Benes: Propositions 133, 134 and 135 leave Colorado voters the last word on protecting kids

By Lloyd Benes | Guest Commentary, Rocky Mountain Voice

This fall, the Colorado ballot will include three common-sense propositions that address protections for children that almost no voters are familiar with. Over 124,000 petition signatures had to be obtained for each to put these issues on the ballot for Coloradans to vote on. 

To become law, a majority of voters must vote YES on them this fall. The initiatives appear on the ballot as Propositions 133, 134, and 135. They address sentencing for child sex trafficking, preventing biological males from competing against girls in school sports, and preventing sex-change surgery on minors in Colorado.

Proposition 133 – The Children Are Not for Sale Act says “Current penalties in Colorado law with parole possible in as little as eight years have failed to adequately deter the human trafficking of minor children.” This initiative changes the penalty to life imprisonment without parole. The Common Sense Institute, reading federal data, ranks Colorado 13th nationally for total trafficking counts in 2024. 

The institute also finds that 79% of Colorado’s human trafficking crimes in 2025 were for commercial sex, drawn from preliminary Colorado Bureau of Investigation (CBI) counts, and that minors average 64% of the state’s trafficking victims each year from 2008 to 2025. Please vote YES on Proposition 133 to increase penalties that might help reduce sex trafficking of minors in Colorado.

Proposition 134 – The Protect Girls Sports Act prevents biological males from competing in girls’ school sports. On March 9, 2026, Legislative Democrats refused to support the “Protect Female Sports Act” when HB26-1083 came before a House committee. All eight Democrats on the committee voted “NO” on the bill, while all three Republicans voted “YES.” I gave testimony for that bill and pointed out that the same wording was being put before voters in front of grocery stores as a citizen initiative. 

The Democratic committee chair interrupted my testimony and banned me from providing further testimony on initiatives that might become ballot measures saying, “We are not allowed to talk about measures at the ballot here” (timestamp 7:59:45). By silencing further relevant facts on the issue of initiatives/ballot-measures during testimony, the chair prevented committee members from receiving information they needed to hear. Does that sound like suppression of free speech in public testimony before a committee?

Proposition 135 – The Protect Kids from Irreversible Sex-Change Surgery Act aims to prevent surgeries for minors in response to their perception of sex or gender. The number of gender-related surgeries in the U.S. from 2016 to 2020 included 3,678 patients ages 12 to 18. Of those, 3,215 (that’s 87%) involved breast/chest surgeries. This raises the question in my mind: “Why are we subjecting minors with healthy bodies to mutilating procedures instead of addressing their mental health issues?”

Two Calls to Action: First, please vote YES on Propositions 133, 134, and 135. Second, in the past three years, I have provided public testimony on over a dozen bills before committees. You might suspect (correctly) that my testimony comes down on the side of protecting Colorado kids. For all those bills, party-line votes have occurred, and only Republicans match the direction I suggested, as in the case of HB26-1083 cited above. Therefore, rather than voting for any Democrats in the fall legislative races, please vote for Republicans and help turn this situation around.

Lloyd Benes is a retired engineer living in Loveland, Colorado. E-mail feedback on this article to lloydbenes50@gmail.com.

Editor’s note: Opinions expressed in commentary pieces are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the management of the Rocky Mountain Voice, but even so we support the constitutional right of the author to express those opinions.