politics

Oil and gas producing states around the country are closely watching Colorado this election season. Voters are deciding on a ballot measure dramatically increasing the so-called “set-back” distance drilling rigs need to be from homes.

Three states in the Mountain West have ballot initiatives this November focused on expanding access to Medicaid. Over time, these traditionally Republican states appear to have warmed to a program originally linked to the Affordable Care Act.

In counties across the U.S. voters might notice something way down at the bottom of their ballots: the candidates for county coroner. Coroners are in charge of investigating violent and suspicious deaths, and they’re up for reelection every four years. But should we be electing them at all?

The outdoor clothing company Patagonia made the rare move of endorsing two Democratic Senate candidates on Friday — Jon Tester of Montana and Jacky Rosen of Nevada. It’s part of a larger trend in corporate America to get employees out to vote.

On Thursday night, President Trump rallied in Montana for Republican candidates. At the rally, he congratulated a Montana congressman for body-slamming a reporter last year.

On a recent Sunday evening around dusk, Willie Grayeyes stood on a sagebrush and juniper-studded mesa, scanning the southeast Utah landscape. It was a place the Navajo Democrat’s family had lived for generations and where he’s hoping to be part of a political first.

In counties across the U.S., voters might notice something way down at the bottom of their ballots – the candidates for county coroner. They’re in charge of investigating violent and suspicious deaths, and they’re up for reelection every four years. But should we be electing them at all? It’s a centuries old tradition inherited from across the pond.

Kanye West just made news with his hard-to-follow tweets on the 13th amendment. Meanwhile, Colorado is focused on possibly changing a state version of this centuries-old law.

When Idaho's Democratic candidate for governor Paulette Jordan took to the microphone at a recent campaign party, she immediately launched into a story.

The midterm elections are notorious for low voter turnout. In 2014, it was the lowest since World War II. So this year, companies, celebrities and non-profit organizations are rallying behind get-out-the-vote campaigns.

The Mountain West is a pretty conservative place. So when Democrats win here… it’s big news. And now two Democratic governors from the region are mulling a run for president.

Colorado’s John Hickenlooper and Montana’s Steve Bullock are both moderate progressives, both won in fairly conservative places, and both are kind of wonky.

“They’re not that person who can command a crowd,” Lee Banville, a political journalism professor at the University of Montana, says.

Our region has attracted the attention of the Terminator.

“I’m right now on a campaign to terminate gerrymandering,” said Arnold Schwarzenegger in a video from Budapest, where he’s shooting his latest film.  

Schwarzenegger is raising money for efforts in four states, including two in the Mountain West, to end the political practice.

We hear about gerrymandering a lot these days, but not necessarily an explanation for what it is. It’s complicated, but not impossible to explain.