This initiative would force law enforcement to coordinate with ICE, including in cases where someone has not been convicted, or even formally charged, with any crime, and also in cases where involving ICE would interfere with an ongoing investigation or community or victim safety. It is backed by right-wing operatives, and funded by billionaires, to undermine due process and legal protections, and hand more power over to ICE.

This is a special-interest protection from fossil fuel corporations, and it’s frankly bizarre to put such a narrow, anti-competitive, and pro-pollution clause in our constitution.  It will impair Colorado’s climate progress, worsen our air-quality, and increase housing and utility costs, by forcing building of fossil fuel infrastructure, even as advancing technology makes it obsolete. It’s a desperate grasp at power and profits by dirty energy companies, and has no place in our constitution.

I’m a big fan of hunting and fishing, and we have existing laws that permit and regulate it. This measure would add a complex set of rights and restrictions around hunting protections to the state constitution.

Wealthy out-of-state right-wing interest groups are pushing this measure, which adds unnecessary and vague complication to the constitution, and will make it harder to safely oversee responsible conservation, wildlife management, and forest management. I also probably requires that we allow traps, poison, and other hazardous and cruel ‘traditional’ hunting practices.

This amendment would force voters to write their full Driver’s License number or last 4 digits of the Social Security number on their ballots, and require election judges to reject the ballot if they don’t.  This is a treatment in want of a disease - voter fraud in Colorado is exceptionally rare. And it comes with a real cost - it will disenfranchise many voters, increase the rate of rejection of ballots cast by qualified voters, and expose voters to identity theft.

This initiative, funded by right-wing operatives, takes an anti-voter poison pill and sugar-coats it with a good idea.  The sugar coating is to simplify the language on the ballot, to make it easier for more voters to understand what they’re voting on.  The real objective of the backers, though, is to block current law that allows voters to see a breakdown of tax changes by income bracket, for example (thus making it easier to pass future tax giveaways for billionaires and make it look on that ballot like it’s a tax break for regular people.)

This is a pure-and-simple power-grab by MAGA operatives, who want to redistrict red states to make them even more red, but don’t want Colorado to be allowed to help counter-balance that attack on people’s representation in congress.  We should have non-partisan redistricting commissions in every single state. But when MAGA is twisting the rules to hoard Republican Power, we need states like Colorado to be able to respond.

This will reduce state income tax for 97% of Coloradans (everyone making less than $500,000 annually), and increase taxes for those making more than half a million dollars a year.  This will help us pay for education, healthcare, and other essential investments in Colorado’s future.

Colorado ranks near the bottom of the nation for our investment in public education. This measure will increase funding for schools (increased teacher pay and retention, smaller class sizes, more career and technical education), without taking away from healthcare, public safety, or other core public goods. 

This measure would impose mandatory minimum sentences for many fentanyl-related infractions.

This proposition is being supported by wealthy right-wing political strategists, while public safety advocates, public health advocates, and criminal justice advocates are all opposing it. 

It dramatically increases harsh sentencing for even minor, first-time cases, including those where the person involved didn’t even know they were possessing something contaminated with fentanyl.  It will increase prison crowding, at a huge cost to funding for health care and education, and it is projected to increase, not decrease, overdose deaths and it provides zero funding for treatment.  The only real winners from this measure would be private prison corporations.

There are already many state and federal laws criminalizing sex trafficking.  This proposition would impose a mandatory life sentence for involvement in these crimes.  This kind of inflexible punishment does not actually deter the people who commit these heinous crimes, though it does end up getting applied to the victims of trafficking themselves. It also creates incentive for traffickers to kill their victims and witnesses. This measure is also backed by anti-abortion operatives, and may be used to criminalize healthcare providers and those who help minors receive abortions.

Colorado currently has a well-functioning set of rules regulating sports participation by transgender students.

This proposition would create a one-size-fits-all ban, spanning kindergarten to college. It is written in a way that would require sensitive and invasive medical tests to enforce, and ultimately might end up leading to coaches deciding which girls need invasive exams in order to be allowed to play sports with their friends.

This proposition would ban a range of medical treatment for minors, and prevent parents and doctors from deciding what treatments are best for a child.  It is primarily intended to target transgender kids, who already face extensive scrutiny and barriers to accessing healthcare. Because of how it is written, it will also probably end up preventing life-improving and life-saving treatments for many more non-transgender kids.

This is just billionaires trying to pass more laws protecting their own wealth. It will ultimately reduce funding, at the expense of education, healthcare, and other core public goods.

This initiative will re-structure funding mechanisms for conservation, providing increased support for land, water, and forests, and for wildfire protection.

This will provide funding to improve the infrastructure and train frequency of the “Colorado Connector” Front Range Passenger Rail. This, in turn, will reduce road congestion and wear-and-tear, reduce air pollution, and move us toward the green economy we need for the rest of the 21st century.