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Colorado Voters To Decide Future Of TABOR Refunds In November
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Colorado Voters To Decide Future Of TABOR Refunds In November

By Sherrie Peif | Complete Colorado DENVER — For years, Democrats have been chipping away at Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights (TABOR) refunds while looking for ways to permanently disable the more than 30-year-old constitutional amendment that, among other things, limits growth of a portion of the state budge to a formula of population growth plus inflation.  Revenue collected over that limit must be refunded to taxpayers unless voters consent to forgoing refunds at the ballot box. This year, however, they may have found the way. The late session introduction and passage of Senate Bill 135 sends a question to the voters in November essentially ending TABOR rebates.  Proponents are using using school children and teachers to tug at the heart strings of Coloradans ...
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Colorado Lawmakers Close 2026 Session With Greater Government Control And Higher Fiscal Risk
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Colorado Lawmakers Close 2026 Session With Greater Government Control And Higher Fiscal Risk

By Jake Fogleman | Complete Colorado The Colorado legislature officially adjourned May 13, after weighing more than 600 bills over the course of 120 days. Lawmakers entered the 2026 legislative session facing a set of familiar problems: another billion-dollar budget deficit, rising voter frustration over affordability, and growing concerns about Colorado’s economic competitiveness and business climate. Yet despite those warning signs, the Democrat-dominated legislature largely doubled down on the same governing philosophy that has increasingly defined the Capitol in recent years—more fees, more special interest tax benefits at the expense of other taxpayers, and more attempts to carve revenue streams out from under the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights (TABOR). To be sure, not...
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Supreme Court Asked To Halt Boulder’s Taxpayer Funded Climate Lawfare
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Supreme Court Asked To Halt Boulder’s Taxpayer Funded Climate Lawfare

By Kyle Kohli | Complete Colorado In a brief filed Thursday with the U.S. Supreme Court, defendants argued the high court should end Boulder’s climate lawsuit once and for all to avoid a “chaos” of a patchwork of state court rulings governing energy policy. In February, after eight years of Boulder pursuing its taxpayer-funded climate lawsuit against Exxon and Suncor, SCOTUS agreed to review the energy companies’ petition on whether state and local governments can use tort law to regulate global greenhouse gas emissions. The Court will hear oral arguments in the case during its fall term this year. SCOTUS has the opportunity to deliver a major blow to the national climate litigation campaign and its attempt push public policy through the c...
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Colorado Voters May Decide Constitutional Right To Hunt And Fish
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Colorado Voters May Decide Constitutional Right To Hunt And Fish

By Savana Kascak | Complete Colorado DENVER–Colorado voters may well get the chance to weigh in this November on creating a constitutional right to hunt and fish, which proponents say is necessary to protect outdoor sporting activities from an ongoing onslaught of anti-hunting efforts. The T. Roosevelt Conservation Alliance, a newly formed issue committee, launched  Initiative 302, ‘Constitutional Right to Hunt and Fish’ in early April. The ballot measure would amend the state Constitution, establishing hunting, fishing, and harvesting of fish and wildlife as a constitutional right to every Coloradan. It would apply to all species managed by the state except for endangered, federally prohibited, and non-game species. “Coloradans value the state’s long-st...
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Tax Fight At Capitol Ends As Polis Signals Veto Threat
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Tax Fight At Capitol Ends As Polis Signals Veto Threat

By Nash Herman | Complete Colorado Governor Polis played an important role in killing two of the most anti-business bills introduced this legislative session, in a rare moment of follow through on his proposed tax policy.   Is it too little too late?  How Polis killed the bills House Bills 1221 and 1222 were part of a four-bill package by progressive lawmakers that Mike Rosen dubbed the “Four Big Ugly Bills,” for their obvious hostility to Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) and anti-business aims.  Because Democrat lawmakers could not stand that the OBBBA cut taxes for most Coloradans, they designed the four bills to decouple aspects of the Colorado tax system from federal policy and eliminate certain tax break...
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Polis-Backed Bill Redirects $300 Million In TABOR Refunds To Close Budget Gap
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Polis-Backed Bill Redirects $300 Million In TABOR Refunds To Close Budget Gap

By Nash Herman | Complete Colorado One of Governor Polis’ key requests to balance the state budget using Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights (TABOR) refunds passed out of the legislature and now awaits his signature.  House Bill 26-1419 will recoup almost $300 million in overcollected revenue that would otherwise be returned to Colorado taxpayers, if the measure can withstand legal challenges.  TABOR roulette As previously explained, from the first discussions of the governor’s TABOR refund recoupment proposal, legislative staff voiced their concerns to the Joint Budget Committee (JBC) about the measure’s legality.  While bill proponents remain adamant that the retroactive changes to tax collections caused by the passage of the federal One Big B...
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Feds Open Public Comment Period On Colorado Wolf Reintroduction
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Feds Open Public Comment Period On Colorado Wolf Reintroduction

By Savana Kascak | Complete Colorado DENVER–The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) is requesting public comment and information regarding Colorado’s gray wolf importation program. This request comes just months after the federal agency threatened to take over wolf management in Colorado due to ongoing problems. As previously reported by Complete Colorado, FWS sent an official warning to Colorado Parks and Wildlife (CPW) management saying Colorado violated the terms of a Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) by releasing 15 wolves in January 2025 without informing citizens. FWS also criticized CPW’s management of the Copper Creek pack, which has a history of livestock depredation, and which cost Grand County ranchers alone $450,000 in losses. On April 4, FWS issued ...
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SB 135 Education Tax Plan Lacks Accountability For Teacher Pay Raises
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SB 135 Education Tax Plan Lacks Accountability For Teacher Pay Raises

By Nash Herman | Commentary, Complete Colorado According to the sponsors of Senate Bill 135, Colorado teachers will remain severely underpaid unless voters approve massive spending increases and a permanent change to how the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights (TABOR) revenue cap is calculated.  In reality, even if it were true that Colorado’s teachers are underpaid, the SB-135 tax hike does not guarantee that things like teacher pay will increase or that teacher retention will improve.  Let’s examine why.  False advertising  The stated purpose of SB-135 is to direct new education funding to any of four categories, as best determined by school districts: increasing teacher pay, improving teacher retention, lowering class size...
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Polis Plan Relies On Keeping TABOR Refunds to Balance Budget
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Polis Plan Relies On Keeping TABOR Refunds to Balance Budget

By Nash Herman | Commentary, Complete Colorado Should voters have a say in whether Colorado’s state government can keep and spend $289.1 million in taxpayer money because of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA)?  House Bill 1419, titled “Refund of State Revenues,” fulfills one of Governor Polis’ primary budget requests to balance this year’s budget.  Background Polis’ office suggests that, due to immediate reductions in state tax collections upon passage of the federal OBBBA, the state is entitled to recoup Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights (TABOR) refunds accordingly.  However, as previously explained, Legislative Council Staff believed that the request was legally dubious and could exacerbate future fiscal challenges should the g...
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Colorado Title Board Blocks The “Right to Know” Transparency Amendment From Ballot
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Colorado Title Board Blocks The “Right to Know” Transparency Amendment From Ballot

By Sherrie Peif | Complete Colorado DENVER — The Colorado Title Board has refused to give Coloradans the opportunity to vote on making government transparency a state constitutional right. The board voted 2-1 at an April 24 re-hearing that a proposed constitutional amendment, put together by a large stakeholder group from across the political spectrum, did not meet Colorado’s “single-subject” requirement, calling it too broad. The 3-member Title Board is made up of representatives of the secretary of state, attorney general, and office of legislative legal services (OLLS). Colorado’s single‑subject rule requires that every citizen-initiated ballot measure be only about one issue in an effort to keep non-related topics from being grouped together.  Ball...
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