2026 Ballot Measures

Amendment 87 (Statutory): Graduated Income Tax

Colorado’s flat income tax requires working families and millionaires to pay the same income-tax rate, while the overall state and local tax system places a greater burden relative to income on many working- and middle-income households. Amendment 87 would replace the flat tax with graduated marginal rates, lowering income-tax rates on the first $100,000 of taxable income while asking individuals and corporations earning more than $500,000 to pay higher rates on income above that amount. The measure is expected to raise approximately $2 billion annually for public education, health care, and early childhood care and education, with requirements that the new funding supplement existing spending and be publicly reported and audited. A graduated system provides tax relief at lower incomes while asking those with the greatest ability to pay to contribute more toward essential public services.

Prop NN (Statutory): State Public K-12 Education Funding

Colorado’s public schools need sustainable investment in teachers, smaller class sizes, and career and technical education. Proposition NN would allow the state to retain revenue that would otherwise be returned through TABOR refunds and use it to increase K–12 education funding by up to 2% annually for ten years. The additional school funding is specifically directed toward increasing teacher pay and retention, reducing class sizes, and expanding access to career and technical courses, with public reporting and state auditing requirements to track how the money is spent. Prop NN asks voters to make a clear choice: invest a portion of future excess state revenue in Colorado’s children and public schools rather than return that money through TABOR refunds.

Amendment 81 (Constitutional): Law Enforcement Reporting Requirements to Federal Authorities

Colorado law enforcement’s responsibility is to enforce Colorado law and protect public safety, not to serve as an arm of federal immigration enforcement. Amendment 81 would constitutionally require law enforcement, corrections personnel, and district attorney offices to investigate the immigration status of certain people charged with crimes and report them to federal authorities when their lawful status cannot be confirmed. This mandate could divert local resources, complicate relationships between immigrant communities and law enforcement, and entangle Colorado agencies in changing federal immigration policies. Cooperation with federal authorities in appropriate cases can be addressed through law and law-enforcement policy; it does not need to be permanently mandated in Colorado’s Constitution.

Amendment 82 (Constitutional): Constitutional Right to Natural Gas

Amendment 82 is a change to the Colorado constitution creating a permanent “right” to buy and sell natural (or methane) gas without defining reasonable limits or addressing what happens as markets,technology, and regulatory structures change. Its broad language may generate lawsuits over local building codes, climate policies, and utility decisions that deserve flexibility. Colorado should retain the flexibility to make practical energy decisions as costs, technology, and consumer preferences evolve. It was put on the ballot by Advance Colorado, a conservative dark money group that doesn’t disclose their donors, and is behind more than 20 ballot initiatives this year alone, including cutting taxes for the wealthy, deregulating polluting industries, and expanding prosecutions and ICE power.

Amendment 84 (Constitutional): Mail Ballot Voter Identification

Colorado already authenticates mail ballots through signature verification and provides a process to cure questionable ballots. This measure adds another hurdle without demonstrating a significant fraud problem that needs solving. It would require voters to put part of their Social Security number or another government identification number on the self-affirmation of their returned ballot envelope, creating unnecessary privacy and data-security concerns. It would also increase the number of legitimate ballots requiring correction—and some voters will inevitably fail to complete that process in time for their votes to count. Secure elections matter, but adding barriers and requiring sensitive personal information when our existing system is already secure is unnecessary and risks disenfranchising legitimate voters.

Amendment 85 (Constitutional): Plain Language Ballot Questions

Colorado already enacted a plain-language requirement for ballot titles this year (passed with 72% of the vote in 2022), allowing legally required voter disclosures to be rewritten in clear, accessible language. Initiative 234 unnecessarily puts an undefined eighth-grade reading standard into the Constitution and goes much further by prohibiting statutes from mandating language in initiative ballot titles.This means that voters would see less information about how a tax measure hits their own wallet and state/local budgets. We recommend opposing it because we believe voters should have more information about what’s on their ballot, not less.

Amendment 86 (Constitutional): Congressional Redistricting

Colorado already has an independent congressional redistricting process designed to prevent partisan gerrymandering. Amendment 86 would add new and potentially conflicting constitutional standards governing off-cycle redistricting, including different tests for whether a map has the “effect” or “purpose” of favoring a political party and ambiguous language about dividing communities of interest. These provisions could invite litigation without making Colorado’s maps fairer. Our Constitution already provides strong protections against partisan gerrymandering; we should not rewrite those rules without a demonstrated problem that needs to be fixed.

Proposition 132 (Statutory): Penalties for Fentanyl Crimes

Colorado’s fentanyl crisis demands serious consequences for drug trafficking as well as effective treatment for people struggling with addiction, but Initiative 85 relies too heavily on escalating felony charges and lengthy prison sentences. It would make distribution of any amount of fentanyl or certain other synthetic opioids a Level 1 drug felony and significantly increase penalties for possession, resulting in an estimated $44.6 million in additional prison costs over five years. While the measure includes treatment opportunities for some lower-level possession offenses, increasing incarceration and criminal penalties does not by itself address the addiction, treatment access, prevention, and public-health challenges driving overdose deaths. Colorado can hold dangerous traffickers accountable without adopting an unnecessarily broad and costly expansion of felony sentencing.

Proposition 134 (Statutory): Male and Female Participation in School Sports

Questions about fairness and safety in competitive athletics are legitimate, but Proposition 134 imposes a one-size-fits-all rule based solely on biological sex, extending from collegiate athletics all the way to K–12 and intramural sports. It would exclude transgender girls and women from female teams regardless of age, sport, level of competition, or individual circumstances, while transgender boys and men could participate on male teams only when no corresponding female team is available. That rigid approach leaves schools and athletic governing bodies little ability to account for circumstances such as medical transition, hormone treatment, or the very different competitive considerations presented by different sports and ages. These complicated questions call for thoughtful, evidence-based policies rather than a sweeping statewide mandate.

Proposition 135 (Statutory): Prohibit Certain Surgeries on Minors

Decisions about medically appropriate care for minors belong with patients, their parents or guardians, and qualified health-care professionals—not in a blanket rule imposed at the ballot box. Proposition 135 would prohibit certain surgeries for anyone under 18 based specifically on whether the treatment is related to the young person’s perception of sex or gender, while permitting medical treatment of sex characteristics in other circumstances. These are complex, highly individualized medical decisions that are better governed by medical standards of care and informed consent than by a one-size-fits-all statutory ban.

Proposition 136 (Statutory): Income Tax Rate Cap

Colorado voters already have the final say on tax increases under TABOR. Prop 136 would not lower anyone’s taxes today; instead, it would impose an arbitrary 4.4% ceiling on both individual and corporate income-tax rates, limiting Colorado’s future options. It could also prevent voters from adopting Amendment 87, a progressive tax system that lowers rates for 97% Coloradans while taxing very high incomes at a higher marginal rate, and would also restrict our ability to ask profitable corporations to contribute more when circumstances warrant it. Future voters deserve the flexibility to make tax decisions based on future economic conditions—not have those choices constrained by the tax rate that happens to exist today.

Proposition 137 (Statutory): Designate Sporting Goods Sales Tax Revenue for Conservation

While the statewide Colorado Democratic Party chose to oppose Prop. 137, the Summit County Board of County Commissioners chose to support it.

Protecting Colorado’s lands, water, wildlife, and communities from wildfire is critically important, but Proposition 137 is not the right way to fund those priorities. It would permanently divert approximately $175 million a year in existing sales-tax revenue from the state’s General Fund and dedicate it to specific programs, reducing the legislature’s flexibility to balance conservation needs with other essential priorities such as education, health care, and housing. Colorado should continue investing strongly in conservation and wildfire prevention through a responsible budget process that allows funding decisions to respond to the state’s changing needs.

Ballot Issue 1A: Summit County Renewal of Strong Future property tax measure

Summit County’s Strong Future Fund was originally passed by voters in November 2018 as a 10-year mill levy to raise approximately $8.8 million annually through 2028 for five core community areas: 

• Early childhood care and education for local families and workers.
• Behavioral health and mental health services (overseen via Building Hope and the Strong Future Behavioral Health Citizens Advisory Committee).
• Wildfire prevention and mitigation programs managed with the Summit County Wildfire Council.
• Recycling and waste diversion services through the High Country Conservation Center.
• Public infrastructure and facilities improvements to extend the utility of community buildings.

A “Yes” vote will continue this funding in the future and sustain our community. 

Ballot Issue 4A: Summit County Public Schools Mill Levy Override

Ballot Issue 4A would provide Summit School District with approximately $5.9 million annually to invest in the people and programs that directly support students. The majority—$4.5 million—would help attract and retain high-quality teachers and staff, while additional funding would expand career and technical education, college-credit opportunities, hands-on learning, and targeted academic support in reading, math, special education, and school improvement. The estimated cost is about $4.50 per month for a $500,000 home, or $9 per month for a $1 million home. After extensive planning and community input, the proposal focuses specifically on educators, student achievement, and expanded opportunities rather than buildings or construction.

Amendment 83 (Constitutional): Constitutional Right to Hunt and Fish

This fall, Coloradans will be asked to vote on a ballot measure to enshrine a so-called “Right to Hunt” in the Colorado Constitution, despite the fact that Colorado state law already says: “The state shall utilize hunting, trapping and fishing as the primary methods of effecting necessary wildlife harvests.” 
Right to Hunt ballot measures like this one, which are supported by the right-wing extremist groups including the National Rifle Association and Safari Club International, are not really about protecting the ability of families to catch fish or engage in ethical hunting. Instead, they are part of a larger, multi-state MAGA culture war effort to prevent limitations on certain types of hunting and trapping that have been established to ensure that those activities are done ethically and without unnecessary cruelty.