It's one of the most passionate fault-lines in state politics: how to balance the authority of parents with the need to protect children and advance society's interests. And people at the Capitol have a LOT to say about it.

We're a month into session, and Capitol newbie Andrew Kenney is starting to realize it's not all pithy quotes and snappy debates. Lawmakers are getting to wrestle with some of the session's most contested proposals.

Should Colorado keep the death penalty? As lawmakers once again debate abolition, it's a question that divides parties, and friends, at the state capitol.

This week we're talking about some of the ways things can get personal -- very personal -- at the state capitol.

Colorado’s capitol is current firmly in the hands of the Democrats, so that means smooth sailing for all their policies right? Yeah, not so much.

A lot has happened, dear podcast listener, since Sam, Bente, and Megan chatted in our final episode last year. Sam decided he needs a break from the grind of politics and moved to the eminently more cheery beat of climate change.

Colorado’s 2019 legislative session is over. The last four months of frantic lawmaking were a test for Democrats, who took complete control of the state Capitol last November. This episode, we look back at everything they were able to achieve — and why arguments over process at times got in the way of their biggest goals. And how Republicans, who lacked the votes to block legislation, found other ways to make their voices heard. The result was a session that showed passing bills isn’t as simple as just having a majority.

Ken Crumb’s story likely sounds familiar. A Front Range resident sees oil and gas drilling in his community. He doesn’t like it and organizes his neighbors to pass a local drilling ban. The thing is, in Ken’s case, this all happened more than 30 years ago. And that community he rallied was Greeley -- not exactly a hotbed of anti-fracking sentiment today. This episode, we look back at perhaps Colorado’s first fractivist. What Ken did ended up limiting local control of oil and gas development. Now, Democratic lawmakers have passed a bill to tilt the scales back in the other direction.