U.S. District Judge Charlotte Sweeney approved a temporary restraining order Monday night after the American Civil Liberties Union sued President Donald Trump and members of his administration on behalf of two Venezuelan men, referred to only by their initials, “and others similarly situated” who have been accused of being part of the Tren de Aragua gang.

For two weeks, the federal government is barred from using the Alien Enemies Act to remove plaintiffs D.B.U, R.M.M. and any other noncitizens accused of being members of the Venezuelan gang from both the state and the country.

“This ruling is a critical step toward restoring the rule of law in the face of a rogue administration that has shown utter disregard for the Constitution,” Raquel Lane-Arellano, the communications manager at the Colorado Immigrant Rights Coalition, said Tuesday.

The judge’s order will remain in effect until a hearing is held in the case in Denver on April 21.

The White House did not respond to requests for comment Tuesday.

Trump invoked the 1798 Alien Enemies Act in March, proclaiming Venezuelans who are members of TdA and not lawful residents of the U.S. “are liable to be apprehended, restrained, secured and removed as Alien Enemies.” The administration has used the act to send immigrants — including at least one Venezuelan who had been detained in Colorado — to a notorious mega-prison in El Salvador.

The act has been used only three other times in American history, most recently to intern Japanese-American citizens during World War II.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled last week that anyone being deported under the declaration deserved a hearing in federal court first.

That led federal judges in New York and Texas to place temporary holds on deportations in those areas until Trump’s Republican administration presented a procedure for allowing such appeals. Sweeney’s order follows in their footsteps.

The Colorado order also comes as the ACLU warned, in an emergency filing, that the Trump administration as recently as Monday night may have been preparing Venezuelan men in custody in Aurora for another deportation flight.

The civil rights organization’s attorneys said they had received reports Monday that Venezuelan men being held at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s contract detention facility who were accused of being affiliated with the TdA gang “were rousted from bed and told that they would be leaving.”

The men repeatedly asked where they would be taken, and ICE  agents allegedly refused to answer, ACLU officials said in the document. The flight was later canceled and, as of Tuesday morning, the men remained in Colorado, the attorneys said.

Colorado immigrant advocacy groups applauded the ACLU’s legal challenge to the Alien Enemies Act and the judge’s order.

“The disappearance of our neighbors to a notorious prison without due process should be a wake-up call to the people of the United States,” said Jennifer Piper, the program director for the Colorado office of the American Friends Service Committee.

She added that the Trump administration is asking Congress to triple the budget for immigration detention from $25 billion to more than $60 billion — a request her group opposes.

“We hope that, as a country, we can do more than sending people to foreign prisons,” said Andrea Loya, the executive director of Aurora-based nonprofit Casa de Paz, on Tuesday. “We urge the federal government to make it right for the people they sent to El Salvador without due process.”

The Trump administration’s implementation of the Alien Enemies Act and the lawsuits that followed have become a flashpoint as more than 200 alleged TdA members have been sent from the U.S. to the Terrorism Confinement Center, or CECOT, in El Salvador, escalating tension between the White House and federal courts.

Inmates in El Salvadoran prisons face “life-threatening conditions, persecution and torture,” ACLU officials argued in court documents. That constitutes “irreparable harm,” they said.

D.B.U., a 31-year-old man who fled Venezuela after he was imprisoned for his political activity and protesting against the Venezuelan government, was arrested in January during a raid of what law enforcement and immigration officials have repeatedly called a “Tren de Aragua party” in Adams County.

The Drug Enforcement Administration said 41 people arrested that night were living in Colorado illegally and claimed dozens were connected to the TdA gang. None of those people were criminally charged.

According to the ACLU, D.B.U. was identified as a gang member based on a tattoo of his niece’s name — his only tattoo. He “vehemently denied” being a TdA member.

The second plaintiff in the lawsuit, 25-year-old R.M.M., fled Venezuela after two members of his family were killed by the TdA gang. ACLU officials said in the lawsuit he was afraid the gang would also kill him, his wife and his children.

R.M.M. was detained in March after federal agents saw him standing with other Hispanic men near their cars outside a Colorado residence that law enforcement believed was connected to the TdA gang, according to court records. Like D.B.U., R.M.M. was identified as a gang member based on his tattoos, including one of his birth year, one of his mother’s name, one of “religious significance” and a character from the Monopoly board game.

He is not and never has been a member of TdA, ACLU officials wrote in court documents.

The ACLU claims Trump’s use of the Alien Enemies Act is invalid because the TdA gang is not a “foreign nation or government,” and there has been no “invasion or predatory incursion” — both of which are required to invoke the act.

“Criminal activity does not meet the longstanding definitions of those statutory requirements,” ACLU officials said in the lawsuit. “Thus, the government’s attempt to summarily remove Venezuelan noncitizens exceeds the wartime authority that Congress delegated in the AEA.”

In addition to Trump, the Colorado lawsuit names U.S. Attorney General Pamela Bondi, Secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security Kristi Noem, Acting Director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Todd Lyons, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Director of the Denver Field Office for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Robert Gaudian and Denver Contract Detention Facility warden Dawn Ceja.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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The state treasurer’s office manages the state’s finances. Bridges, a Greenwood Village Democrat, said he also sees the position as an opportunity to invest directly in Colorado instead of parking state money in things like federal treasury bills.

“There is a way to run the office that creates a direct and meaningful impact in the state of Colorado,” Bridges said in an interview. “It is a new and exciting toolbox to do a lot of the work I have been doing on housing affordability, renewable energy and all of the things that are important to the people of Colorado.”

He envisions using state money to invest in affordable housing, green energy production and infrastructure, while keeping money available for when it’s needed.

“We need to invest in our future,” Bridges said. “Sometimes investing in our future means you need it really liquid. Sometimes it means you really need a really high dollar return. Sometimes it means you need housing that Coloradans can afford, clean energy so they can efficiently heat their homes, and infrastructure that gets them that high-paying job they need to afford to live here.”

Bridges is the fourth entrant in the race. So far, state Rep. Brianna Titone, Jerry DiTullio and John Mikos, all Democrats, have announced their candidacies for the office. No Republicans have yet filed for it.

Bridges has served in elected office since 2017 and has helped write the state budget since 2022. He was reelected to his second and final four-year term in 2024. Besides the budget committee, he’s chaired the Senate finance and education committees.

Prior to elected office, he worked for then-U.S. Sen. Ken Salazar on military and small business policy, for Union Theological Seminary, and briefly for an investment management firm. He holds a master’s degree from Harvard Divinity School.

As chair of the budget committee this year, he has helped close a $1.2 billion budget shortfall that was driven by spiking Medicaid costs. The committee was able to preserve core spending on health care and education by finding cuts elsewhere. It called for combing through all of the budget’s nooks and crannies and creating the “most complicated budget the state has ever had,” he said.

Bridges called it “some of the hardest work I’ve ever done and some of the most rewarding.”

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The party’s chairwoman, Hannah Goodman, sent the slurs Friday after a commenter privately messaged the party’s Facebook account to criticize what he saw as its “asinine” postings. After an initial exchange that included the commenter sarcastically highlighting the party’s lack of electoral success, Goodman — replying through the party’s official account — defended her party’s achievements and repeatedly referred to the commenter using an anti-gay slur.

She also repeatedly referred to him using a slur for people with intellectual disabilities.

Goodman continued using the slurs after the commenter said he planned to take the messages to the media. The party confirmed in a statement Saturday that Goodman, a congressional candidate last year, sent the messages. In a subsequent email exchange in which the commenter asked party leadership for an apology, Goodman told the commenter that she had authored the messages through the party’s Facebook account.

“There is no such thing as bad press,” Goodman wrote in the Facebook exchange, according to copies of the messages provided to The Post by the party. “Also, I’m the chair of the party. So … no (expletive) given.”

The commenter, who is gay and requested anonymity to share the exchange out of a fear of harassment, said he had never spoken with Goodman or the party previously.

He said Goodman’s initial responses were fine, given the “sassy” nature of his initial message to the party. But he said he was taken aback by how “grossly homophobic” her subsequent responses were since he was just “some rando who tried to get smart with them.”

Goodman did not return a message seeking comment Friday. On Saturday, the party’s executive director, James Wiley, sent The Post a seven-page statement that defended the party’s political relevance, touted the success of a recent social media posting on the party’s Facebook page, and further criticized the commenter.

Wiley referred to a meme produced by Goodman as an “artistic work product” that, Wiley wrote, had prompted the initial criticism from the commenter.

“These judgements were rendered entirely at (the commenter’s) own suggestion without any prompting on the part of the party or its representatives,” Wiley wrote.

Wiley confirmed that Goodman wrote the messages and said he stood by them. He concluded the statement by calling the commenter another slur and quoting a character from the animated show “South Park.”

The party, which was founded in Colorado more than 50 years ago, has long been a minor player in the state’s elections. It has the third-most party affiliations among Colorado voters. Both Goodman and Wiley have run unsuccessfully for Congress.

But the party played a more substantive role in last year’s contests — by not participating in them.

In 2023, the party’s leadership reached an agreement with the Colorado Republican Party to keep Libertarian candidates out of some races, so long as the Republican candidates in those contests signed a pledge to align with Libertarian values. That was thought to improve the Republican candidates’ chances of winning, including in the tight 8th Congressional District race later won by now-U.S. Rep. Gabe Evans.

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“I wanted to see my son’s birth,” Finol Marquez told The Denver Post in Spanish through a translator. But his detention made that impossible.

The Post interviewed Finol Marquez, 28, when he was detained at the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Aurora and again after he was forcibly returned to Venezuela, seeking to understand the removal process from his perspective.

His account of his processing before deportation included an assertion that, under pressure, he unwittingly signed a document admitting to being a member of Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan gang, which he said wasn’t true.

When asked on April 3 — the day before he was deported — why Finol Marquez had been detained, ICE said it was because he was an “illegal alien” but declined to share information on where he was being deported to and when he was scheduled to be removed. Later, ICE did not directly respond to questions about the document cited by Finol Marquez.

Finol Marquez’s deportation means his wife Ariagnny, two daughters and one infant son are left in Lakewood, wondering what’s next. Ariagnny, 31, declined to use her last name out of a fear that she’ll be deported, too. She has applied for asylum in the U.S.

“I’m here with my three kids,” she said in Spanish. “I have no financial support.”

The exact numbers of recent detentions and deportations under President Donald Trump’s stepped-up enforcement operations remain unclear due to a lack of federal transparency. Confirmation of the whereabouts of deportees has been piecemeal, with advocacy groups, lawyers and news organizations sporadically releasing names and locations based on available information.

Recently, local immigration assistance organizations and a report by CBS News confirmed that Nixon Azuaje-Perez, a Venezuelan migrant teen living in Colorado, was sent to an El Salvadoran prison. More than 200 migrants — many of them Venezuelan — have been transported to a maximum-security prison in the Central American country.

Federal officials have said they’re criminals and members of Tren de Aragua, but advocates have challenged those claims and questioned authorities’ reliance on tattoos as signifiers of gang affiliation.

In the end, Finol Marquez was returned to Venezuela, which reached an agreement late last month to resume accepting repatriation flights from the U.S.

Arrested in driveway

Years before Finol Marquez’s detainment, he and Ariagnny met because they’re from the same neighborhood in Venezuela’s capital city of Caracas. They’ve been together for almost a decade and wed about two years ago.

After making the four-month journey from their home country to the United States, they arrived in September 2023 and were part of the wave of Venezuelan migrants who traveled to Denver after crossing the border. They spent a year and a half starting new lives in Colorado before Finol Marquez was detained.

He said immigrants had successfully come to the U.S. for college and job opportunities, so he felt welcomed under then-President Joe Biden’s administration.

Back then, “the country was different,” he said.

Ariagnny applied for asylum and submitted her work permit paperwork. Finol Marquez applied for asylum, too, but a judge denied it.

On the morning of March 20, several unmarked vehicles pulled up outside the family’s home, according to videos shared with The Post. Both uniformed and plainclothes ICE agents apprehended Finol Marquez in his driveway.

He said they asked him questions in English, which he didn’t understand, and indicated for him to lift his hooded sweatshirt to examine his tattoos. Finol Marquez said he has a tattoo dedicated to his daughter.

Then, with his car keys and cell phone confiscated, he was put in handcuffs and loaded into a white Jeep, video footage shows. Ariagnny, who was pregnant at the time, looked on.

Finol Marquez confirmed that he had an active deportation order from last year and said it was the result of an unpaid traffic ticket. Without a work permit, he said he didn’t have the money to settle the fine.

Finol Marquez said after he was detained, he was taken to the ICE field office in Centennial where officials asked him to sign paperwork in English. Finol Marquez initially refused, but he said he felt pressured and ultimately signed it.

Later, he received a copy of the documents in Spanish, he said. They included a confession that stated he was a member of Tren de Aragua, he said, adding that other detained Venezuelans had also signed that paperwork.

“I’m a little worried,” he told The Post from the facility.

The Post has spoken with several immigration organizations about the alleged documents, but it was unable to obtain a copy and independently verify the claim. ABC News has also reported claims from detained Venezuelan men that they were compelled to sign confessions about being gang members.

When asked about the allegation, a local ICE spokesperson, who has declined to be quoted by name, did not directly respond. In a statement, the agency said it takes very seriously its commitment to promoting safe, secure, humane environments for those in its custody, and the allegation was not in keeping with ICE policies, practices and standards of care.

The agency previously shared the same statement for another Post story about detainees in Aurora.

At that detention facility, Finol Marquez said Mexicans, Guatemalans and other Venezuelans were among the people held there. He recalled one officer who spoke Spanish and helped him, but he also remembers arguing with another officer over whether he actually came to the U.S. to work.

“In reality, there was a lot of racist officials that treated us badly,” Finol Marquez said in a follow-up interview.

A statement sent by the GEO Group, a private contractor that runs the Aurora facility, said the company strongly rejected allegations of racism, pointing to its zero-tolerance policy with respect to staff misconduct or discrimination.

The statement said that, as a service provider to ICE, the GEO Group is required to follow performance-based national detention standards set by the Department of Homeland Security, including those governing the treatment of people in ICE custody.

The removal process

Finol Marquez’s removal left him and his loved ones with questions throughout the process.

Once he was moved from the Aurora facility, Ariagnny said she went days without hearing from him, and her biggest fear was “that he was taken to El Salvador.”

Finol Marquez said that possibility was also top of mind for him.

Before leaving Colorado, he said he asked an official where they were taking him, and that person responded that he’d find out in Texas.

Finol Marquez said he spent the entire day traveling on a plane — from Colorado to Washington state to Utah to Nevada to Arizona. There, he was given a cot, a pillow, a sandwich and water, he said.

The next morning, officers put Finol Marquez in metal handcuffs, leg irons and a belly chain, he said. Finol Marquez said another Venezuelan who spoke English asked an officer where they were going and was told to Florida, then Texas.

After another day of plane travel, Finol Marquez said he rode in a van for hours through Texas. At the final destination, other buses full of people arrived.

“What’s going to happen to us?” Finol Marquez remembered thinking. “Are they going to send us to El Salvador?”

He said he asked officers and didn’t receive responses. The detainees began boarding a plane: first women, then children, then men, Finol Marquez said. He estimates that more than 300 people were loaded onto the aircraft.

“It was scary because I didn’t know where they were going to take me,” he said.

The Department of Homeland Security didn’t respond to a request for comment about Finol Marquez’s claims of government pressure to sign a Tren de Aragua confession and its lack of communication about what country he was being deported to during the removal process.

On the plane, Finol Marquez said he received a cookie, an apple and water, but his access to a restroom was limited.

After hours in flight, passengers recognized Venezuelan terrain below and started to cheer, Finol Marquez said. American officers removed his chains before landing, he said. He was then processed by Venezuelan officials.

Now that he’s returned to his motherland and been reunited with relatives, Finol Marquez said he’s feeling “good, thanks to God.”

He said his plan was to return to Venezuela eventually. But he didn’t want to do it so soon — or leave his family alone in the process.

“In reality, I didn’t think they would treat me like this,” he said, referring to the U.S. government representatives.

He said he wants his wife and children to come back to Venezuela. Ariagnny is also considering that option.

“To tell the truth, I have a lot of fear,” she said, “and I have thought about going back myself.”

The Colorado Senate unanimously approved a resolution approving its installation Monday. The House also unanimously approved it last week. Installation is planned to begin in 2026.

The statue, by sculptor Gerald Anthony Shippen, will depict the Cheyenne and Arapaho chiefs Black Kettle and Left Hand, as well as a Native American woman with a child. It will be placed on a pedestal on the western steps, where a statue of a Union soldier once stood.

“We end our healing run there, on the steps, and we just look in,” said Otto Braided Hair, a Northern Cheyenne descendant of the massacre and tribal representative.

He referred to the annual 200-mile trek, the Sand Creek Massacre Spiritual Healing Run organized by the Northern and Southern Cheyenne and Arapaho tribes, that goes from the massacre site near Eads to downtown Denver.

“We’re outsiders,” Braided Hair continued. “And today, we are inside. Today, the Cheyenne, Arapaho nations recognize, acknowledge both the unanimous support of the House and Senate. I’m just beside myself. I wish all my relatives and descendants and runners were out here.”

That statue recalls the brutal, unprovoked attack by U.S. Cavalry on a village of Cheyenne and Arapaho people, who had gathered under a United States flag and a white flag of peace, in 1864. The cavalry would kill more than 200 people, mostly women, children and the elderly, and go on to parade mutilated body parts through downtown Denver, according to the resolution.

The bipartisan resolution was sponsored by Sens. Kyle Mullica and Rod Pelton and Reps. Tammy Story and Ty Winter.

“Our hope is this resolution and memorial will be a turning point. A moment when Colorado says we are not afraid to confront our past because we believe in a more just and honest future,” said Mullica, a Thornton Democrat. “To the Cheyenne and Arapaho nations, we see you. We honor you. And we walk forward — not ahead of you, but with you.”

The statue replaces a separate memorial of a Union soldier that previously stood on the pedestal. That statue was toppled during the racial justice protests of 2020. It honored Coloradans who served in the Union Army during the Civil War — but also memorialized the Sand Creek massacre and Col. John M. Chivington, who perpetrated it.

That statue has been on loan to History Colorado since its toppling. It will eventually go to the Department of Military and Veteran Affairs.

Money for the Sand Creek Massacre memorial has been raised in part through the One Earth Future Foundation. The final fundraising push will begin next month through the Sand Creek Massacre Foundation. People who wish to donate may do so at sandcreekmassacrefoundation.org.

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Bennet, 60, made his formal announcement Friday morning in Denver’s City Park — becoming, one political analyst said, “immediately the frontrunner” in the race. He confirmed his candidacy to The Denver Post beforehand, saying in an interview that he hoped to bring his federal legislative experience to his home state’s executive branch and help Colorado navigate potential cuts and other uncertainty during President Donald Trump’s second administration.

“I am deeply, deeply, profoundly worried about Donald Trump and the wrecking ball he has aimed at our democracy and our economy,” Bennet said in the interview, noting potential cuts to Medicaid and other federal programs. He argued that economic uncertainty has fueled modern politics.

Michael Bennet: I’m running for governor because Washington D.C. is too broken to answer Colorado’s needs

But, he added, "as we're dealing with that -- as we're fighting everything that's wrong with the current administration -- it's important for us to create better solutions for our shared challenges in Colorado. We can forge a better politics than we see in D.C. right now."

He was joined Friday morning by a slew of Colorado elected officials -- including U.S. Reps. Jason Crow and Joe Neguse, Denver Mayor Mike Johnston and former Mayor Wellington Webb -- and dozens of supporters.

Bennet has served in the Senate since 2009, when he was appointed to fill the seat vacated by Ken Salazar when Salazar joined the Obama administration. He's since won election to the seat three times -- and by a larger margin in each election, most recently garnering nearly 56% of the vote in 2022. He would be up for reelection next in 2028.

But now, Bennet said, he feels he'd be "better situated as the governor to help us provide a view of what this future is going to look like, from the state of Colorado, than I would be able to do from (Washington)."

During his speech Friday morning, Bennet highlighted the need to drive down costs and increase affordability in health care and housing in particular.

Economic hopelessness -- people worrying about affording to stay in their homes and raise their kids in Colorado -- drove some voters to cast ballots for the "chaos" of Trump, Bennet said. Bettering Colorado will make it "an example to the rest of the country on how to fight Trump and how to drive a stake through Trumpism," he said.

Bennet joins Weiser in Democratic primary

Bennet's name recognition and long history in Colorado politics -- and the political reshuffling that an open Senate seat would set in motion, should he win next year -- could help clear the field of other major potential Democratic candidates. Bennet plans to remain in the Senate through the gubernatorial campaign.

If he wins, he said, he'd "fulfill my responsibility" under state law and the constitution and appoint his successor, rather than resigning earlier so Gov. Jared Polis could fill the vacancy.

Polis, like the rest of Colorado's constitutional officers, is term-limited and cannot seek reelection in 2026.

So far, Attorney General Phil Weiser is the only other prominent Democrat to launch an official bid for governor, entering the race in January. His campaign announced he raised more than $1.9 million through the end of March, a sum that includes a transfer of nearly $158,000 from his attorney general campaign.

Salazar also has publicly mulled a bid; on Friday morning, he put out a statement praising both Weiser and Bennet without shedding light on his own intentions.

Coloradans haven't elected a Republican to lead the state since 2002, and the state has only trended bluer over the last decade.

In a statement Thursday, shortly after several media outlets reported Bennet would seek the office, Weiser said he'd spent the past six years serving "Colorado as the People's Lawyer," while Bennet was working in Washington. But he also softened any jabs at Bennet, adding: "Now more than ever, we need experienced Democratic leaders in Washington."

"We must protect Colorado and oppose Trump’s illegal actions, not appease him," Weiser said. "I am the fighter Colorado needs as our next governor. Two years ago, the voters sent Sen. Bennet back to D.C. because we believed he would be there for us no matter what -- especially in historically dangerous moments like the one we currently face."

Bennet, in return, said Weiser "has been a great attorney general, and has been a great public servant" and a "great friend."

But Bennet highlighted his own "fairly unique set of experiences" in the Senate, Denver Public Schools and the Denver mayor's office as higher qualifications. Before entering politics, he worked as a lawyer and then in business for Colorado billionaire Phil Anschutz.

Among other long-rumored candidates for governor, Neguse has instead endorsed Bennet, while Secretary of State Jena Griswold launched a bid for attorney general this week.

Kyle Saunders, a political science professor at Colorado State University, said Bennet is "immediately the frontrunner" in the race -- but may not completely clear the field.

Saunders called Weiser a good candidate in a typical gubernatorial race, but in his view, it changes the odds when a sitting senator makes the highly unusual move of seeking a governor's office. In addition to Bennet's personal qualifications, he also brings decades of campaign infrastructure to bear.

"Bennet is going to be ahead in campaign finance, he's going to be ahead in campaign organization and staff, he's going to be ahead in name recognition," Saunders said. "All those things are essential for anyone trying to secure the Democratic nomination for the governor's job."

On the Republican side, state Sen. Mark Baisley, state Rep. Scott Bottoms and Teller County Sheriff Jason Mikesell have launched gubernatorial campaigns.

The primary elections for the office will be in summer 2026 and the general election will be held that November.

Bennet says he's open to TABOR reform

Bennet's bid highlights the circular nature of Colorado politics.

He served as John Hickenlooper's chief of staff when Hickenlooper was Denver mayor in the early 2000s. Not long after Gov. Bill Ritter appointed Bennet to the Senate seat, Hickenlooper won the 2010 gubernatorial election. Hickenlooper, after two terms as governor, joined Bennet in the Senate after winning election in 2020.

Both men ran unsuccessful campaigns for the presidency in 2020. Now, they could flip-flop the roles they held for much of the 2010s.

Bennet praised Polis in an interview, particularly his signature free full-day kindergarten program, but added that "no governor can do it all."

Housing, health care and mental health care remain challenges for the state, Bennet said. He also acknowledged the state's ongoing budget constraints. Lawmakers this week moved closer to closing a budget with $1.2 billion in cuts as costs collided with the spending cap set by the Taxpayer's Bill of Rights, or TABOR.

State lawmakers have floated some ideas to adjust TABOR, such as another reset of the formula used to set the cap or an exemption of certain spending, like Medicaid, from it. Bennet did not endorse a specific change but said, "I'm sure (TABOR) will be part of any campaign," including his.

"We are facing enormous budget challenges as a state, and TABOR is clearly part of that problem," Bennet said. "We've got to have a comprehensive discussion about what we should do and how TABOR should be reformed."

In addition to electoral politics, Bennet has served as the superintendent of Denver Public Schools -- a job that proved formative for one of his marquee congressional victories. As part of the 2021 stimulus bill, Bennet won inclusion of a massive expansion of the federal child tax credit, in the form of $300 monthly checks to parents.

Those only persisted for a year -- but the policy became something of a white whale for him after it cut child poverty in half, yet wasn't renewed by Congress. He introduced a new version of it earlier this week, joined by nearly all of the Democratic caucus.

Recent approach to Trump

When President Donald Trump took office for a second term in January, Bennet struck a more collaborative tone than some of his Democratic colleagues. He's tied for eighth among Democrats in terms of the most votes cast in favor of Trump's nominees, according to a tracker by The New York Times.

But he's also spoken out against Trump and Elon Musk -- the world's richest man and chief financier of Trump's successful reelection bid -- including by accusing them of "wanton destruction" of the government in a recent interview with Colorado Public Radio.

In the new interview with The Post, Bennet highlighted his fights against some of Trump's more controversial appointments, like Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., as well as fights for the expanded child tax credit.

"We all have a shared battle," Bennet said. "This is one of those really important moments in American history, where it really matters how we come out on the other side. And I think Colorado is in a position to lead all 50 states, and I look forward to being able to help guide that as the next governor of the state of Colorado."

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Proposed funding cuts for community health workers led to amendments and pleas from lawmakers looking to boost a workforce that one senator called a “lynchpin” for his rural district. Meanwhile, the proposed delay of tens of millions of dollars in highway funding has outside organizations worried about road conditions in coming years.

In both cases, critics warned that the proposed cuts and delays would cause more harm than savings. But the fiscal math doesn’t lie, budget writers counter — no matter how painful it makes the decisions.

Members of the Joint Budget Committee, which wrote the state’s spending document for the 2025-26 fiscal year, faced the deep budget hole this year because of the constitutional spending limit set by the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights. The cap resulted in cuts big and small across the government as lawmakers sought — successfully — to protect funding for education and Medicaid.

“It is heartbreaking,” said Rep. Shannon Bird, a Westminster Democrat on the budget committee. “When you’re cutting $1.2 billion out of the budget, it’s impossible to fund all the things we would like to fund as a Joint Budget Committee. … This breaks our heart as well. It’s not a decision we would make in a different fiscal situation.”

The House passed the budget 44-21 on Thursday. It would authorize about $44 billion in total spending and $16.7 billion in general fund spending for the next fiscal year, which begins July 1. The Senate passed the budget in early April.

Now, the Joint Budget Committee will need to reconcile the two versions before the budget goes to Gov. Jared Polis for approval.

The budget isn’t all cuts, however. Budget writers also tout another $150 million for education and a 1.6% boost to how much most medical providers would be reimbursed under Medicaid — both areas of early worry when lawmakers faced such a massive shortfall.

And not all proposed cuts have gotten as much heat, including a $1 million cut to bullying prevention in the Education Department, caused by sagging marijuana revenue; a $4.2 million reduction for peer services in the Health Care Policy and Financing Department; and $4 million in total cuts to the Behavioral Health Administration. A troubled Medicaid transportation program was slashed by more than $13 million, and jail-based competency programs took a $2.3 million hit.

In one of the several dozen budget orbital bills, so called because of their close relation to the budget bill itself, lawmakers also formally killed an eating disorder prevention program launched amid an increase in diagnoses and concern about treatment centers. That program had been pared back even before it was passed two years ago — also for budget reasons — and lawmakers this week swept away what remained.

“They have a really difficult, almost impossible, job to do,” said Zach Zaslow, the vice president of community health and advocacy for Children’s Hospital Colorado. “There are a lot of worthy causes out there.”

Fight over community health workers

But he’s among those concerned by a proposal to cut Medicaid reimbursement for community health workers, which has drawn particular consternation.

The measure, an orbital bill, would kill a program established by a 2023 law, though it hasn’t taken full effect yet. The program would cost an estimated $2.8 million, though its elimination would also lead to the loss of more than $8 million in federal matching funds.

Community health workers help people connect with and navigate complicated health care systems. Advocates said the use of the workers leads to immediate and long-term savings by helping patients get care before they wind up in costly emergency rooms.

This program would have bolstered existing networks throughout the state. But, budget writers argued, it wasn’t going to launch until July 1. They saw it as a place to save money without harming existing services, even as they lauded its intent.

“This cut was not one that was easy to make,” Bird said.

Earlier in the budget process, the Senate amended the bill that would defund the program to halve the cut, to $1.4 million. That change did not make it into the House version.

The chambers still need to reconcile the two versions of the bill — one with some funding, one without any — before the budget goes to Polis. It’s an open question whether the funding survives and, if it does, where the money might come from.

Patti Valverde, the director of the Colorado School of Public Health’s programs at the University of Northern Colorado, said community health workers are a “bridge” between their communities and health care, with decades of research backing up their efficacy.

They proved vital during the COVID-19 pandemic to helping people who didn’t trust the public health departments or speak English as their first language, she said. She also warned that cuts would disproportionately affect rural areas.

“It really would be a huge loss and we would be going backwards” without the program, Valverde said. “And we would lose (community health care workers) because without reimbursements, we’ll lose grant funds … we just won’t see return on investment with the ways this workforce can really reduce costs.”

Valverde said she’s been working to implement the Medicaid reimbursement program for two years. Hundreds of workers have been trained already under the expectation that Medicaid will soon start helping to pay their wages, she said.

Zaslow, from Children’s Hospital Colorado, said it’s one of the rare programs where not only does it pay off down the road, but it would pay off in health care savings the year it’s implemented.

In the Senate, a bipartisan group of lawmakers pushed the funding through, over the objections from the budget committee members. Sen. Kyle Mullica, a Thornton Democrat who pushed to soften the cut, said the state sees more than $2 in return for every $1 spent on the program. Sen. Marc Catlin, a Montrose Republican, called community health workers a “lynchpin” in his community.

But the state needs to find cuts somewhere when it’s facing a $1 billion hole this year and projecting similar cuts next year, Sen. Barbara Kirkmeyer, a Brighton Republican on the budget committee, said.

“While I appreciate this, and understand the need, this program has not started,” Kirkmeyer said. “It doesn’t start until July 1. And starting on July 1, next (fiscal) year — probably even before next year — we’ll have to start deciding what cuts we’re going to make.”

Slow-rolling transportation funding

A separate budget move has been roiling other elected leaders, though it doesn’t seem to be gaining traction among lawmakers: slow-rolling some transportation funding to save $70 million this upcoming budget year and $56.5 million next year. The proposed changes would boost planned funding in the early 2030s, however.

While budget writers finalized the spending proposal last month, a coalition of rural county commissioners and business groups signed a public letter asking to keep transportation funding in place. The state already has a massive backlog of roadwork that needs to be done, they said, and delays in funding will only slow the state’s response to the need for highway maintenance, construction and safety improvements.

A lack of funding is “jeopardizing the safety of our citizens and impeding our state’s economic progress and competitiveness,” they warned.

During debate, the budget-writing lawmakers countered that the proposal wasn’t a cut, just a delay. Transportation projects don’t materialize based on yearly budgets, but based on long-term funding windows, said Kirkmeyer, who spent two decades on a transportation advisory committee.

She said the committee worked with the Colorado Department of Transportation to ensure there would be no “hiccup in funding transportation projects.”

“This is one of those items that I think all of us would prefer not to have to do to balance the budget,” said state Rep. Rick Taggart, a Grand Junction Republican on the budget committee. “There’s no question about it.”

Bad road conditions, whether due to snow or the potholes it causes, are a consistent concern throughout the state. A recent study by the Common Sense Institute, a think tank focused on the economy and free enterprise, found that new transportation fees passed in recent years have largely gone to multimodal projects, such as mass transit, and environmental mitigation, while money for base infrastructure hasn’t kept up.

“CDOT resources do not meet demand,” the study found. “Over the long term, the resources available simply are insufficient to operate, maintain, and expand the state’s highway system to maintain appropriate service levels.”

Ben Stein, a former chief financial officer for CDOT and author of the CSI study, warned that delaying repairs can result in more urgent, costlier repairs down the road. Today’s postponed repaving project can easily become tomorrow’s road reconstruction problem, for example.

“The legislature says it’s in a bind today … so they’re going to put it on a back end in 2032 or 2033,” Stein said. “Who’s to say the legislature in 2032 or 2033 won’t say they’re also in a bind, so they’re going to push that money off another 10 years?”

But he, like everyone else wary of the cuts who spoke for this story, also struck a conciliatory tone. The size of the budget gap backed lawmakers into a corner, giving them the unenviable task of cutting their way out.

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Bennet, a Democrat, has served in Washington, D.C., since 2009. His intentions were also reported by multiple media outlets Thursday afternoon as his campaign office advised of a planned “announcement” by Bennet on Friday morning.

U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet confirms run for governor, saying he wants “to forge a better politics”

If he wins the new office, he would succeed Gov. Jared Polis, who is term-limited from running again in the 2026 election. A spokesperson for Bennet declined to comment Thursday. For weeks, Bennet has been rumored to be exploring a potential run for governor.

Bennet's name recognition and long history in Colorado politics -- and the political reshuffling that an open Senate seat would set in motion -- could help clear the field of other major potential Democratic candidates. Colorado has not elected a Republican to lead the state since 2002.

Bennet was appointed to the Senate in 2009. He's been elected to the office three times since then, and each time with wider margins. His current term lasts through early 2029.

He previously served as superintendent of Denver Public Schools and as then-Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper's chief of staff; Hickenlooper now occupies Colorado's other U.S. Senate seat.

So far, only Attorney General Phil Weiser has officially announced his candidacy for the governor's office on the Democratic side -- and he wasted no time criticizing his possible rival.

In a statement sent to media outlets soon after reports of Bennet's likely entrance into the race, Weiser described himself as "the People's Lawyer," working in Colorado while Bennet was serving in Washington.

"I am the fighter Colorado needs as our next governor," Weiser said in the statement. "Two years ago, the voters sent Sen. Bennet back to D.C. because we believed he would be there for us no matter what -- especially in historically dangerous moments like the one we currently face. Now more than ever, we need experienced Democratic leaders in Washington."

Three Republicans have filed for the governor's race: state Sen. Mark Baisley, state Rep. Scott Bottoms and Teller County Sheriff Jason Mikesell.

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Legislators this week made drastic overhauls to House Bill 1146 to now include a pilot program in one youth detention facility and in one commitment facility that requires every staff member who is responsible for the direct supervision of youth to wear a body camera while interacting with them.

The program would be implemented from January 2026 through December 2028. The Colorado Department of Human Services would then recommend whether to continue and expand the program, or eliminate it.

The lawmakers’ request comes just weeks after a Denver Post investigation found widespread allegations of excessive force by staff in the state’s 14 juvenile detention facilities. A year’s worth of internal incident reports reviewed by The Post showed teens suffered broken bones, sustained concussions and overdosed on drugs in these secure centers.

Colorado’s child protection ombudsman, tasked with investigating child safety concerns, has been calling since last year for the state to add body-worn cameras to staff in juvenile detention. Currently, facilities are equipped with video but no audio, making it impossible for investigators to determine whether verbal altercations contributed to excessive force or restraint incidents.

“We were thrilled when we saw this amendment,” Stephanie Villafuerte, the ombudsman, said in an interview Wednesday. “This will increase juvenile and staff safety.”

The revised bill also reversed course on adding substantially more beds to Colorado’s maximum capacity for detained youth awaiting trial.

The state’s district attorneys originally requested to hold 324 youth in pre-trial detention at any one time, up from the current cap of 215. The legislation’s original language ultimately asked for 254 beds in the first year, followed in subsequent years by a formula to determine the maximum bed count, based on the average daily population.

Prosecutors argue the state doesn’t have enough beds to house violent youth offenders awaiting trial, citing increased violent crime among youth. As a result, they say, authorities are forced to release teens who might otherwise be deemed a danger to the public to free up spots for someone else.

The amendment introduced and passed by the House Health and Human Services Committee on Tuesday would instead create 39 emergency beds that wouldn’t count towards the total bed cap. Authorities could use these beds if they run out of space from their normal allotment.

Juvenile justice advocates hailed the revised legislation.

“The dramatic pivot from a bill that would have locked up more kids every year without regard for the dangerous and deteriorating conditions in our youth jails to the amended bill that passed out of committee today is a step in the right direction,” said Dana Walters Flores, Colorado campaign coordinator for the National Center for Youth Law.

The bill now heads to the House Appropriations Committee.

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House Bill 1147 would limit city courts from administering sentences that go beyond state limits for the same crimes. Legislative reforms in 2021 significantly reduced maximum penalties for a host of low-level, nonviolent crimes in Colorado’s state courts. But municipal courts, which operate individually and are not part of the state judicial system, were not included in the statute.

As a result, defendants in Colorado’s municipal courts can face much longer sentences than those in state court for the same petty offenses, The Denver Post previously found.

The bill, sponsored by Reps. Javier Mabrey and Elizabeth Velasco and Sens. Judy Amabile and Mike Weissman, all Democrats, passed both chambers.

The sponsors say the governor never weighed in on the bill or asked for changes as it traveled through the House or the Senate. But they learned in recent days that Polis might veto their legislation.

“It’s been disheartening to learn the governor might be succumbing to pressure from some Colorado municipalities and might be at risk of vetoing the bill,” Weissman told The Post. “That would be the wrong outcome from Colorado.”

Ally Sullivan, a Polis spokesperson, would not confirm the veto threat, but said the governor is “skeptical of actions that may limit local governments’ ability to improve public safety in our communities and neighborhoods.”

“The governor will carefully review any bill that reaches his desk,” she said in a statement.

Mabrey said he wasn’t sure about next steps and that lawmakers are trying to decide whether to change the bill — and determine what could be changed — to ensure its passage into law.

“We have two (expletive) systems of law that are totally dependent on what box a police officer checks,” Mabrey said. “What people who are against this bill are saying is they’re OK with some criminal defendants getting less due process and are not OK with the sentencing guidelines passed by the (state).”

Amabile said she disagreed that the bill would harm public safety.

“There is this other public safety thing, where the cities feel like, ‘Well, if we just put people in jail who are committing crimes that are crimes homeless people make … then we will clean up our streets,’ ” she said. “But what that does is it destabilizes the person. It’s like we’re creating poorhouses, and it imposes a burden on the counties because they’re the ones who have to pay to keep somebody in jail.”

City representatives, during committee hearings on the bill, opposed the bill in strong language, saying the changes would encroach on their ability to deal with crimes specific to their jurisdictions. The Colorado Constitution also explicitly allows for home rule, they said, meaning cities have the freedom to legislate on matters of local concern.

The mayors of Colorado’s three largest cities — Denver, Aurora and Colorado Springs — asked Polis in a letter to veto the legislation.

“HB25-1147 is a significant overstep of our home rule authority and negatively impacts our ability to address crime in a manner that is relevant to our communities as outlined in the Colorado Constitution,” Mayors Mike Johnston, Mike Coffman and Yemi Mobolade wrote in the letter Wednesday. “This legislation, which would prevent municipal leaders from addressing specific local issues faced by their constituents, would have a negative impact on our residents who expect their elected leaders to address local issues head-on.”

Police officers often have wide latitude in deciding whether to send offenders to municipal or state court. That decision, The Post found, carries enormous consequences.

Colorado law allows cities to punish people who commit city ordinance violations with up to 364 days in jail. Those facing similar, low-level charges, such as trespassing or petty theft, would only see a maximum of 10 days in jail if convicted in state court.

The Colorado Supreme Court is considering the legality of these sentence disparities, and a ruling could have wide-ranging impacts on municipal codes throughout the state. Oral arguments are set for May 13.

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