Colorado voters will decide in November whether to cap the state’s income tax rate at its current level — 4.4% — and whether to add a “right to hunt and fish” to the state constitution after a pair of initiatives were approved Thursday to appear on the November ballot.
The Colorado Secretary of State’s Office said the supporters of Initiative 232, the income tax measure, and Initiative 302, the hunting and fishing measure, turned in enough voter signatures to advance to the ballot.
Initiative 232 was brought by the conservative political nonprofit Advance Colorado, which doesn’t reveal its donors. The measure is an attempt, at least in part, to derail a push by liberal groups to pass a separate graduated income tax ballot measure this year.
Initiative 195, which is awaiting ballot approval, would ask voters to raise income taxes up to 8.4% on people and corporations earning more than $500,000 a year, while reducing the current 4.4% income tax rate for people and businesses who earn less than $100,000 a year.
It’s estimated to raise about $2 billion annually, which would go toward increasing funding for K-12 schools, healthcare and early childhood programs.
If both Initiatives 195 and 232 are approved by voters, Colorado’s court system may have to weigh in on what happens next.
Former state Rep. Chris deGruy Kennedy, a Democrat who now leads the Bell Policy Center, the liberal think tank leading the effort to get Initiative 195 on the ballot, said a few outcomes are possible.
- At a minimum, the provision in the state constitution requiring all Colorado income taxes be imposed at the same rate would be eliminated.
- If Initiative 195 gets more votes than Initiative 232, Initiative 195 could be allowed to go into effect.
- If Initiative 232 gets more votes than Initiative 195, income tax rates across the board could stay the same or the rates could go down for people earning up to $100,000 a year, which would actually reduce state revenues. In that scenario, Kennedy says Initiative 195’s supporters would just go back to the ballot in a future year to try to impose their graduated income tax rate through a simple statutory change, which is easier to get on the ballot because it has less stringent signature and legislative referral requirements.
As for Initiative 302, it would establish “a right of the people of Colorado to hunt, fish, and take fish and wildlife” and state that “the policy of the state of Colorado is that hunting and fishing are the preferred means of responsibly managing fish and wildlife populations.”
The T. Roosevelt Conservation Alliance, a nonprofit based in Washington, D.C., that advocates for public landing, hunting and fishing, is behind the initiative.
Initiative 302 is a response to efforts to restrict hunting in Colorado, including Proposition 127 in 2024, which unsuccessfully sought to ban the trophy hunting and fur trapping of mountain lions, bobcats and lynx. If approved by voters, the measure would effectively head off future measures like Proposition 127.
Because Initiative 302 would add text to the state constitution, it needs the support of 55% of voters to pass.
There may be as many as 14 measures on the November statewide ballot in Colorado.
