The top 25 RMV team commentaries of 2025: Where we chose to stand

By RMV Editorial Board

Rocky Mountain Voice is young. Two years in, we’re still learning to walk.

But the fight was already here when we arrived.

What we learned from stepping into it is at the end.

1. HGTV Can’t Save Small Town America. Fort Morgan Proves It.
By Drake Hunter

Hunter watched a national makeover roll through Fort Morgan, then watched the cameras leave. The takeaway was simple: a town can’t be saved by a storyline. It has to be rebuilt by the people who live there.

2. Now or Never: Colorado Businesses Punished for Renting to Conservatives
By Heidi Ganahl

After a brewery hosted conservatives, it became a target. Ganahl showed how political disagreement in Colorado now gets billed.

3. They Built the Budget Bomb. Now Colorado Democrats Say President Trump Lit the Fuse.
By RMV Editorial Board

Colorado’s $1 billion shortfall didn’t appear overnight. The board showed how years of spending growth and fee hikes made later finger-pointing impossible to take seriously.

4. Will You Be the Miracle Pastor John Waters Needs?
By Drake Hunter

When a liver transplant fell through for a fellow Colorado pastor, Hunter didn’t ask for prayers alone. He asked someone to step forward.

5. Colorado’s Gender Bills Sideline Parents and Rush Kids Into Harm
By Shaina Cole

Cole showed how decisions about children moved forward while parents were kept out of the room. By the time families were told, the direction was already set.

6. Colorado’s Systems Have Failed Tina Peters Again and Again
By RMV Editorial Board

The board tracked how courts, prisons, and prosecutors each made their move. Each decision narrowed the space for fairness until almost nothing was left.

7. Our Loyalty Is to the Truth, Not Political Convenience
By Heidi Ganahl

When staying silent would have preserved alliances, Ganahl chose disclosure instead. The piece showed what happens when unresolved issues are left to fester.

8. The Good, the Bad, and the Alarming: What You Need to Know from Colorado’s 2025 Legislative Session
By RMV Editorial Board

Amid hundreds of bills, the board tracked which ones quietly changed daily life. By the time most people heard about them, the votes were already final.

9. Ballooning Medicaid Costs, TABOR Limits Expose Flaws in Colorado’s Big Government Spending Spree
By RMV Editorial Board

Medicaid spending kept climbing while lawmakers kept spending elsewhere. TABOR didn’t break the budget—it forced the reckoning.

10. The COVID Chronicles: Fifteen Days That Changed Colorado Forever
By RMV Editorial Board

The board went back to the first days of April 2020 and stayed there. Decisions came quickly, with little restraint, and the record shows how fast it happened.

11. Colorado GOP’s New Leadership Faces Rogue Holdouts as Williams’ Allies Cling to Power
By RMV Editorial Board

New leaders were elected. Those who lost control took the fight to the courts.

12. The COVID Chronicles: How Fear and Force Reshaped Colorado
By RMV Editorial Board

Fear became policy, and policy became enforcement. Off-ramps came late—after the damage was done.

13. Trump’s New MABA Commission Puts Conservation Back in the Hands of the People
By Heidi Ganahl

Ganahl showed how conservation policy drifted away from the people who work the land. Decisions made in Washington ignored local knowledge—and the land paid the price.

14. From Superior Elementary to Sex Camps—Colorado Parental Rights Under Attack
By Heidi Ganahl

Ganahl began paying attention when her own children’s classrooms changed without notice. She traced how those programs quietly became policy, leaving parents informed after decisions were already made.

15. Inside the 2025 Colorado Elections: What Voters Rewarded, Rejected—and Why It Matters
By RMV Editorial Board

Election results revealed more than party preference. They exposed the limits of what effort alone could overcome.

16. Congress Must Back DOGE to Cut Waste and Energize GOP Voters for 2026
By Heidi Ganahl

DOGE uncovered billions in waste. Ganahl argued credibility now depends on enforcement, not applause.

17. What’s Inside the “Big Beautiful Bill”—and Why It’s a Game-Changer for Families and Freedom
By Heidi Ganahl

Rather than accepting the attacks, Ganahl broke down the bill’s actual provisions. The noisy narrative around it doesn’t measure up. 

18. Polis’ $4M Legal Fund to Fight Trump? GOP Senators Say It’s a Political Power Grab
By RMV Editorial Board

Colorado set aside millions in taxpayer money for legal fights with the Trump administration. The board questioned why litigation became a priority while Colorado’s real problems kept piling up.

19. Jason Crow Is Playing With Fire—and Colorado Should Be Asking Why
By Heidi Ganahl

Crow’s rhetoric crossed lines meant to keep power in check. Ganahl warned that saying it out loud changes what people think is acceptable.

20. Griswold Sues Against Trump’s Executive Order on Elections but Is a Case Study for It
By RMV Editorial Board

Calls for transparency ran into a very different record. The gap between what was demanded and what was practiced became the issue.

21. Big Wins, Bigger Fights—Colorado Conservatives Are Gaining Ground
By Heidi Ganahl

Recent victories signaled momentum, not resolution. Ganahl warned that the real test comes after the wins.

22. Durango’s School Board Debacle: Radical Rot, Predator Blind Spots, and a Herald Hug
By Heidi Ganahl

Parents raised alarms. Institutions closed ranks and kept moving.

23. When Watchdogs Reached Out, Only Two Clerks Answered: Colorado’s Election Crisis Exposed
By Bill Lehman and Heidi Ganahl

Basic questions were sent statewide. Silence from most clerks became part of the record.

24. “Don’t Scatter Roses After I’m Gone”—What My Wife’s Words Taught Me During Brain Cancer Awareness Month
By Drake Hunter

Hunter writes from the middle of it. His wife’s words became a call to love fully while time is still here.

25. Support Parents’ Call for Accountability and Change Related to Criminal Wrongdoing
By Heidi Ganahl

Parents documented alleged crimes and demanded answers from their school district. They took it public.

What stayed with us

Stepping back, the record tells its own story. Readers led us here.

We had to choose which fights to fight—and then live with them.

Pretending conflict isn’t there doesn’t move anything forward. Facing it does.

Avoiding the hard parts doesn’t lead to resolution. It just delays it.

These pieces didn’t look for permission. They followed what was actually done.

They challenged the idea that solutions come from prestige—or distance. 

They showed how families absorb the cost when institutions fail. They treated COVID not as settled history, but as unfinished business. They refused to let process replace fairness or slogans replace math.

Some of these stories were personal. Some were political. Many were both.

None of them were written from a safe place.

Why we keep going

Colorado is not easy terrain for this kind of journalism. And when it comes to commentary, it means choosing where to stand.

Power is centralized. Dissent is punished. Families are sidelined. 

Reliable energy production, the right to defend oneself, the ability to work with federal partners—and the freedom to speak with common sense and conviction—are under sustained attack.

Many people on this list—including our founder—have paid a price for speaking anyway.

And the work continues.

Not because it’s comfortable. Not because it’s rewarded. But because silence is more expensive.

This Top 25 isn’t a victory lap.

It’s a record of decisions. A refusal to look away. A reminder that states, like families, are shaped by what people are willing to confront honestly.

Colorado is worth saving. There’s no overnight fix. And this isn’t a spectator sport.

This work is done when people walk straight into the conflict. And tell the truth anyway.