave the way for an overly dense development. It’s a plan that they don’t see as fitting with the area’s bucolic character — for an area that isn’t even contiguous to Castle Pines.

“The sense of community we have on the east and west side (of Interstate 25) will be fractured,” said Donna Cook, a Castle Pines resident for the last 18 months. “I started the opposition to this because I didn’t see a benefit to the residents.”

Meanwhile, negotiations between the developer and Castle Pines continue in real time. Late last week, VT Crowfoot Valley Landco LLC adjusted the parameters of the project to make it more palatable to the city, reducing the number of homes proposed from nearly 4,000 to 3,646 — all single-family homes. It also nearly doubled the amount of open space it would dedicate on the site.

The developer plans to formally file its newest proposal — its fifth revision thus far — with the city on Tuesday.

Last week, the group People Against Annexing Crowsnest launched a website against the project. It describes the property, which is at the southwest corner of Crowfoot Valley and South Chambers roads in unincorporated Douglas County, as a “remote, disconnected island that would burden existing taxpayers with unsustainable service costs.”

VT Crowfoot Valley Landco, a limited liability company formed in September, shares the Englewood mailing address of Ventana Capital, a company that’s no stranger to development fights in Castle Pines.

The developer is proposing a “flagpole” annexation, using Crowfoot Valley Road as the connecting conduit to physically link Castle Pines and the site where it wants to build — an approach that the company described in a February news release as “a well-established path in Colorado law.”

But flagpole annexation efforts have faced a rough patch in recent months.

Last year, Colorado Springs voters rejected a flagpole annexation for a planned 6,500-home development, dubbed Karman Line, over concerns about an adequate water supply.

And last month, a developer pitching a flagpole annexation into Palmer Lake to accommodate the construction of a Buc-ee’s travel center on I-25 — just south of the Douglas County line — withdrew its application following vocal community opposition to the project.

The Castle Pines City Council late last month approved a resolution finding the Crowsnest property eligible for annexation under state law. A vote on the annexation itself isn’t expected until late April.

Until then, opponents vow to fight — including with a possible ballot measure that would attempt to reverse any city approval. Lacy Bradley, a 3-year resident who has been helping spearhead opposition to the annexation, said Castle Pines is a low-density community with an emphasis on the peace and quiet that comes with plentiful open space.

“It all boils down to: It doesn’t meet Castle Pines standards,” Bradley said of Crowsnest. “I think it erodes the character of the city.”

Neighbors in the city of 16,000 also worry about where Crowsnest’s water will come from, the traffic it will generate and the development’s impacts on wildlife.

Ventana Capital was at the heart of a fight in Castle Pines a couple of years ago, when residents pushed the council to turn down the company’s attempt to build a McDonald’s in the upscale town. Ventana sued the city, and last year, a judge upheld Castle Pines’ rejection of the fast-food giant.

The developer says its new project, now at 4.9 dwelling units per acre, would be less dense than Parker’s Looking Glass neighborhood directly to the north.

“Nearby projects like Looking Glass faced public concerns about wildlife, water, traffic and density that closely mirror what’s being raised about Crowsnest today,” Ventana’s Dan Williams wrote in an email response to questions sent by The Denver Post. “Parker worked through those concerns in a thorough public process and ultimately approved Looking Glass.”

Crowsnest, Williams said, wouldn’t be an “isolated subdivision,” since it’s “surrounded on three sides by existing and approved development, with a planned four-lane arterial bisecting the site.”

“In this case, the Crowsnest property lies less than a half mile from the existing Castle Pines boundary at its closest point, so it is already part of the same development corridor as The Canyons,” he said.

The Canyons, a 5,000-home development on the east side of I-25 in Castle Pines that is about half complete, generated similar pushback nearly a decade ago when it was getting underway, with concerns about traffic and wildlife corridors.

The developer points to an economic modeling report from financial services firm D.A. Davidson that concluded Crowsnest could generate $650 million in revenue for Castle Pines over the next 40 years. That includes $263 million in projected sales tax revenue. The project will feature about 120 acres devoted to commercial uses.

It’s not clear whether those economic impact numbers would change as a result of alterations made to the plan late last week.

Parker Mayor Joshua Rivero said Crowsnest, by its proximity, will significantly impact his town — and not for the good.

Traffic from Crowsnest’s homes will flood Parker’s southern street network, he said. Because the project was originally slated to have just 70 acres of open space — less than 10% of the total property acreage — Rivero said Crowsnest residents would inevitably slip over the town line and use Parker’s parks and green spaces “without paying their way.”

The developer bumped up its open space dedication at the site to 132 acres late last week.

“If this is built, these roads suddenly fail,” Rivero said, noting the careful planning Parker undertook in fostering its own growth. “It directly impacts all of us, and we want Castle Pines to understand what they’re putting on our back step.”

Castle Rock Mayor Jason Gray also weighed in last month with a letter to Castle Pines’ elected leaders. Aside from concerns about where Crowsnest would get its water — Parker Water and Sanitation District told Castle Pines last month that it “is not ready and willing to serve the Crowsnest development” without more project details — Gray worries about impacts to his town’s “already burdened” Founders Parkway and Colorado 86 interchange.

“This traffic, which will never touch the rest of Castle Pines, will significantly create traffic safety and congestion concerns for Castle Rock,” he wrote.

Williams told The Post that the developers envision more roads for the Crowsnest site, including a thoroughfare dubbed Canyonside Boulevard that would connect Crowfoot Valley Road to The Canyons — and eventually to I-25.

“Together, these connections place Crowsnest within a broader network of planned corridors between Castle Pines and Crowfoot Valley,” he said.

For Irene Bonham, who lives due east of the proposed development in Parker’s Trails at Crowfoot Valley neighborhood, Crowsnest would literally be across the street.

Bonham, who is running for Douglas County commissioner, acknowledges the irony of resistance to new growth from communities that have experienced their own explosive growth in recent decades. Parker, for instance, went from 3,000 residents in the late 1980s to 72,000 today, while Castle Rock’s population is fast approaching 100,000, up from fewer than 10,000 in 1990.

But she can’t help feeling like something is being lost.

“We have elk herds here, we have bald eagles — what would be the impact to them?” she said. “At some point, we’re starting to lose that distinction that made this area intriguing in the first place.”

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South Metro Fire Rescue firefighters and Arapahoe County deputies responded to the explosion at Extended Stay America, 9604 E. Easter Ave., at about 2:30 p.m. Sunday, according to sheriff’s officials.

When deputies arrived, they saw a shattered window and smoke coming from a second-floor room, sheriff’s officials said. Deputies forced their way into the room and found it was unoccupied.

The fire was contained to one room, and the flames were under control less than 30 minutes later, according to a 2:55 p.m. update from South Metro. The hotel’s 93 occupants were evacuated and temporarily moved to a different hotel.

A dog and a cat were also safely rescued, according to the sheriff’s office.

Paramedics took one person to the hospital for further evaluation, but no other injuries were reported, South Metro officials said.

The cause of the fire remained under investigation Sunday.

This is a developing story and may be updated.

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A snowmobiler was reported missing Saturday evening in the Boss Basin area, which is on Resolution Creek south of Ptarmigan Pass and a few miles west of Copper Mountain, according to a preliminary report from the Colorado Avalanche Information Center.

When search and rescue crews arrived, they found a 2-foot-deep avalanche with ski and snowmobile tracks leading into it, the report stated. Teams from the Summit County Rescue Group, Vail Mountain Rescue and Summit and Eagle County Sheriff’s Offices all responded, state officials said.

The missing person was found dead in the avalanche debris at about sunrise Sunday, according to the report. Investigators believe the person was caught, buried and killed by the rapid snowslide.

“We offer our deepest condolences to the family and friends of the skier,” Colorado Avalanche Information Center officials stated.

No other injuries or deaths were reported, but the avalanche remained under investigation Sunday.

The fatal avalanche came after days of heavy mountain snow late last week.

Spotters in areas near the avalanche reported 6 to 8 inches of fresh snow had accumulated by Saturday morning, according to reports from the National Weather Service.

Parts of the Indian Peaks Wilderness saw more than 23 inches of snow, Longs Peak reported more than 15 inches, Loveland Pass recorded more than 12 inches and Berthoud Pass saw upwards of 18 inches, according to spotter reports from the weather service.

More than 40 backcountry explorers saw avalanches on various Colorado mountain ranges between Friday and Sunday, according to field reports submitted to the Colorado Avalanche Information Center. At least one person reported being caught in an avalanche, and 12 people reported triggering the snowslides. No injuries had been reported as of Sunday afternoon.

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