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Coloradans are being asked to ban mountain lion hunting and the hunting and trapping of bobcats and the endangered lynx should the animal ever get delisted.

A “no” vote on Proposition 127 will allow the hunting and trapping to continue under the careful regulation and scientific control of the Colorado Parks and Wildlife.

The Denver Post editorial board has long supported the wildlife officials at CPW in their pursuit of scientifically managed populations and supporting hunting as both recreation, food sources and a tool for population control.

The group that has proposed Proposition 127 – known as CATS – has focused its campaign on making the case that trophy hunting or sport hunting is inherently unethical and should be banned in a state known for its hunting recreation opportunities. For now, the target is big cats, but we fear what may be targeted next. Bear hunting?

No one is hunting moose primarily for the meat, and while fish often survive being caught and released, sometimes the stress or injury is too much and they die. Hunting and fishing, even when the primary motivation is not procuring meat, is not necessarily unethical.

While most Coloradans would not participate in a mountain lion hunt, or feel comfortable killing a bobcat that had been caught in a live trap, we do not find those practices to be beyond the pale. Like all outdoor recreation, it has an impact on wildlife, but CPW’s job is to carefully regulate and manage that balance between hunting and healthy ecosystems and between fishing in Colorado’s rivers and streams and flourishing trout populations.

Colorado’s mountain lion populations appear to be thriving. Bobcats are not listed in short supply, although population estimates are hard to do on the elusive animals, and lynx are already an endangered species, and hunting and trapping of the animal is not permitted.

Some shocking revelations have come from the CATS campaign, however. All is not lost just because voters might reject a complete hunting ban in a state known for its recreational hunting.

First, mountain lion hunters are killing too many female lions. About half of the 500 lions killed last year were females, which can endanger the lion population and also inadvertently lead to the death of nursing kittens if signs are missed or ignored by hunters. As it does for deer and elk, CPW should start limiting how many licenses are issued for female lions every year.

Second, there need to be annual limits put on fur trapping for bobcats. The tags are currently unlimited, meaning a hunter receiving an over-the-counter furbearer license can kill as many bobcats as they can using hunting and trapping. We don’t think that’s reasonable and could lead to overhunting. A per-license limit should be applied to the license for all furbearing animals — badger, fox, mink, muskrat, opossum, pine marten, raccoon, ring-tailed cat, skunk, weasel.

But again, those two concerns don’t support a full ban of our Colorado hunting traditions.

Finally, we do worry that the current method of hunting may not give mountain lions a fair chance to escape the hunters. Dogs pick up on a lion’s scent and pursue them for miles before treeing the animal and alerting the hunters with their barks. Today, however, hunters do not have to keep up with their dogs on foot. Instead, they use GPS tracking collars to find the treed cat and shoot it from the limbs of the tree. No matter how you feel about that hunting practice, however, that is not what this ballot measure is about. Proposition 127 is not a carefully worded regulation of hunting practices that ensures the critical principles of “fair chase.” It is a complete ban that would open up a slippery slope for all hunting across Colorado.

Voters in this state have long embraced and prioritized outdoor recreation — even if it’s a sport they don’t personally participate in. Hunting big cats is no different and we hope voters in cities and towns, on the plains and in the mountains will say “no” to Proposition 127.

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Angry messages started rolling into the Colorado Supreme Court in December after a majority of judges ruled that President Donald Trump was not eligible to appear on the Colorado primary ballot because he had “engaged in” insurrection. Soon the FBI was investigating threats of violence because some Trump supporters had taken their legal disagreement with the court too far.

Now, Colorado’s Supreme Court Chief Justice Monica M. Márquez is being targeted again, this time by groups urging Colorado voters not to retain her on the bench in November’s election. Márquez, who grew up in Grand Junction and was appointed by Gov. Bill Ritter to the Supreme Court in 2010, is the only Supreme Court judge on the ballot this fall who joined the majority opinion in Anderson v. Griswold.

Coloradans should vote to retain Márquez and send a message to those wielding her retention as a political cudgel that far-right extremists cannot bully Colorado justices.

The four justices were sound in their finding last year that Trump had orchestrated a vast insurrection attempt that culminated with the violent Jan. 6 attempt to prevent Congress from seating Joe Biden as president.

“We are mindful of the magnitude and weight of the questions now before us,” wrote the four-justice majority late last year. “We are likewise mindful of our solemn duty to apply the law, without fear or favor, and without being swayed by public reaction to the decisions that the law mandates we reach.”

In other words, the justices stood strong against threats and angry messages flooding into the courts. The majority applied the clear language of Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, a guarantee that Americans not be governed by someone who had betrayed the cornerstone of American democracy by treason or insurrection. The facts of the case had been litigated in a lower court that also found Trump had engaged in insurrection.

A national social issue non-profit called the Article III Project launched a campaign not to retain Márquez.

“Monica Márquez attempted to disenfranchise over 550,000 Colorado Trump primary voters,” Mike Davis, founder and president of the nonprofit group, told The Grand Junction Daily Sentinel earlier this month. “She doesn’t respect democracy and the rule of law. So it’s time for Colorado voters to fire Monica Márquez in this November 5th election.”

This is utter nonsense.

The U.S. Supreme Court did strike down their decision with a unanimous ruling that states could not enforce the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution on their own. But, this ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court was based entirely on their interpretation of Section 5 of the 14th Amendment, giving Congress the power to enforce the post-Civil War amendment. The justices lamented the “chaos” that would come if states were able to enforce the insurrection clause of the 14th Amendment without a federal process spelled out in legislation for doing so. Perhaps, if the U.S. Supreme Court had more courage, they would have been less worried about “chaos” and more worried with enforcing the U.S. Constitution faithfully.

In other words, Colorado’s justices did what the nation’s top justices were too afraid to do – stand up for the amendment as written, no matter the difficulty that could ensue if enforced by a state-court.

We would ignore this fringe movement to punish a Colorado justice for her part in a sound legal ruling if it weren’t for a compounding threat to her retention. The Colorado Springs Gazette recommended this week that none of the three justices up for consideration be retained for office.

Their logic is far more sound — the Colorado Supreme Court recently weathered a tremendous scandal under now-retired Supreme Court Chief Justice Nathan Coats. Combined the two efforts may have the unintended consequences of ejecting a very fine justice from Colorado’s Supreme Court.

We too have expressed discontent with Coats’ involvement in the scandal, and frustration with the lack of transparency into the investigation afforded by his replacement Justice Brian Boatright who is also up for retention this year. But Coats is long gone from the court and there is no evidence that Boatright or any of the other justices were aware of the hush-money contract awarded to a former judicial employee.

We hope voters retain Márquez, Boatright and Justice Maria E. Berkenkotter.

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If a crime or tragedy happens in Colorado, the second person a victim talks to after the police is often an advocate from one of the dozens of organizations primarily funded by a dwindling pot of federal money.

These organizations offer a critical service for Coloradans. Whether it’s a domestic violence organization offering shelter to a mother and her two children after police arrive to a dangerous situation involving a gun or a volunteer from the district attorney’s office sitting for hours with a family after someone has committed suicide in a home – victims’ advocates are essential to helping Coloradans recover from the unimaginable.

However, the funding from the federal Victims Crimes Act is not only unreliable but is drying up, leaving these organizations across the state to make tough decisions about how many victims they can serve and the level of service they can offer. Does the mother fleeing her own home get a week’s stay in the shelter and legal aid, or just one night and an ex-parte form to file on her own? Does a family get put in a hotel room while the location of the suicide is processed by detectives, or must they find their own place to stay at 3 a.m. without a credit card or any other personal belongings?

Coloradans have a chance during this election to give these critical services the funding they need.

Proposition KK would levy a state-wide 6.5% excise tax on large gun and ammunition sellers in Colorado.

The hope behind this new tax is not to reduce the number of guns sold in the state, but rather to generate revenue to fund critical services for the victims of crime. Not all crisis services involve a gun, but we do know that if a gun is involved in a crime, domestic violence incident or suicide attempt, the outcome is worse.

Already, the federal government charges an 11% tax on most gun and ammunition sales. Colorado lawmakers decided last year to ask voters to add another 6.5% onto that to fund state-wide victims programs. The fund will raise an estimated $39 million and the first $30 million will go through the existing board to award grants for victim assistance. After that, $8 million will go to the Behavioral and Mental Health Cash Fund ($5 million of which is earmarked for veterans programs) and $1 million to the School Security Cash Fund, both of which are administered by lawmakers in the General Assembly.

Proposition KK is a smart way to assess a tax directly on objects that play a role in making crime worse. The tax will only be levied on gun dealers and manufacturers who sell more than $20,000 worth of new guns and ammunition every year, meaning the tax won’t hit small gun sellers or used gun dealers. Sales to police officers or members of the military are exempted because we do need a well-regulated militia or, in this case, a police force.

Additionally, we are thrilled that the bill does not create a new program for administering grants to victims’ advocates; instead, it relies on the existing Crime Victim Services Advisory Board to make recommendations to the Department and the Division of Criminal Justice.

We would ask that future gun owners in Colorado view this tax not as a punishment but as an investment in services should their gun ever fall into the wrong hands or be used in a tragedy or crime. These services are essential.

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Updated Oct. 22, 2024 at 6:17 p.m. Due to an editor’s error this editorial had the wrong amount the tax would raise in the first year. The estimate is $39 million.

Colorado isn’t ready for major changes to our election system, even if adopting an all-party primary and ranked-choice general election could mean more and perhaps better choices for voters in future years.

Tina Peters’ saga of dragging Colorado’s election system through the mud just came to an end this month when she was sentenced to nine years in jail and prison. And despite humiliating smack-downs in the legal system of other notorious election conspiracy theorists — Jenna Ellis, John Eastman and more — they and others continue to cast doubt on our election systems.

We know that Colorado’s elections are the “gold standard.”

However, enough Colorado voters still question the integrity of our elections that we think implementing a drastic change now could be disastrous.

Proposition 131 would change how the state elects candidates for the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives and statewide offices for governor, secretary of state, attorney general, treasurer, state Board of Education and University of Colorado regents. Additionally, it would change how candidates are elected to the Colorado General Assembly — House and Senate. It would not change county, municipal or special district elections.

The first change would be to eliminate primaries — for both the Republican and Democratic parties — and instead create a single primary ballot for candidates from all parties including unaffiliated candidates.

The top four candidates would then advance to the general election ballot, where voters would be asked to “rank some or all of the candidates for each office in order of preference.” Here’s where ranked-choice voting comes in — if someone’s first choice proves to be unpopular, their vote goes to their second choice, then third choice, until a single candidate gets more than 50% of the vote.

This system requires faith in the election administrator not to monkey around with the totals. The complicated reallocation of votes is done by computer, sometimes in real time, meaning a candidate might be “out” with the first batch of ballots but “back in” with the second batch. We were reassured that hand counts of Colorado’s secure paper ballot system — as required by law in close elections or if a candidate is willing to pay for it — would still be possible. The recounts would be expensive and time-consuming.

Implementing this on a statewide basis will take money and time, including creating a way to perform a risk-limiting audit with independent software to make certain that the original tally is correct.

While the actual ranking process is fairly straightforward, Colorado voters will have to pay close attention to make sure they don’t accidentally spoil their ballot by ranking two first-choice candidates or other easy mistakes. Also, having city and county elections that are not part of the open primary adds to the confusion, especially for unaffiliated voters who will still get both the Republican and Democrat primary ballots but can only participate in one.

Someone like Tina Peters would have a field day casting doubt on election results from this system. Across the nation, we’ve seen that hand counts closely matching machine counts don’t dissuade conspiracy theorists, even when coupled with detailed lists of voters who participated in the election.

For Colorado to transition to such a system will take time and trust. We’d need something closer to a super-majority vote than a mere 50% win this November to convince us Coloradans are ready to fight this election battle.

There is one guaranteed clear advantage of Proposition 131 — a candidate would have to get at least 50% of the vote to win. No longer would third-party candidates serve as only spoilers, but voters would feel liberated to cast a ballot for someone unaffiliated or libertarian without throwing away their vote.

Kent Thiry, the former CEO of DaVita, is financially backing the effort to bring ranked choice voting to Colorado. He says the goal is to create an election system that does three things: 1. Levels the playing field in the primary for all candidates regardless of party, giving Colorado’s huge segment of unaffiliated voters a voice in the nominee selection process. 2. Because most voters don’t participate in the primary, give voters a choice in the general election by having four candidates advance. 3.  Require that any candidate get majority support to win.

“The problem right now … there can be no debating that voters lack choice. That they get to cast very few meaningful votes in a general election and that spoilers play a big role,” Thiry said.

These are goals worth of pursuing and voting “no” on Proposition 131 doesn’t mean Colorado won’t eventually tackle the complex process of improving elections.

And Thiry has already helped improve Colorado’s system by opening up primaries to unaffiliated voters. Rather than spending millions of dollars to upend the system completely, the state could work on getting voters engaged with the existing system. If turnout was the same for caucuses and primaries as it was for the general election, Colorado would have more choices and candidates more aligned with the average voter.

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