In his first year as Colorado's secretary of state, Republican Scott Gessler has been sued eight times.
He's outraged Democrats by rewriting the state's campaign finance rules, tangled with counties over which voters they can send mail-in ballots to, and attracted national attention for participating in a fundraiser to pay off a campaign finance fine levied by his office.
"We've definitely shaken up the status quo, and I think that's happened a bit in some other states too," he says.
Standing in a pool full of 2-foot-long alligators, Jay Young starts teaching a class on gator wrestling.
"He who hesitates gets bit. Don't think about it," says Young, owner of Colorado Gators. "Alligator wrestling is not a thinking man's sport."
It takes a certain kind of crazy to want to pay $100 to handle animals sensible people run away from. People do sign up, however, ready to try their hands at this most extreme of sports.
For more than fifty years, Colorado’s farm land has been drying up. Not from drought, but to meet the thirst of growing cities. Now farmers in one of the most threatened basins are trying a new approach -- one that keeps most of their lands growing crops but also supplies urban needs. Colorado Public Radio’s Megan Verlee has the second of two reports on the movement of water from farms to cities.
Every time someone in a Front Range city turns on the tap, the water flowing out has a history. Much of it used to go to irrigate thriving farms and support communities on the Eastern Plains. As cities flourish, parts of rural Colorado are drying up. Colorado Public Radio’s Megan Verlee has the first of two reports on how people are trying to change that story.
