Rocky Mountain Voice

The Colorado state Senate on Wednesday rejected the reappointment of the chairwoman to the state panel that handles judicial discipline but narrowly kept its vice-chair. Needing 18 votes to confirm their reappointments to the Colorado Commission on Judicial Discipline, chairwoman Mindy Sooter came up two votes shy (19-16 against), while Jim Carpenter was approved by the same margin. The Senate has a firm 21-14 Democratic majority. The decision to drop Sooter from the 10-member commission comes days after a Senate committee made the rare choice to refuse confirming either gubernatorial appointee. Unlike proposed legislation that can die in a committee in either house of the General Assembly, appointments by the governor, which require approval from the full Senate, are voted on separately regardless of a committee’s recommendation, though the latter carries weight.

Colorado just became the 27th state to turn financial literacy courses into a graduation requirement after the bill passed the Senate with a vast majority vote on Wednesday.  The bipartisan bill’s third reading passed with 55 yes votes and 10 no — a noticeable uptick in support from when the bill was first introduced. House Bill 25-1192 requires that all Colorado high school students complete a personal finance literacy course at some point in their four years in order to graduate.

At an April school board meeting near Colorado Springs, debate raged over a proposed policy to ban transgender students from playing on school sports teams that match their gender identity. A high school student named Sadie, who spoke against the policy, asked why her district would need a blanket policy when a tiny percentage of student athletes are transgender. A 60-year-old man who supported the policy and described himself as stronger than any woman in the building claimed a transgender girl could slam a ball into a girl’s head hard enough to put her in the hospital.

American citizens should continue to thank their lucky stars that President Donald Trump won last November.

Dozens of anti-Israel protesters were arrested at Columbia University after they stormed and occupied a campus library while students were studying for final exams, marking the largest anti-Israel demonstration on the Morningside Heights campus since last year’s high-profile encampment. Secretary of State Marco Rubio is vowing to review the visa statuses of those agitators who were arrested.