The bill was introduced in the U.S. House late last month. If passed, it would make it easier for states to cover treatment for drug abuse, like inpatient hospital stays or residential treatment, via Medicaid, in part by ensuring that the federal government will cover 90% of new costs in the first five years after a state adopts the program.

Under current law, Medicaid doesn’t cover drug treatment. States can request coverage via a waiver system, as Colorado did after Pettersen, then a state House member, passed a bill requiring it do so in 2018. Several states have pursued waivers, but many haven’t. The waiver process can be cumbersome and time-consuming, presenting a decisive — or convenient — barrier for states who may already be leery about drug treatment, said Rob Valuck, the head of the Colorado Consortium for Prescription Drug Abuse Prevention.

The bill would remove that barrier by allowing states to begin offering Medicaid-covered treatment without seeking a waiver.

Pettersen, a first-term Democrat running for reelection in the 7th Congressional District west of Denver and Colorado Springs, unveiled the measure in Denver on Thursday with her mother, who is in long-term recovery from heroin use. Valuck and Attorney General Phil Weiser were also among the attendees.

“My mom is an example of what’s possible when people struggling with substance use disorder have access to the resources and support they need, but I know she was one of the lucky ones,” Pettersen said in a statement. “Far too many people are left without care because of the stigma associated with addiction and the lack of funding and priorities at every level of government.”

Pettersen previewed the bill to The Denver Post last summer as she began working to take substance use policies passed in Colorado — ranging from Medicaid coverage to overdose antidote access — to the federal level. Her efforts come amid a national overdose crisis fueled by the synthetic opioid fentanyl. More than 107,000 Americans fatally overdosed last year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

That represented a 3% decline from 2022’s death toll, though it is still high enough to register as one of the worst overdose years in American history.

Her public unveiling of the bill — at a Denver facility where her mother once received treatment — came a few days after Aug. 31’s Overdose Awareness Day. Fatal overdoses increased slightly in Colorado last year but hit a record high in Denver, according to the city’s overdose dashboard. Denver activists held an Overdose Grief Day on Aug. 31 to call for additional action from city officials to address the crisis.

Valuck said it would be difficult to pass substantive drug policy through this current Congress — especially given that Democrats, like Pettersen, are in the minority in the House. But he argued that it was “unconscionably bizarre” for Medicaid not to cover drug abuse treatment, and he said that allowing it to do so will save states money in criminal justice and health care costs.

“Those are the two ways people end up getting care if you don’t pay for treatment: They go to the emergency room or they go to jail,” he said. “That’s the de facto treatment system if you don’t cover it under Medicaid. ”

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Passed as House Bill 1003 during the legislature’s special session last month, the law extends in perpetuity an exemption that was set to expire in tax year 2027. Personal property used to generate income for a business is typically taxed, though several exemptions exist.

This law extends the exemption that applies to agricultural equipment used on a farm or ranch to equipment used in controlled environmental agricultural facilities.

Nonpartisan legislative analysts did not have an estimate of how many facilities or how much money would be affected by the exemption.

“Colorado is proud to put food on tables across the state and around the world, and the success of our agricultural businesses and entrepreneurs is a key part of that,” Polis said in a news release after signing the bill into law during a ceremony at an Aurora greenhouse. “Today we are breaking down barriers and cutting taxes for Colorado greenhouses, helping to keep more money in the pockets of the hardworking Coloradans who help strengthen our economy.”

The measure was one of two bills to become law from the recently concluded special session on property taxes. The other, House Bill 1001, cut state assessment rates and was the lynchpin of a deal that stopped two ballot initiatives that would have forced deeper property tax cuts.

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The suit, which names Gov. Jared Polis and state Treasurer Dave Young, was filed in Denver District Court by several mostly rural counties on the Western Slope, plus metro Denver’s Douglas County. They allege that a bill passed by the legislature earlier this year would “substantially deplete” — if not zero out — a portion of severance tax revenue that’s intended “to offset the impact” of oil and gas extraction.

That bill, the bipartisan House Bill 1413, took $25 million in severance tax funds and directed them to the general fund, which is the state’s primary spending account. It was one of a handful of transfers that aided in balancing the budget.

The counties — Mesa, Douglas, Garfield, Moffat, Montezuma, Montrose and Rio Blanco — are asking a Denver judge to rule that the transfer was illegal and to prohibit transfers in the future that would “deplete” the fund.

At a county commission meeting at the end of August, Mesa commissioners accused the legislature of taking the money to balance the state budget, and Commissioner Janet Rowland said it was an “insult to injury.”

The counties said in their suit that they have used the money for transportation, public health, and senior and animal welfare services. The distributions made up between 0.6% (in Montrose County’s case) and 3.65% (for Montezuma County) of the their 2023 expenditures.

“As a result of depletion of the (fund), the (counties) and their communities will be deprived of critical funds on which they have come to heavily rely, and on which they intended to rely moving forward for established and new service programs alike,” the counties’ lawyers wrote in the suit.

According to the Colorado Department of Local Affairs website, $25 million is available for local governments in the Energy/Mineral Impact Assistance Fund Grant program; that’s the account from which legislative staff recommended lawmakers transfer the money. Applications for those grants opened July 1.

A spokeswoman for the department was unable to provide comment Thursday.

The legislature has moved severance tax dollars into its general fund before, as Republican lawmakers who opposed the transfer noted during floor debates in the spring. Staff for the Joint Budget Committee, a group of six lawmakers tasked with creating the state’s budget and guiding fiscal policy, recommended the $25 million transfer in March.

Spokespeople for Polis and Young did not provide comment Thursday. A message left for Rep. Shannon Bird, who chairs the powerful Joint Budget Committee and co-sponsored the bill, was not returned.

Rep. Rick Taggart, a Grand Junction Republican who also co-sponsored the bill, said he needed to double-check the details of the various funds’ background and details before commenting specifically.

But he said the transfers were necessary.

“None of us on the (Joint Budget Committee) were happy about that, at all,” he said. “It’s just — we got some surprises thrown at us at the very end of the session, and we had to balance that budget.”

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Police have identified 10 people linked to the Tren de Aragua gang who are operating in Aurora, and six of those people have been arrested and are in custody, Aurora police spokesman Joe Moylan told The Denver Post.

Details on the identities of the 10 people and the nature of the charges against all of the six arrestees were not immediately available, though some are in custody in connection with a previously reported shooting on Nome Street in July.

Moylan said officers have not arrested any gang members on charges related to collecting rent from residents at three Aurora properties owned by CBZ Property Management.

The properties took center stage in the conversation about the Venezuelan gang in Aurora when CBZ Property Management claimed unlivable conditions at its properties were due to criminal activity by Tren de Aragua gang members.

Aurora Mayor Mike Coffman and other city officials repeated the company’s claim, suggesting the apartment complexes “fallen to” the gang. The claim was then amplified by local and national media and fueled by a viral video showing men with guns knocking on a door in the apartment complex.

Other Aurora officials — and the properties’ residents — have said the unlivable conditions at the company’s properties were longstanding and the result of the company’s mismanagement, rather than an overwhelming gang presence. Aurora’s interim police chief on Friday said gangs had not “taken over” one of the complexes.

Aurora has a population of about 400,000, and a study of its gangs last year identified 36 separate gangs with 1,355 members, about .34% of the city’s total population.

The 10 identified people linked to Tren de Aragua represent less than 1% of Aurora’s identified gang members, though Moylan said officers expect the number of documented Tren de Aragua members to grow as investigations into the gang continue.

“Every day we learn more about TdA, how it operates and how we can identify suspected members,” he said. “…It’s still too soon to try to quantify TdA’s presence in Aurora one way or the other.”

Aurora police have “investigated numerous claims and allegations” about gang members collecting rent from residents at the properties, but “have not yet established probable cause or made any arrests,” Moylan said.

Moylan declined to comment on how many criminal acts connected to Tren de Aragua members are currently under investigation, citing the ongoing investigative work. He said the police department has been investigating the gang for a year and that the residents making complaints about the gang’s activity have largely been migrants who live in the buildings.

Aurora police have publicly tied just one crime this summer to the Tren de Aragua gang: a July 28 shooting in which two men were shot and a third broke his ankle at the apartment building at 1568 Nome St.

One of the suspects in that shooting, Jhonardy Jose Pacheco-Chirinos, 22, is a known Tren de Aragua member, police said in a statement last month. He was arrested after the shooting and charged with assault with a deadly weapon.

On Wednesday, Aurora police confirmed they also arrested Pacheco-Chirinos’ brother, 24-year-old Jhonnarty Dejesus Pacheco-Chirinos, on attempted-murder charges on July 29. Both are documented gang members and remain in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody.

Aurora police also arrested two other possible Tren de Aragua gang members on charges of tampering with evidence in connection with the July 28 shooting. “These two have gang ties and are suspected to be members of TdA,” police said.

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The legislature passed House Bill 1001 last week during its second property tax-focused special session in the past year. Polis called lawmakers back to the Capitol in mid-August to ratify the deal his office and legislative leaders had struck with Advance Colorado, a conservative advocacy group, and Colorado Concern, a business organization backing Advance Colorado’s ballot measures.

The deal called for additional property tax cuts, on top of larger reductions passed in May, in exchange for Advance Colorado removing two ballot measures that would have cut taxes more steeply and capped property tax growth more stringently for local governments and districts.

“With this final piece, I think we have the predictability and stability we need to save homeowners money and do budgeting for schools and make sure we do not have the resurgence of the negative factor,” Polis said. He was referring to the budgeting mechanism that had chronically underfunded state schools for years, but which state officials ended in this fiscal year’s budget.

Polis had previously said he would not sign the bill into law until the two ballot measures — initiatives 50 and 108 — were formally pulled from the ballot. The Colorado Secretary of State’s Office confirmed Wednesday morning that both had been withdrawn.

The deal also included a promise from Advance Colorado not to pursue additional property tax-cutting measures for at least six years. No statutory requirement underpins that promise, but House Speaker Julie McCluskie, a Dillon Democrat and one of HB-1001’s sponsors, expressed hope during Wednesday’s ceremony that “this is the end of our conversations about property tax for at least the next six years.”

“It is unfortunate that we had to play defense — that we had to come forward and provide yet additional relief — because wealthy interests in this state continue to bring forward ballot measures that would ultimately undermine the stability of our communities,” imperil school funding and put budgets for local services like fire departments at risk, she said. Those risks elevated frustrations that had been prominent within her caucus last month.

Sen. Barbara Kirkmeyer, a Brighton Republican and another sponsor, called the legislation passed this year “the largest property tax cut in Colorado’s history,” though the impact of the special session bill is smaller than a companion bill passed by lawmakers in the spring.

“When you combine what’s going to happen with 2025, with 2026, it’s nearly $2.4 billion,” she said.

The bill signed Wednesday initially adds roughly $254 million in additional cuts to the $1.3 billion worth of reductions approved in May. The bulk of the latest cuts will benefit commercial property, according to an analysis by the Colorado Fiscal Institute, a progressive think tank.

Polis said those reductions should benefit commercial tenants — who, he said, typically foot the bill for increased property taxes.

For homeowners, the measure is expected to clip between $60 and $80 from a typical property tax bill in the 2025 tax year, plus roughly $179 the following year. That’s on top of an average $400 in savings from the measure passed in May.

For supporters in the legislature, the compromise meant accepting relatively modest additional tax relief in exchange for neutralizing two ballot measures that Democrats said would have “catastrophic” and “draconian” effects on state and local budgets.

“I believe today marks the culmination of at least six years’ worth of work,” said Sen. Chris Hansen, a Denver Democrat and another architect of the deal. He was referring to the work undertaken to repeal the Gallagher Amendment in 2020 — and then grapple with the loss of that law’s tax-stabilizing protection for homeowners.

Twenty-two legislators out of 100 voted against the deal during its journey through the Capitol last week. Most were Democrats frustrated that it was negotiated behind closed doors with deep-pocketed conservative and business groups.

Critics repeatedly likened the situation to negotiating with hostage-takers, and some Democrats spent last week referring to Advance Colorado’s president, Michael Fields, as “Gov. Fields.”

Several legislators told The Denver Post last week that they doubted the armistice would last. That feeling was in part rooted in a lack of trust between the initiatives’ backers and legislators, many of whom thought that the measure passed in May was already a compromise.

On Wednesday, the deal’s architects struck a more optimistic tune. Polis said he hoped the deal would provide property tax stability for a generation, and his office — in its release announcing the bill-signing — heralded that “the property tax wars are over.”

Kirkmeyer thanked Advance Colorado and the initiatives’ proponents and said that though there had been “trust issues,” the proponents had kept their word.

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Eric Joss, the Libertarian nominee in the 8th Congressional District, announced the armistice with Republican state Rep. Gabe Evans during a press conference Tuesday night. Evans, a freshman legislator from Fort Lupton, signed a “pledge of liberty” to secure Joss’ support.

The pledge includes promises to oppose “military adventurism” while supporting a peaceful end to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and “fundamental reform” of the U.S. Department of Education, among other issues.

Evans said he signed the pledge after some changes were made, including removing language calling for the abolishment of U.S. intelligence services.

“Eric and I are united in our determination to rein in the size, scope, cost and corruption of government,” Evans said in a statement. “Beating big government starts with defeating” U.S. Rep. Yadira Caraveo, the Democrat who currently holds the seat.

Last summer, the state Libertarian Party agreed not to run candidates against Republicans in contested races if the state Republican Party backed “liberty-leaning candidates.” That deal came after the previous race for the 8th Congressional District turned on a tight margin: Caraveo won the seat in 2022, beating Republican state Sen. Barbara Kirkmeyer by 1,632 votes in the first election to represent the newly created district.

In that race, the Libertarian candidate, Richard Ward, garnered more than 9,200 votes.

On Tuesday night, Joss criticized Caraveo as a “rubber-stamp” on President Joe Biden’s agenda. During her nearly two years in Congress, Caraveo has pursued a moderate path and is one of the most moderate House members, according to the accountability and transparency website GovTrack.

In a statement Wednesday afternoon, Caraveo campaign manager Mary Alice Blackstock accused Evans and Joss of making a “backroom deal.” Blackstock said Caraveo’s record “speaks for itself. Come November, voters will decide between a Congresswoman who has delivered real results and a political opportunist siding with the extremes.”

Colorado Secretary of State spokesman Jack Todd said Joss had not formally pulled his name from the ballot as of Wednesday morning. The deadline to do so is Friday.

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Calvarese, a former speechwriter and labor activist, repeatedly attacked Boebert’s congressional record, including criticizing the Republican for voting against a larger bill that included provisions allowing the federal government to negotiate for lower prescription drug prices. She defended President Joe Biden’s marquee Inflation Reduction Act and called for an end to the “offshoring” of American manufacturing.

Boebert, who is seeking a third term — and her first outside of the Western Slope-based 3rd Congressional District — defended her record. She hit on familiar red-meat issues for the Republican Party, saying she wanted to cut taxes, “take our country back,” “bring back prosperity” and “secure our southern border.”

At one point, she derisively referred to American citizens born to undocumented immigrants as “anchor babies” and said they should not receive certain tax-credit assistance.

The debate, co-hosted by Colorado Politics/the Denver Gazette and the Douglas County Economic Development Corporation at The Club at Ravenna, focused on the economy and business issues.

It was the first debate since Boebert cruised to a June primary win over a crowded Republican field. Amid serious challenges from both Democrats and Republicans in her home district, she had switched from seeking reelection to vying in the 4th after then-U.S. Rep. Ken Buck announced he wouldn’t run for the seat again in the November election.

Though Boebert is new to the district, she is the odds-on favorite to win. The Eastern Plains-focused 4th District is Colorado’s most conservative district, where registered Republicans outnumber Democrats by more than 2-to-1, giving her a greater advantage on paper than she had in her old district. The 4th takes in extensive farmland as well as south suburban Denver’s Douglas County.

On Tuesday, Calvarese sought to contrast her stated desire for partnership and compromise with Boebert’s approach, which Calvarese characterized as “defund, to cancel it, shut down the government if you don’t get your way.”

Despite being one of the most partisan members of a particularly partisan Congress, Boebert touted her own bipartisan efforts, including by pointing to her support for a bill backed by U.S. Rep. Joe Neguse, a Colorado Democrat, that would allow federal land to be used for housing.

Here’s what else Boebert and Calvarese discussed Tuesday:

National debt

In response to a question about the growing national debt, Boebert said she wanted to go through spending individually, line by line. She said she wouldn’t support larger omnibus funding bills and instead wanted individual appropriations bills.

“I do not agree with Republican debt as much as I do not agree with Democrat debt,” she said.

Calvarese said she wanted to better tax corporations that hide “their money abroad” and repeatedly said that the “middle class needs a tax break.” She said the federal government should look for efficiencies, with help from artificial intelligence, to reduce unnecessary spending.

She also said she would support keeping the federal corporate tax rate at its current level, while Boebert said she wanted former President Donald Trump’s 2017 tax cuts to be continued and the rates “lowered significantly.”

Those individual income tax cuts are set to expire at the end of next year. If they were extended for another decade, they would add $3.3 trillion to the federal deficit over that time period, according to a nonpartisan fiscal analysis.

Veterans

The most extended scuffle of the debate came next. Calvarese accused Boebert of not supporting veterans, pointing to Boebert’s support for a bill that would have cut the Department of Veterans Affairs budget and her opposition to a bill that would’ve expanded health benefits for veterans exposed to toxic substances.

“Don’t sit here and tell us … that you are somehow for veterans,” Calvarese said.

Boebert defended her support for veterans and her vote against the toxic substances bill. She said she wasn’t able to provide amendments and that she wasn’t willing to spend “a billion dollars forever because we couldn’t get a couple of pieces of language right in the legislation.”

As for the VA, she criticized the department’s responsiveness and then criticized some Democrats’ support for a universal health care system.

Economic lightning round

Boebert and Calvarese were peppered with several lightning round questions, including on whether they supported increasing the federal minimum wage, which currently stands at $7.25 an hour, about half of Colorado’s minimum. Boebert said she opposed increasing it. Calvarese said she supported increasing the minimum wage — including for tipped workers — to $15 an hour.

Both said they supported a policy backed by Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris in the presidential race to end taxes on tips. Both also said they opposed privatizing social security benefits and would support legislation that would bar entities from foreign countries — like China or Saudi Arabia — from buying American farmland.

More debates?

In a brief talk with reporters after the debate, Calvarese called on Boebert to meet her again for at least two more debates, which would be televised.

“This was the beginning of what I think is a job interview for all of our constituents,” Calvarese said.

In a separate media gaggle, Boebert would not commit to additional debates and said Calvarese “had her debate today.”

“I debate Democrats on a daily basis,” she said. “It is my job.”

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Alec Garnett, a former Democratic lawmaker from Denver, joined the governor’s office at the start of 2023 after serving as speaker of the Colorado House of Representatives. He used those close ties to lawmakers as he worked to pass Polis’ agenda and weigh in on legislation, including during a special legislative session last week that was aimed at averting property tax reform ballot initiatives as part of a deal with conservative and business advocacy groups.

Polis’ office announced Tuesday morning that he will step down as chief of staff on Sept. 13. UCHealth, in an internal announcement, says Garnett will join the health system as vice president of government and regulatory affairs.

Polis’ new chief of staff will be David Oppenheim, who served as the deputy to Garnett, handling legislative and policy affairs. Before that, he was director of operations and cabinet affairs. He joined the governor’s office as legislative director in 2019.

“I thank Alec Garnett for his incredible leadership and hard work for the people of Colorado, culminating in a historic special session that successfully cut the property tax rate for every homeowner and small business,” Polis said in a news release.

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The deadline to finalize the state’s ballot is coming Friday, but all of the citizen initiatives — meaning ballot questions pursued by members of the public, rather than the legislature — were finalized late last week. State election officials certified that the final ones had received enough petition signatures after clearing earlier regulatory hurdles.

Nine ballot measures from the public have been approved. But two of those — the property tax-related initiatives 50 and 108 — are both set to be withdrawn by sponsors as part of negotiations with the governor’s office and the state legislature, which on Thursday passed another property tax relief bill at the end of a special session.

The remaining seven citizen initiatives will join several questions referred to the ballot by the legislature, including one to excise an unenforceable anti-same sex marriage provision from the state constitution; another to institute a new tax on guns and ammunition; and a measure that would allow judges to deny bail to people charged with first-degree murder.

Here’s a breakdown of the citizen’s initiatives that will be on the ballot (minus the soon-to-be-pulled property tax measures):

Election overhaul

Proposition 131 — previously Initiative 310 — would change how Colorado runs elections for U.S. senators and congressional representatives; for governor, treasurer, attorney general and secretary of state; and for state senators and representatives.

It would institute fully open primaries for those seats, meaning that candidates from all parties and those who are unaffiliated would appear on the same ballot. And in the general election, it would create a ranked-choice voting system for those races in a process that’s also referred to as instant-runoff voting.

If more than four people run in the open primary, then the top four vote recipients — regardless of party — would advance to the November general election.

In a general election race that has more than two candidates, voters would rank the candidates by preference. For example, if there are four candidates, a voter would be asked to rank them from one to four.

In the first round of vote tabulation, voters’ first-place choices would be counted, with the lowest-performing candidate then automatically eliminated from contention. The votes of that eliminated candidate’s supporters then switch to the voters’ next-ranked candidate in the next tabulation round. The lowest-performing candidate is again eliminated, with their voters’ next-ranked active candidate getting those votes.

When two candidates remain, the top vote-getter wins.

If passed, the changes would go into effect in 2026 under the initiative. However, a late amendment to a law passed by the legislature in May has thrown a speed bump in front of that implementation runway, and if the initiative passes, lawmakers may wrangle further over how to implement the new law.

The measure is backed by Kent Thiry, the millionaire former CEO of DaVita. Thiry previously backed ballot initiatives to open Colorado’s partisan primaries to unaffiliated voters and to change how Colorado draws its congressional and state legislative maps, with a switch to independent redistricting commissions.

Abortion

Amendment 79 would elevate the right to abortion to the Colorado Constitution by prohibiting the government from denying, impeding or discriminating against a person’s ability to exercise that right. The initiative would also clear the way for state-funded insurance, such as Medicaid, to cover abortion services, repealing another provision of the state constitution that prohibits the use of public funds to pay for abortion.

Colorado lawmakers passed a bill two years ago that enshrined abortion rights in state law, though it didn’t affect the constitutional ban on the use of state money.

Because this initiative would alter the state constitution, it requires support from 55% of voters to approve it. The initiative is backed by abortion rights advocacy groups, including Cobalt and the Colorado Organization for Latina Opportunity and Reproductive Rights.

School choice

Amendment 80, backed by conservative advocacy group Advance Colorado, would enshrine school choice — which includes “neighborhood, charter, private and home schools” — in the state constitution. Those options already exist under state law, but charter school supporters of the initiative told Chalkbeat that they want to ensure that doesn’t change via legislative debates at the Capitol.

Similar to the abortion measure, this ballot question would need 55% voter approval to pass.

Trophy hunting

Proposition 127 would make it illegal to trophy hunt or commercially trap mountain lions, bobcats and lynxes in Colorado. That includes killing, wounding, entrapping or pursuing the animals, according to the initiative, as well as discharging a deadly weapon at them.

The measure includes a few exceptions, such as killing the animals for self-defense or trapping them for legitimate research purposes. The initiative is supported by the coalition group Cats Aren’t Trophies.

Parole eligibility

Proposition 128 would tighten state sentencing terms, requiring people convicted of certain violent crimes to serve more of their sentences before they become eligible for parole. If the measure passes, anyone convicted of second-degree murder, first-degree burglary, felony kidnapping or other listed crimes after July 1, 2025, would be required to serve 85% of their sentences before they could be released. That’s up from 75% in current law.

The initiative would also require that people who previously had been convicted of two violent crimes serve their full sentence if convicted for one of those listed felonies. The initiative is also backed by Advance Colorado.

Veterinary professional qualifications

Proposition 129 would create a new veterinarian position in Colorado: a “veterinary professional associate.” People seeking that position would have to hold a master’s degree in veterinary clinical care (or an equivalent level of qualification as determined by the state board of veterinary medicine).

This new type of provider would have to be registered with the state board. The initiative is backed by the Dumb Friends League, the Denver-based animal shelter, which says it’ll help boost the veterinary workforce. Critics, though, argue the initiative would allow for substandard medical care.

Police funding

Proposition 130 — another backed by Advance Colorado — would require that the state add $350 million to a new “peace officer training and support fund.” That money would have to be on top of existing funds already going to law enforcement agencies.

The ballot measure does not establish a new source for that money, like a tax or fee, meaning the state would have to pull the money from elsewhere in its budget.

The money would be set aside for increased salaries, for the hiring of area- or crime-specific officers, for training, and for other related services. The measure would also require that $1 million be paid from the fund to the family of each law enforcement officer killed in the line of duty.

Editor’s note: This story was updated Sept. 9, 2024, to include the official ballot titles for the initiatives.

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Initiative 91 would outlaw the hunting of bobcats and mountain lions. The initiative is both unnecessary and a slap in the face to rural populations who live with these predators and take part in their management through hunting. These animals are plentiful and well managed by Colorado Parks and Wildlife in partnership with hunters, many of whom hail from the rural Western Slope.

Contrary to advocates’ assertions, Colorado law already prohibits hunting mountain lions for sport; the meat must be harvested for consumption. Initiative 91 not only rejects science-based wildlife management, it is a deliberate affront to the rural way of life which for many includes hunting and fishing.

Not surprisingly, Colorado’s most recent experience with ballot box biology hasn’t gone well for rural Coloradans. Veal beat venison in a wolf taste test. Thanks to Proposition 114, wolves were reintroduced to western Colorado in December 2023. Soon after, several of them decided to ditch swift deer for slow livestock. They’ve killed 16 calves, cows, and sheep in Grand County alone.

Ranchers appealed to the state for relief. CPW is planning to trap the depredating wolves to relocate them. During similar trap and relocation efforts in Montana, mated pairs separated and abandoned their pups. Scientists over at CPW knew the potential consequences of bringing back this apex predator and resisted it until a narrow majority of voters forced their hand. If urban voters had known that the romantic notion of wolf reintroduction meant eviscerated livestock and dead puppies, would they have voted differently?

Wolves won’t be the only ones going after ranchers’ livelihoods if another initiative passes. Denver voters will be asked in November to shut down the 70-year-old employee-owned Superior Farm slaughterhouse near the National Western Stock Show complex. Not only would the employees lose their jobs, the closure will adversely impact sheep ranchers and the state’s economy.

According to a study by the Colorado State University Regional Economic Development Institute, the business generates around $861 million in economic activity and supports some 3,000 jobs. The Denver facility carries about a fifth of all U.S. sheep processing capacity. If it is not rebuilt elsewhere in Colorado, Colorado ranchers will have fewer options and could go out of business for want of places to send their livestock.

According to the study, the loss of U.S. processing capacity will prompt markets to replace domestic supply with imports. Consumers will likely pay more for meat. Also, not every country that raises and slaughters sheep has same humane livestock regulations and standards as the U.S.

A minority of voters could negatively impact the majority not just in Colorado. The people pushing this initiative represent an even smaller minority. They don’t believe humans should eat meat, according to their website, and this is their way to take a bite out of the age-old practice.

Most vegetarians and vegans are live and let live but a small percentage would like to foist their lifestyle on the rest of us. It only took 2% of registered voters in Denver to push this ballot question that would single out a business for closure, toss its employees out of work, harm ranchers throughout the state, cost the state millions of dollars in economic activity, force markets to import meat, and reduce choices for those who want locally-sourced products.  It’s hard to imagine a worse idea.

If urban and suburban voters are tempted to support these no-good, feel-good initiatives, they should first visit their neighbors on either side of the Front Range who will be impacted.  A little empathy for rural Colorado is wanting.

Krista L. Kafer is a weekly Denver Post columnist. Follow her on X: @kristakafer.

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