As Colorado House lawmakers churned through final votes during the last night of this year's session, Republicans stood up and marched out of the chamber before the Democratic speaker could gavel it to a close — a defiant act meant to show how sidelined and silenced they felt.
The political theater this week was the culmination of a 120-day session that proved to be the latest illustration of the leftward shift in what was long a battleground state, leaving Republicans scrambling to adjust to their unfamiliarly weak position and surfacing internal rifts among Democrats over just how progressive Colorado should be.
