Today is Jan. 12, 2024, and here’s what you need to know:

Gov. Jared Polis on Thursday outlined the challenges ahead and his priorities for the new legislative session, and while he began with an upbeat note about how Colorado blazed new trails, the governor warned of the “hopelessness and despair” permeating housing.

Colorado lacks at least 100,000 housing units, says a study, which also notes that 80% of Coloradans live in a county with an aggregate housing supply shortage. Over the years, the study adds, Colorado has become one of the most unaffordable states for renters in the entire country.

“There is a real sense of hopelessness and despair in our state around housing that’s on par, in many ways, with how people feel about the divisiveness of our national politics,” said Polis, who gave his sixth State of the State address and listed strategies he would like lawmakers to adopt.

Gov. Jared Polis on Tuesday offered a diagnosis of the problems facing the state – housing, public safety, education, among others – and proposed a set of prescriptions, urging lawmakers to draw from what he described as Colorado’s history of “blazing new trails, turning our dreams into reality.”

We’ve annotated excerpts from his speech.  

Democratic congressional candidate Adam Frisch raised more than $2.9 million in the fourth quarter for his bid to represent the Colorado seat held by Republican U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert, his campaign announced Thursday.

The former Aspen City Council member was seeking a rematch against Boebert until she switched just before the end of the year to run in a less competitive district. He plans to report starting the 2024 election year with more than $5 million on hand.

The Democrat’s campaign said Frisch received an average donation of just over $27 from more than 106,400 individuals in the three-month period ending on Dec. 31.

Judge Timothy M. Tymkovich recently became the first Coloradan to sit on the bench of the nation’s secretive surveillance court system, which is charged with reviewing the government’s applications for gathering foreign intelligence inside the United States.

Tymkovich, who has been a judge on the Denver-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit since 2003, began his seven-year term on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review on Nov. 1. Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. tapped Tymkovich and two other federal judges for the part-time assignment on the equivalent of a wiretapping appeals court.

“I’m sure I did express an interest in international matters in the past, primarily because of my judicial education projects in Ukraine and the fact that we’ve hosted here in Denver, at the 10th Circuit, numerous delegations of foreign judges over the years,” Tymkovich told Colorado Politics.

Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s surprise presidential campaign suspension on Wednesday was a much-needed boon to former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley’s campaign as she battles Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) for second place in the primary.

Christie’s exit comes just five days before the Jan. 15 Iowa caucuses and 13 days before the Jan. 23 New Hampshire primary, where he and Haley had been battling for second place. But his exit gives Haley the opportunity to coalesce more voters who are put off by former President Donald Trump.

Whereas DeSantis has staked his campaign on performing well during the Iowa caucuses, Haley has campaigned hard in New Hampshire in a bid to thwart the former president from securing the GOP nomination.

Pro-Palestinian protesters disrupt opening day of the Colorado House’s 2024 sessionMarianne Goodland
marianne.goodland@coloradopolitics.comMarianneGoodland, Colorado Politics
marianne.goodland@coloradopolitics.com
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