Protect Kids Colorado, an anti-LGBTQ organization pushing to get initiatives on the 2026 ballot, announced last month that it had gathered 75% of the signatures needed to qualify. Though it has previously gathered signatures exclusively through volunteer effort, the group has now hired a professional firm.
The group is running two anti-trans initiatives: #109 would effectively ban students who are trans from playing sports; #110 would ban certain gender-affirming care procedures from being performed on anyone under 18. Another initiative, #108, aims to increase the penalty for child sex trafficking to life imprisonment.
The Colorado Times Recorder has obtained footage of a private Protect Kids Colorado Zoom call hosted this week, in which organizers discussed the state of their campaign as the deadlines of Feb. 16 (for #108) and Feb. 20 (for #109 and #110) approach.
Organizers have previously stated that they gather petition signatures exclusively through volunteers, rather than through paid gathering firms as better-funded groups often do – something that executive director Erin Lee mostly affirmed during the call.
“We are for the most part an all-volunteer army,” Lee said to fellow organizers and volunteers. “And again when people said this isn’t possible, this isn’t something you can do, the other petition companies laughed at us and really have worked against us in some cases, and said it’s just not something that can be done. And we did it anyway.”
During the Monday, Feb. 9 call, organizers showed an internal database of signatures collected. At the time, each of the three measures had received a little over 100,000 signatures – putting them about 20,000 short of the required 124,238 benchmark, with roughly a week to go before signatures are due. Though the organizers say they have more signatures that still need to be processed, they expect a certain amount of them to be invalidated after being submitted to the Secretary of State’s office.
With only a week to go, the margin seems slim, at least compared to the signature totals submitted by proponents the two initiatives that have already made the ballot. Conservative advocacy group Advance Colorado turned in over 187,000 and 189,000 signatures for Initiatives #85 and #95, respectively, albeit with almost completely paid petition campaigns.
For this reason, Protect Kids Colorado has opted to pay a professional signature gathering firm to get them across the finish line.
“We’ve been supplementing with some paid signatures, but very few, because it’s very expensive,” said Protect Kids Colorado founder Kevin Lundberg in a Tuesday, Feb. 10 interview on KLZ Radio’s The Kim Monson Show. “But we knew we needed that extra cushion. I’m quite confident we’re raising well over 125,000 signatures on our own, but we need more for that cushion.”
Records from the Colorado Secretary of State’s office show that Taylor Petition Management has registered to collect signatures for Initiatives #108, #109, and #110.
Taylor Petition Management, founded by Tracy Taylor, has gathered signatures in Colorado for years, largely, but not exclusively, working for conservative causes and candidates. In 2019, Republican Walker Stapleton sued Kennedy Enterprises, the company his gubernatorial campaign had paid $260,000 to collect signatures in 2018. Stapleton alleged that some of the company’s gatherers were legally unqualified for the job. In court filings, Kennedy Enterprises denied wrongdoing, but also said that it had subcontracted the signature collection to Taylor Petition Management. Ultimately, a judge ordered Kennedy Enterprises to refund Stapleton the entirety of the fee.
In undercover footage from a 2013 training for signature gatherers working to recall state Senate President John Morse, an individual identifying himself as Taylor told signature gatherers for Kennedy Enterprises, “This is what we do for a living. We travel around the country, we go from city to city, state to state, we put issues and candidates on the ballot for basically anybody who has money.”
Protect Kids Colorado did not respond to an emailed request for comment on when they hired Taylor Petition Management. This article will be updated with any response received.
Activists reflect on the process
During the Monday Zoom call, Protect Kids Colorado organizers and volunteers shared their experiences of collecting petitions over the last six months. Their internal database showed a breakdown of petition signatures by political party. Though they have previously touted their mission as a nonpartisan effort, the data showed that over 60% of signatures came from Republicans. Just over 5%, or roughly 5,000 out of 100,000 signatures, had come from Democrats.
“We just put this into the system, so it’s not comprehensive yet. But it’s primarily Republicans who are signing our signatures. But look, 5% have come from Democrats, and 33% from Unaffiliated. So it’s a testament to us getting into places like in front of the grocery stores, and getting signatures from all Coloradans and putting this in front of all the people,” said Lee on the call.
One volunteer said that the average person was put off by their focus on so-called mutilation (referring to the surgery ban), but responded better to the sports ban.
“I was getting a lot of negative response from the surgery one, about the mutilation, and it seemed to just set people off before we could have a conversation,” she said. “So I don’t use that sign anymore. We have multiple of the girls’ sports ones.”
Even with the signature collection deadline fast approaching, the activists said they were confident they had the energy to make one final push.
“Just fair warning that when we make the ballot, that’s when the real battle starts,” said Lundberg on the call.
LGBTQ advocacy groups like One Colorado are already preparing to fight the initiatives should they qualify for the ballot.
Update 2/23: As of Friday, all three of Protect Kids Colorado’s initiatives have now been submitted to the Secretary of State. Proponents say they submitted over 170,000 signatures for each initiative. The Secretary of State will determine if enough valid signatures were submitted for the initiatives to proceed to the ballot no later than 30 days after submission.
Erik Maulbetsch contributed to this article.
