Headlines Tuesday, June 2, 2026
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Polis signs conversion therapy law; Tina Peters is out of prison; Federal judge blocks NCAR supercomputing center split KGNU News
Polis signs conversion therapy law
Gov. Jared Polis signed a bill yesterday allowing Coloradans to sue for damages from “conversion therapy.”
Starting in July, HB 26-1322, Civil Actions for Conversion Therapy Survivors, will provide Coloradans who have been subject to harmful conversion therapy with legal pathways under current medical malpractice laws. Polis also signed an Executive Order directing all state agencies to ensure no state funding goes towards conversion therapy.
Mental health and medical organizations, including the American Psychological Association, the American Psychiatric Association and the American Medical Association, have concluded “conversion therapy” is harmful and ineffective.
In March, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against a 2019 Colorado law banning “conversion therapy” for LGBTQ+ kids arguing the state law’s ban on talk therapy violates the First Amendment. The justices agreed that the law raises free speech concerns, but didn’t strike it down.
In a news release, one of the current bill’s sponsors, Rep. Karen McCormick from Longmont, said “…We’re not giving up the fight to protect the rights of LGBTQ+ Coloradans.”
Polis signs missing student law
Another law signed by Governor Polis requires colleges and universities in Colorado to respond faster when one of their students goes missing.
The law requires higher education institutions to report a missing student to police within six hours of learning of the case. The Daily Camera said the law brings schools in line with the way police departments act after taking a missing person report involving other members of the public.
Supporters say that had the law been in effect last year, it might have made a difference in the case of Megan Trussell. Trussell was a CU-Boulder student who went missing in February 2025, and whose remains were later found along Boulder Canyon Drive. The Boulder County Coroner’s office ruled her death a suicide.
Tina Peters is out of prison
An unrepentant Tina Peters is out of prison, and already repeating disproven conspiracy theories that Donald Trump was cheated out of reelection in 2020.
The former Mesa County clerk and convicted felon had her nine-year prison sentence commuted by Colorado Governor Jared Polis last month. She got out early yesterday, having served nineteen months.
In 2024, she was convicted of four felonies and three misdemeanors for her role in a plot to allow unauthorized access to secure Mesa County voting systems.
After her release, Peters went on the Steve Bannon podcast and repeated long-since debunked theories of election interference.
Peters said, “No one’s really addressing the problem that the basic– that I, that I spent my time in prison, as retribution for, and that was exposing the election machines that allowed the votes to be flipped.”
TAG: Colorado Democrats have formally censured Polis for commuting Peters.
After her release yesterday, Senator Michael Bennet, who is running for governor, said Peters is free in spite of being convicted by a jury of her peers.
Secretary of State Jena Griswold called the early release an affront to democracy, adding that it will “embolden the election denier movement.”
Federal judge blocks NCAR supercomputing center split
A federal judge has temporarily blocked a move by the Trump administration to break up the Boulder-based National Center for Atmospheric Research, or NCAR.
Judge R. Brooke Jackson issued a temporary injunction yesterday that said dismantling NCAR is not in the public interest.
The Trump administration has signaled it wants to shift parts of NCAR to public or private operators, according to the Boulder Reporting Lab.
But the move has been met with resistance. The judge’s order will remain in place as the case plays out in court.
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