Colorado
President Biden’s proposal to cap rent increases reopens policy split among Colorado Democrats
President Joe Biden’s proposal this week to cap rent increases in larger apartment buildings across America has elevated an idea that’s long been embraced by progressive housing advocates in Colorado — but, in a split among Democrats, is opposed by Gov. Jared Polis.
What’s more, at the local level, rent-stabilization policies are essentially illegal under Colorado law.
Unveiled by Biden as he’s sought to ward off calls to step aside in the presidential race, the plan would cap annual rent increases at 5% for properties with more than 50 units. That would cover more than 20 million units nationwide, or roughly half of all rentals in the U.S.
The plan would put valuable tax write-offs at risk as a way of getting landlords on board. A landlord who didn’t follow the cap would lose access to a tax deduction allowing them to write off depreciation as properties age. Though exact numbers would vary, several housing experts told The Denver Post that the write-off is substantial.
The proposal, which faces long odds to becoming law, would also exempt new properties in an apparent bid to blunt the common criticism that rent caps stifle development.
Biden’s plan comes as rental and home prices have surged in Colorado over the past several years. Simultaneously, evictions have increased sharply: A record number were filed in Denver last year, and data shows the city is on pace to smash that record again in 2024.
The high cost of housing is a top concern of Coloradans, polls have consistently shown, and state lawmakers have proposed sweeping housing reforms in recent years.
But the near-supermajority of Democrats in the state Capitol have at times sparred over how best to address the crisis.
“We were very happy to see President Biden’s announcement because this would prevent corporate landlords from engaging in what’s happening right now, which is the continuous and unchecked gouging of rent prices, forcing renters to either pay for the roof over their heads or feed their families or get critical medications,” said Carmen Medrano, the co-chair of Colorado Homes for All. The housing coalition has backed legislation to allow local governments to enact rent caps.
Colorado law now prohibits cities from passing rent stabilization or rent control policies. Recent legislative attempts to drop that prohibition have been unsuccessful amid opposition from Polis and other Democrats.
But Biden embracing the policy is a shot in the arm for advocates who have argued that rent caps are vital to protect vulnerable tenants. Medrano pointed to a 2023 survey that showed 60% support among Coloradans for rent control policies in their local communities.
What Polis and other opponents say
Still, the cap faces an uphill climb: Biden is fighting for his political life amid concerns from voters and senior members of the Democratic Party about his ability to campaign and to beat Republican Donald Trump in November.
Even if the president stays in the race and wins, the November election also will determine which party controls each chamber of Congress. Anything short of a Democratic trifecta in the White House and in Congress would likely spell doom for rent cap legislation, assuming that there would be sufficient support even among elected Democrats.
Given that Democrats in Colorado have repeatedly clashed over the issue, that’s not a certainty, either.
Biden’s proposal this week was met with opposition from the landlord lobby and from Polis. On the social media platform X, he argued Biden’s rent cap would stifle development and increase costs.
In recent legislative sessions, Polis has pursued a supply-side approach that seeks to eliminate local barriers to development. While he and Democrats had success on that front this year, those reforms — and the denser apartment development they promise — will take years to bear fruit.
Polis spokeswoman Shelby Wieman declined an interview request about Biden’s rent caps proposal. In a statement, she wrote that Polis “knows this will take congressional action, which is unlikely to occur, and looks forward to the many discussions ahead on the ways to save Americans money on housing. The President’s interest in this issue is a good first step.”
Rent caps have received more attention in recent years as housing prices have rocketed nationwide. Oregon now caps annual rent increases at 7%, plus an inflation factor (coming out at 10% this year). St. Paul, Minnesota, passed a 3% cap in 2021, but policymakers rushed to add exemptions shortly afterward as development cratered.
The debate around the policy’s efficacy has continued, too. The Biden administration pointed to a New York University white paper that argues that “broad-based” regulations and relatively high caps would be effective if paired with subsidies for lower-income earners. Opponents have repeatedly maintained that rent caps are broadly counterproductive, and a 2018 Brookings Institution report argued they’re helpful to tenants in the short term — but harmful in the long run.
Drew Hamrick, a senior vice president with the Colorado Apartment Association, derided rent caps as failed policies. He said they benefit tenants who are lucky enough to get into a price-controlled unit, but otherwise they stifle development and limit on-site improvements.
“Fully at the mercy of corporate landlords”
Still, those concerns may be alleviated by a nationwide — rather than city-by-city — approach, Hamrick and others said.
While one city’s enacting of rent caps may spur developers to look elsewhere, a nationwide approach would help neutralize landlords’ ability to search for greener pastures. The Biden administration’s proposed exemption on new builds theoretically blunts fears that property owners would get out of building apartments altogether.
“The fact that it would have a nationwide impact eliminates that,” Hamrick said. “But it still has the chilling effect on investment overall. What you worry about is that these retirement plans and insurance companies that basically fund the construction of housing in the U.S. start to find better places to park their money than real estate investment because there are artificial caps.”
State Rep. Javier Mabrey, a Denver Democrat who has sponsored renter-friendly legislation — including last year’s attempt to repeal Colorado’s rent control prohibition — said Biden’s proposal advances a debate within the Democratic Party about “what kind of party we want to be.”
He argued the plan was reflective of the reality facing renters, which is that “if you don’t own a home right now, you’re fully at the mercy of corporate landlords seeking unlimited profits.”
“I think the cost of rent — yes, it’s somewhat tied to costs that the landlords incur,” Mabrey said. “But more often than not, landlords across the country are charging as much as they can.”
Hamrick said Biden’s embrace of rent caps, even if it has come while he’s standing on rickety political legs, signaled a boost for rent cap advocates.
“It certainly puts it on the table for a greater level of discussion,” he said. “Whether it changes people’s minds on the wisdom of it, I don’t know. But the fact that you and I are even talking about it is a redirect result of the (Biden announcement).”
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Leading the Way
Nate the Great
MacKinnon is tied for fifth in the NHL in points (10), while ranking tied for seventh in goals (4) and tied for ninth in assists (6).
All Hail Cale
Cale Makar is tied for first in goals (4) among NHL defensemen,
Toewser Laser
Among NHL blueliners, Devon Toews is tied for third in points (7) while ranking tied for fifth in assists (5) and tied for sixth in goals (2).
Series History
The Avalanche and Wild have met in the playoffs on three previous occasions, all in the Round One, with Minnesota winning in 2003 and 2014 in seven games while Colorado was victorious in six contests in 2008.
Making Plays Against Minnesota
MacKinnon has posted 16 points (4g/12a) in nine playoff games against the Wild, in addition to 70 points (27g/43a) in 55 regular-season contests.
Makar has registered three points (2g/1a) in two playoff contests against Minnesota, along with 26 points (6g/20a) in 29 regular-season games.
Necas has recorded five points (1g/4a) in two playoff games against the Wild, in addition to nine points (5g/4a) in 15 regular-season games.
Scoring in the Twin Cities
Quinn Hughes is tied for the Wild lead in points (11) and assists (8) while ranking tied for second in goals (3).
Kaprizov is tied for first on the Wild in assists (8) and points (11) while ranking tied for second in goals (3).
Matt Boldy leads the Wild in goals (6) while ranking third in points (10) and tied for fourth in assists (4).
A Numbers Game
4.50
Colorado’s 4.50 goals per game on the road in the playoffs are tied for the most in the NHL.
39
MacKinnon’s 39 playoff goals since 2020-21 are the second most in the NHL.
2.17
The Avalanche’s 2.17 goals against per game in the playoffs are the second fewest in the NHL.
Quote That Left a Mark
“It should definitely get you up and excited. It’s gonna be a good test. [It’s a] great building and [it’s] against a desperate team. It’s gonna be great.”
— Gabriel Landeskog on playing in Minnesota
Colorado
Colorado Gov. Jared Polis signs state budget, with Medicaid taking brunt of cuts to close $1.5 billion gap
Colorado Gov. Jared Polis on Friday, May 8, signed into law a $46.8 billion state budget that cuts healthcare spending but preserves funding for K-12 education.
The budget applies to the 2026-27 fiscal year, which begins on July 1, and caps months of work by lawmakers, who wrestled with how to close a roughly $1.5 billion gap that ultimately forced reductions to Medicaid funding and other programs.
“This year was incredibly difficult and challenged each of us in a myriad of ways that put our values to the test,” said Rep. Emily Sirtota, a Denver Democrat and chair of the bipartisan Joint Budget Committee, which crafts the state’s spending plan before it is voted on by the full legislature. “It’s a zero-sum game. A dollar here means a dollar less over here.”
The state’s spending gap was the result of several factors.
The legislature is limited in how it can spend under the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights, or TABOR, an amendment to the state constitution approved by voters in 1992 that limits government revenue growth to the rate of population growth plus inflation.
Lawmakers are also dealing with the consequences of increased spending on programs they created or expanded in recent years, some of which have seen their costs balloon beyond their original estimates. Costs for Medicaid services, in particular, have surged, driven by inflation, expanded benefits and greater demand for expensive, long-term care services due to Colorado’s aging population.
Medicaid cuts
Medicaid recently eclipsed K-12 education as the single-largest chunk of the state’s general fund and now accounts for roughly one-third of all spending from that fund.
Lawmakers, who are required by the state constitution to pass a deficit-free budget, said they had no choice but to cut Medicaid funding as a result.
That includes a 2% reduction to the state’s reimbursement rate for most Medicaid providers. The budget also institutes a $3,000 cap on adult dental benefits, limits billable hours for at-home caregivers of family members with severe disabilities to 56 hours per week and phases out, by Jan. 1, automatic enrollment for children with disabilities to receive 24/7 care as adults.
The budget also cuts benefits and places new limits on Cover All Coloradans, a program created by the legislature in 2022 that provides identical coverage as Medicaid to low-income immigrant children and pregnant women, regardless of their immigration status.
That includes an end to long-term care services for new enrollees, a $1,100 limit on dental benefits, and an annual enrollment cap of 25,000 for children 18 or younger. The cuts come as spending on the program has grown more than 600% beyond its original estimate, going from roughly $14.7 million to an estimated $104.5 million for the 2025-26 fiscal year.
While the budget still represents an overall increase in Medicaid spending compared to this year, funding is roughly half of what it would have been had lawmakers not made any changes to benefits and provider rates, which total about $270 million in savings for the state.
Healthcare leaders say the cuts will exacerbate an already challenging environment for providers, who are bracing for less federal support after Congress last year passed sweeping Medicaid cuts and declined to renew enhanced subsidies for the Affordable Care Act.
For rural hospitals in particular, Medicaid is one of their key funding drivers.
“While a 2% (Medicaid reimbursement rate cut) doesn’t sound like a whole lot, when we already have close to 50% of our rural hospitals statewide operating in the red and 70% with unsustainable margins, facing another 2% (cut) on top of that is just devastating,” said Michelle Mills, CEO for the Colorado Rural Health Center, which represents rural hospitals on the Western Slope and Eastern Plains.
If the state provides less reimbursement for Medicaid services, Mills said it will lead to fewer providers accepting Medicaid plans. That in turn will mean fewer care options for people, particularly in Colorado’s rural counties, where healthcare services are already more limited.
“I feel like all of the decisions and cuts that they’re making are hitting everyone,” she said.
Rep. Rick Taggart, a Grand Junction Republican and budget committee member, said cuts to healthcare led to “a lot of tears.”
“This was a tough budget, and nobody won in this budget, but we did what we had to do by way of the (state) constitution,” he said.
While Medicaid saw some of the biggest cuts, lawmakers also trimmed spending from a suite of other programs, including financial aid for adoptive parents and grants providing mental health support for law enforcement.
Preserving K-12 education
One of the brighter spots for Polis and lawmakers in the budget is K-12 education.
After years of chronically underfunding the state’s schools, lawmakers in 2024 rolled out a revamped funding formula and abolished what was known as the budget stabilization factor, a Great Recession-era mechanism that had allowed the state to skirt its constitutional funding obligation to schools for more than a decade.
The new funding formula went into effect this school year, and the state is set to continue delivering higher levels of K-12 funding in the 2026-27 fiscal year budget. The budget allocates roughly $10.19 billion in K-12 funding, an increase of roughly $194.8 million, though the specifics of that spending are still being worked out in a separate bill, the 2026 School Finance Act, which has yet to pass the legislature.
The finance act guides how state and local funds are allocated to Colorado’s 178 school districts on a per-pupil basis. As it stands now, the bill is on track to increase per-pupil funding by $440 per student for the 2026-27 fiscal year, for a total of $12,314 per student.
“We are not returning to the days of underfunding our schools and a budget stabilization factor,” Polis said.
Still, there are challenges on the horizon for some districts.
Combined with a proposed three-year averaging model for student counts instead of the current four-year averaging, recent dips in student enrollment across the state will weigh more heavily on how much funding is allocated to each district. The shift to three-year averaging advances the state’s plan to gradually phase in the new school finance formula by 2030-31.
With several districts seeing decreased year-over-year enrollment and rising operational expenses like healthcare, some Western Slope school districts are poised to see less funding compared to this year, while others are seeing their increases eaten up by inflation.
A note on wolves
The topic of Colorado’s spending on gray wolf reintroduction hasn’t gone away, and while Medicaid headlined much of the budget discussions, lawmakers also used the spending plan to send a message on the future of the wolf program.
While the budget allocates $2.1 from the general fund to Colorado Parks and Wildlife to spend on wolf reintroduction, it also contains a footnote from lawmakers asking the agency not to use the money to acquire new wolves.
Footnotes are not legally binding, but rather serve as a direction or guidance from lawmakers to agencies on how they want certain funds spent.
Under the footnote, the wildlife agency could still use gifts, grants, donations and non-license revenue from its wildlife cash fund to bring additional wolves to Colorado. Most of the agency’s wolf funding goes toward personnel, followed by operating costs, compensation for ranchers and conflict minimization programs and tools.
Education reporter Andrea Teres-Martinez and wildlife and environmental reporter Ali Longwell contributed to this story.
A widespread cyberattack targeting the learning platform Canvas is disrupting thousands of schools across the country, including in Colorado. It’s hitting students at one of the worst possible times: finals week.
Cybercriminal group ShinyHunters claimed credit for the attack, breaching systems tied to Instructure, the company that runs Canvas. Canvas is used by 41% of higher education institutions across the country to deliver courses. Millions of K-12 students rely on the platform as well.
In Colorado, more than 20 schools, including Colorado School of Mines, Metropolitan State University of Denver, the University of Denver, the University of Colorado Boulder, Colorado State University, and the University of Northern Colorado, have been affected by the cybersecurity attack.
The group is attempting to extort the company, threatening to release massive amounts of student data if demands are not met.
For students like Flannery Headley, a political science major at MSU Denver, the disruption is more than an inconvenience — it’s a major source of stress.
“The moment I tried to click on something, it gave me this maintenance down page,” she said. “I started Googling things, and I saw this whole thing about the hack.”
Headley says she was working on assignments when Canvas suddenly stopped functioning.
MSU sent out guidance telling students not to log into Canvas and to wait for updates from professors.
Like many students, Headley is now left in limbo, unsure how finals will be submitted or graded.
“This final I’ve spent the last week working on might not matter,” she said. “At least one of my grades is hinging on another final, whether I’m going to pass or fail.”
The attackers claim to have stolen large amounts of data, including names, student ID numbers, email addresses, and academic records.
Experts say the real risk may not just be disruption, but what happens next.
“The worst they could do is release it,” said MSU Denver computer science professor Steve Beaty. “There’s been minor leaks and breaches and these sorts of things from time to time, but nothing on the scale of this.”
Beatty says the group claims to have terabytes of student data, which could include personally identifiable information protected under federal privacy laws. If released, that information could be used for scams, identity theft, or further cyberattacks.
Canvas is a cloud-based system used by thousands of institutions, meaning a single attack can have massive ripple effects.
“They took the entire Canvas infrastructure down,” Beatty said. “That affects about 9,000 schools, tens of thousands of people in Colorado alone.”
Right now, schools are scrambling to find workarounds, from email submissions to alternative testing methods.
There is no current timeline for resolution. The hacker group has set a May 12 deadline for the company to respond before potentially releasing the data.
Until then, students like Headley are left waiting, hoping their work doesn’t disappear.
“I’m going to keep working on my finals,” she said, “but I’m not sure what that’s going to look like.”
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