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In Response to Recent Mass Shootings, Colorado Gov. Jared Polis Signs 3 Gun Reform Laws, Allows Cities to Enact Their Own Local LawsColorado Gov. Jared Polis (D) signed three gun reform bills into law on Saturday, which expanded background checks, created an office of gun violence prevention, and allowed individual cities to pass their own gun laws.
The bills arelikely to result in the city of Boulder reinstating its assault weapons ban, which a judge struck down in early March. Colorado previously had a preemption law — as do 44 other states — which prevented individual cities from creating their own gun laws.
Despite the prior ban, Boulder had instituted its own local ban on assault weapons in 2018, but it was struck down by a judge who deemed it in violation of the state’s preemption law.
The reforms follow the March 22 shootingat a King Soopers supermarket in Boulder that left ten dead. The King Soopers shooter’s gun would have been included in the city’s ban, as it included external magazines. The signing also comes less than 24 hours after two separate shootings across the street from each other that injured five in Colorado Springs.
“In theory, if we didn’t have this law, you could go buy an assault weapon, and then walk across the street and shoot a bunch of students,” Boulder Mayor Sam Weaver told the Wall Street Journal. “So we would like to have it in place to prevent rash actions with assault weapons in Boulder.”
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/in-response-to-recent-mass-shootings-colorado-gov-jared-polis-signs-3-gun-reform-laws-allows-cities-to-enact-their-own-local-laws/ar-AALe50l
After 400 executive orders, Colorado Gov. Jared Polis promises to “phase out” pandemic powers Republicans say they’ll believe it when they see it Early in the pandemic, Jared Polis said he’d be as happy as anyone to lighten the heavy hand of state government once COVID was retreating. Having created, amended or extended roughly 400 executive orders since March 2020, the governor told The Denver Post he’s ready to let go of the unprecedented authority he’s maintained.
“The pandemic still exists,” he said, but “our hospital capacity is no longer threatened. We have 60% of the population vaccinated. So at this point, we would go to kind of regular order, which means the legislature passes laws, I can sign laws, and you can see the phaseout of those executive powers over time.”
He continues exerting executive authority through a wide range of orders, though his pace has slowed of late: 17 in March, 13 in April, 10 in May and six so far in June. Among the June orders was an extension of the state’s disaster emergency declaration, which confers vast power over state military forces, seizure of property, evacuations, quarantines and even disposal of dead bodies.
“In general, the time for these emergency actions is over, or near over.I believe in a republic and I believe in three branches of government,” Polis said. “It’s not the role of the governor to do that long-term. It’s the role of the governor to react in an emergency.”“You can’t go backwards but I’d like to learn from this and should we ever have something of this nature again have more people at the table with authority sooner,” Lundeen said.
Local government officials across the political spectrum have complained they weren’t in the loop, and were tasked with implementing state orders they’d sometimes find out about at the same time as the general public. County officials asked for more advance notice of changes, and lawmakers went as far as to pass a bill in 2020 to require the governor to report to them every few months during an emergency.
The reaction to Polis’ stated dial-back is more mixed on the left. For example, Jason Legg, an eviction defense attorney who works with the nonprofit 9to5 Colorado, said infections and hospitalizations going down shouldn’t lead Polis to believe housing instability isn’t still a crisis worthy of executive action.
A federal moratorium on evictions in many — but not all — cases is set to expire at the end of this month. Barring a new one from the Biden administration, it’ll be up to governors whether to block evictions.
Governors in eight states, plus the mayor of Washington, D.C., have already ended states of emergency, according to the National Academy for State Health Policy. Others, including Massachusetts and Alabama, are expected to follow suit in the coming weeks. Colorado is among 33 states no longer under a mask mandate.
Overall, Coloradans have mostly approved of the governor’s handling of the pandemic. His favorability rating has remained above 50% throughout, and in May stood at 61%, according to a Keating-OnSight-Melanson poll of more than 500 likely voters.
Polis’ promise to phase out his powers is welcome news to Republican state officials who have been trying to force such a move for months. Their various attempts to curtail executive authority in this and future emergencies all failed in the Democrat-controlled legislature over the last year.
One Republican who made such an attempt, Sen. Paul Lundeen of Monument, said he’ll believe Polis will step back when he sees it. For instance, he said, he’s skeptical that schoolchildren won’t be missing class in the fall due to what he sees as the state’s overreaching contact-tracing and quarantine guidelines.
All along, Republican leaders in Colorado said the legislature should have been more involved in COVID-19 response.
Denver Democratic Rep. Steven Woodrow helped draft a bill to install a state-level eviction moratorium in Colorado through the summer, which he said was shelved in the waning days of session in part because Democrats couldn’t reach an agreement with Polis.
He also said he hopes Polis would be flexible moving forward because the legislature adjourned a week ago and isn’t scheduled to return to the Capitol until January.
“If he were to back off executive orders entirely, we could have a situation where we need him to act,” Woodrow said, “and we wouldn’t want him to be beholden to some line in the sandon executive orders.”
https://www.denverpost.com/2021/06/15/jared-polis-pandemic-covid-power/
'It's a national tragedy': Young victims of Alabama highway crash were traveling home from beach trip when tragedy struckMONTGOMERY, Ala. — What was supposed to be the end of an exciting beach trip ended in a horrific17-vehicle wreckSaturday that killed 10 people, including several young children, on an interstate just south of Montgomery, Alabama.
One week after their trip to Gulf Shores, Alabama, began and less than two hours from home — aTallapoosa County Girls Ranchvan caught fire, killing eight children inside.
Four young teens who were residents of the ranch, and two children who had accompanied the group on the beach trip, died in the van's wreckage, Alabama Sheriffs Youth Ranches CEO Michael Smith said late Sunday afternoon.
The Alabama Law Enforcement Agency on Sunday evening declined to name the minor victims, but said they included a 3-year-old, an 8-year-old, a 12-year-old, a 14-year-old, a 15-year-old, two 16-year-olds and a 17-year-old. They were pronounced dead at the scene, according to the agency.
Two children of ranch employee Candice Gulley, who was driving the van, were among those who died in the crash, Smith said. Gulley, the director of ranch life at Tallapoosa, was pulled from the wreck and has been hospitalized.
"Candice has been with us for years as a house parent, and she has raised over 80 children who have called her mom," Smith said. "She's a super lady who has given her life to raising not-so-fortunate children."
Gulley had worked with children for years, beginning when she and her husband were house parents at the ranch for seven years.
The National Transportation Safety Board tweeted that it was sending 10 investigators to the area Sunday to investigate the crash, photos of which showed at least four burned vehicles, including two large trucks. It said the inquiry would focus on vehicle technologies such as forward collision warning systems, fuel tank integrity and occupant survivability.
“My heart goes out to the loved ones of all who perished,” Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey said in a statement.
The ranch, a nonprofit, provides "Christian, family-style residential homes for Alabama's needy, neglected, or abused, school-age children in an atmosphere where they may grow spiritually and physically into productive, responsible, and happy adults," according to its website.
"I would love for your readers to pray for us to get through this tragedy because we are going to have to keep moving forward because there are a lot of children in Alabama that need our help," Smith said. "It's not just a ranch tragedy, not just an Alabama tragedy — it's a national tragedy.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/national-tragedy-young-victims-alabama-044634380.html
Trump’s claims on construction of border wall system undercut by GAO auditCongress’ chief auditor sure knows how to rain on former President Donald Trump’s parade.
As Mr. Trump prepares to make his first post-presidency trip to the border next week, the Government Accountability Office has delivered a scorching report card on his border wall. It calculates that he completed only 69 miles of the wall system he promised Americans — not the more than 450 miles he claimed.
The GAO said the administration front-loaded construction of fence panels to meet Mr. Trump’s deadline, and that meant shortchanging the roads, lights and other technology for the highly touted “wall system.”
Although 458 miles of new fence panels were erected before Mr. Trump left office, just 69 miles had all of the components that the Border Patrol had planned.
“While the wall panels are typically the most costly part of border barrier construction, the full wall system remains incomplete,” the GAO said.
That appears to undercut Mr. Trump’s claims in recent months that the wall has been finished but for some “small remaining openings in areas of the almost 500-mile long wall.”
Mr. Trump’s office didn’t respond to a request for comment for this article.
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2021/jun/20/audit-trump-only-completed-69-miles-wall-system/