Hours before a Colorado Senate deadline, marijuana legalization opponents introduced a measure to repeal the newly passed ballot initiative to regulate marijuana like alcohol. The bill’s introduction Monday evening, after having become public just a few days earlier, prompted immediate reaction from the marijuana legalization community, and at 10 p.m., the bill’s sponsors backed down and took the bill off the table in the face of a filibuster threat and defeat in the House. From the Associated Press:

The last-minute maneuver infuriated marijuana legalization supporters, some of whom ran up several flights of stairs to testify against the measure when they got word it would be heard.

“You’re subverting the will of the voters,” argued Joe Megysy, spokesman for the Marijuana Policy Project, a major backer of last year’s pot measure.

Even House colleagues seemed taken aback by the late-night maneuver to ask voters again whether retail pot sales should be allowed.

“This has caught all of us a bit off guard,” said Rep. Dan Pabon, sponsor of a marijuana regulation measure in the House. He said the chances of the repeal measure getting the necessary two-thirds margin in House were “.001.”

The bill would have linked repeal to a tax measure that will go before the Colorado legislature this fall. If voters did not approve certain taxes on marijuana, then the repeal would go into effect. The sponsors said its intent was to pressure the marijuana industry to support the taxes, but it also would have pressured voters to choose between accepting taxes they might not support, or lose the ballot initiative they had previously supported. The ballot initiative garnered more votes than President Obama in November.

As the Colorado legislature completed its session, it also considered several other bills related to marijuana regulation. Although several were left in limbo, the legislature did pass a key measure that has failed numerous other times to set driving under the influence limits of 5 nanograms per milliliter. Gov. John Hickenlooper (D) has said he supports the measure. The House also passed a bipartisan resolution asking for direction from the federal government on how to proceed with regulating pot. Attorney General Eric Holder has still not announced any federal policy on the two state laws to legalize recreational marijuana.

Both houses of the Colorado legislature passed a major overhaul of state election law that would implement same-day registration and voting, automatically send mail-in ballots to every voter, and create a real-time statewide voter database to prevent fraud. Proponents view the bill, written by a bipartisan group of county clerks, as a national model for other states.

The same-day registration provision prompted most of the resistance from Republicans, who largely voted against the bill in both houses. The bill, however, did garner Republican support from county clerks, and former Republican Secretary of State Donetta Davidson. The Denver Post explained:

Those promoting the changes said the bill is uniquely Colorado, and the state could take the lead nationally on making elections more convenient to voters. They are confident other states will follow — because voters like mail voting (74 percent in Colorado last November), while preserving in-person voting at a few early voting centers, and, eventually, saving millions of dollars for counties. [...]

Other clerks, though, said switching to mail will mean buying less equipment to operate and maintain for a ever-shrinking number of people who still vote in person. That could save millions of dollars in some county over a longer period of time. Denver expects to save a total of about $730,000 in next year’s general election alone, director of elections Amber McReyholds said.

Before the bill goes before Gov. John Hickenlooper (D), the Senate must approve a slight amendment to the House bill. If signed into law, the bill is likely to give a significant boost to turnout. In Washington, Colorado and Oregon, the states that now have universal vote-by-mail, turnout rates exceed the national average by at least five percentage points. And studies have found that Election Day Registration laws boost turnout 7 to 14 percentage points.

Since the November election, 195 bills to expand the franchise have been introduced in 45 states, according to a recent Brennan Center for Justice study. Thirty-one states, however, also introduced 80 new bills to roll back the right to vote.

After years of litigation, private prison operator Corrections Corporation of America has agreed to a $600,000 settlement to compensate inmates at a Colorado facility for alleged prison staff-inflicted injuries that landed 13 inmates in the hospital. The injuries resulted from a six-hour 2004 riot that prison officials had failed to prepare for, even though they were warned it was likely to occur, according to the complaint. The injured inmates said they were not even involved in the riot. CBS Denver reports:

Thirteen inmates were taken to the hospital after the riots at the prison located about 45 miles east of Pueblo. [...]

The rioting began when more than 100 inmates refused to return to their cells. Then the situation escalated as inmates set fires and attacked other prisoners.

Guards used tear gas and rubber bullets to try to get the inmates under control. The riot was limited to prison grounds. No inmates escaped.

Court documents reveal that supervisors at the prison ignored a warning that conditions were ripe for a riot despite those signs coming from both inmates and correctional officers.

The problem was that hundreds of prisoners that were transferred from Washington state were angry about being so far away from home. They were also upset that an 18-year-old transferred inmate was placed into isolation earlier that day.

Inmates said they were cuffed, dragged through water and left to sit in their cells that were then flooded with water.

The inmates said they have been pushing for change in the private prison system.

“I would gladly take no money if I knew that CCA was going to be no more, not only in Colorado but everywhere. It really should be up to states to run their own prisons, to supply their own correctional officers and to keep their own inmates in check instead of having someone who has labeled you as a number and is just trying to earn money off of you,” said plaintiff Vance Adams.

CCA is the largest U.S. private prison firm, and the settlement comes in the latest allegation of abuse, violations, and abysmal living conditions at CCA and other private prison facilities. Private prisons are incentivized to maximize profit from imprisonment, spending their resources to lobby for more incarceration and garner new contracts, rather than providing the optimum conditions for rehabilitation. Lawmakers who are the beneficiaries of generous private prison contributions, meanwhile, are incentivized to look the other way as troubling conditions persist.

A conservative group connected to Colorado’s Secretary of State has been sending political mailers — including a picture of a darker-skinned woman whose face was digitally removed and replaced with a white woman’s face — in an attempt to oppose a landmark voting bill that may soon become law.

Colorado is currently considering a major piece of legislation to improve the state’s voting laws by implementing Election Day Registration, automatically sending mail ballots to every voter, and creating a real-time voter database to detect and prevent fraud. It passed the House last week and will now be taken up by the Democratic-controlled Senate.

Secretary of State Scott Gessler, a frequent speaker at True The Vote events who uses his perch to warn about the supposed threat of voter fraud, is leading opposition to the bill, which is supported by a number of Republican County Clerks and the Colorado County Clerks Association.

Now, a dark money group named the “Citizens for Free and Fair Elections”, which lists its address as that of Gessler’s former firm, the Hackstaff Law Group, is sending out photoshopped mailers in an attempt to pressure the election clerks into switching their position.

Here is the mailer:

The mailer’s background was taken from the following Getty Images photo:

Except for two key differences. The original photo included a darker-skinned woman in a white hoodie sweatshirt, but the altered version in the mailer took out her face and replaced it with the exact same face of the white woman standing alongside. In addition, a dark-skinned man standing behind her in the photo was removed from the mailer entirely.

ColoradoPols, the first site to catch the photoshop job, shows the two side-by-side:

Gessler, in a statement released Sunday evening, denied involvement in the matter.

Colorado is one step closer to a major overhaul of its election laws after a House committee advanced a bill to make voting significantly easier and more accessible in the Centennial State.

The Voter Access and Modernized Elections Act passed through the House State, Veterans and Military Affairs Committee easily on Monday by a 7-4 vote. If enacted, the legislation would take three important steps: implement Election Day Registration (whereby citizens can both register and vote on Election Day), automatically send mail ballots to every voter, and create a real-time statewide voter database to prevent fraud.

The Denver Post has more:

The bill cleared its first legislative hurdle Monday evening when it passed the House’s State, Veterans and Military Affairs Committee by a 7-4 party line vote, after more than seven and a half hours of testimony from dozens of public officials and otherwise private individuals on each side. it now moves to the House appropriations committee. [...]

Those promoting the changes said the bill is uniquely Colorado, and the state could take the lead nationally on making elections more convenient to voters. They are confident other states will follow — because voters like mail voting (74 percent in Colorado last November), while preserving in-person voting at a few early voting centers, and, eventually, saving millions of dollars for counties. [...]

Other clerks, though, said switching to mail will mean buying less equipment to operate and maintain for a ever-shrinking number of people who still vote in person. That could save millions of dollars in some county over a longer period of time. Denver expects to save a total of about $730,000 in next year’s general election alone, director of elections Amber McReyholds said.

These reforms could provide a sharp boost to turnout in Colorado. Two states, Washington and Oregon, currently employ universal vote-by-mail. (Colorado’s proposal differs slightly in that it preserves in-person voting centers for those who prefer that to mailing in their ballot.) Their turnout rates exceed the national average by more than five percentage points.

In addition, Election Day Registration provides a significant boon to a state’s participation rate. Academic studies have found that EDR boosts turnout by 7 to 14 percentage points. As a result, it’s a reform that’s grown in popularity of late, with 11 states currently allowing EDR, most recently California and Connecticut.

The Colorado bill enjoys some bipartisan support. One of its main proponents is former Republican Secretary of State Donetta Davidson, and a number of Republican county clerks back the move. Current Secretary of State Scott Gessler (R) opposes the legislation. It now moves on to the House Appropriations Committee, where passage is expected. Democrats currently control both legislative chambers, as well as the governorship.

After spending two years on defense over voting rights, progressives are beginning to go on offense. A number of other states are considering sweeping reforms in addition to Colorado. Oregon has proposed automatically registering its residents to vote, making the process far cheaper and easier for voters, Hawaii is weighing an EDR bill, the New Jersey legislature passed early voting, and Florida Gov. Rick Scott (R) has been forced to backtrack and support extending early voting.