Earlier this year, activists from the Protect Kids Colorado coalition submitted numerous different ballot initiatives intended to target the rights of Colorado’s transgender community. By May, only two had survived examination by Colorado’s Title Board. Now, with the deadline to submit signatures coming up this Monday, some proponents said they’re confident their all-volunteer signature gathering effort can cross the finish line.
“We are doing great,” said Meghan Burke, Denver Chapter Leader of the Independent Women’s Network, in a radio interview on July 24. “We have people all over the state, but we have a deadline of August 5th at 8 a.m. Everything has to be in the court so they can be counting it. So we only have a few more days. So we are making a huge push.”
Erin Lee, another member of Protect Kids Colorado, echoed Burke’s call for a final push in a separate radio interview on July 26, citing the delay that came from Protect Kids Colorado’s initiatives being challenged by opponents and re-heard by the Title Board.
“And so it’s going to take a big push here at the end, because we didn’t have our full six months to gather signatures,” Lee said on KHOW radio’s Dan Caplis show. “We came up against what I believe were completely illegal, unconstitutional, stonewalling by the Title Board, the secretary of state, and the attorney general. … But I am so encouraged by the thousands of volunteers who have come out to help us get signatures.”
While the deadline to submit signatures is Monday, Protect Kids Colorado set an internal deadline of Wednesday, July 31, according to former Republican state Sen. Kevin Lundberg (R-Berthoud), due to the time needed to process every gathered petition.
“July 31 is the deadline for getting all of the petitions back to Protect Kids Colorado (PKC),” Lundberg (R-Berthoud) wrote in a weekly email update on July 27. “We will not know if the sufficient number of signatures has been met until we have a chance to process them, but we are certain that PKC has already made tens of thousands Colorado citizens more acutely aware of what is happening in our public schools and as determined as ever to protect our kids from the dangers of the transgender ideology.”
During her interview, Lee said that Protect Kids Colorado would stage a press conference at noon on Monday to announce the results as well as the coalition’s future plans.
“Protect Kids Colorado will have a press conference, August 5th at noon at the Capitol, where we will announce our projected numbers and our future plan for Protect Kids Colorado,” Lee said on air. “Because win or lose on these two ballot issues, we didn’t get everything through that we wanted to, and we’re not going anywhere.”
In another interview in April, Lee indicated that she and other members of Protect Kids Colorado might seek to sue state officials, claiming that Attorney General Phil Weiser, Secretary of State Jena Griswold, and others had illegally interfered with the passage of the ballot initiatives.
“Rest assured, the attorney general, the secretary of state, and everyone who has stonewalled us will be receiving a lawsuit,” Lee said on the “America’s Mom” show on April 19. “And we will be back in 2026. We are not going away.”
“America’s Mom” is hosted by Sherronna Bishop, a right-wing activist who formerly served as manager for Lauren Boebert’s debut congressional campaign. The show is hosted on MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell’s election conspiracy-driven FrankSpeech network.
Protect Kids Colorado has gathered signatures for the following two initiatives: Initiative #142, “Parental Notification of Gender Incongruence,” which would require schools to out transgender students to their parents; and Initiative #160, “Public Athletics Programs for Minors,” which would effectively ban trans students from participating in sports.
