Of the 14 initiatives appearing on Colorado’s November ballot, eight of them were created and sponsored by the billionaire-funded right-wing Advance Colorado organization, something I have written about at length. Over the last few weeks, in my quest to illuminate the ways in which wealthy donors are working to slant Colorado’s systems of politics and governance in favor of their profitable interests, I have looked at five of those initiatives: proposals to cap the corporate income tax rate, create a right to buy and sell natural gas, put a right to hunt and fish in the state constitution, restrict future ballot language to an 8th grade reading level, and add voter ID requirements to Colorado’s vote-by-mail system.
Today, I’m rounding out Advance Colorado’s slate of eight by looking at the final three initiatives sponsored by the group — which, incredibly, might be the most cruel of the bunch.
Proposition 132 – Penalties for Fentanyl Crimes
When removed from the careful monitoring of the medical settings for which it was created, fentanyl is a remarkably dangerous drug. Earlier this decade, when fentanyl became a cheap and accessible adulterant for dealers looking to stretch their supplies and extend their profits, a wave of fentanyl overdoses broke over the nation. The wave peaked in 2022 – a year which saw more than 73,000 fentanyl deaths – and has since declined by nearly 50%. In 2025, roughly 38,000 fentanyl deaths were documented, part of a broader decrease in all drug overdoses.
In most contexts, the dramatic decline in fentanyl deaths would be seen as a noteworthy public policy success. As the Drug Policy Alliance has shown, most of the decrease is attributable to the increased availability of the overdose-reversal drug naloxone, the proliferation of drug testing strips to identify products adulterated with fentanyl, greater access to addiction treatments like methadone and buprenorphine, and widespread public health campaigns informing people about the drug’s dangers.
In the context of Advance Colorado’s Proposition 132, though, none of that matters. For Prop 132, it might as well still be 2022 – or 1980, if we’re being honest. The billionaire-backed initiative is an old school tough-on-crime approach which aims to institute mandatory minimum sentences for fentanyl crimes while rejecting the evidence-based methods which have already saved tens of thousands of lives in the last 4 years. If passed, analysts conclude that Proposition 132 would have two main effects: increasing the state’s prison population, and increasing overdose deaths. At least one Front Range police chief has echoed the need for treatment over jail.
What interest does Advance Colorado have in the issue? I’m not a mind-reader, but I’d guess the answer lies somewhere between offering red meat to inspire Republican voters to turn out in November, and the immense amount of profit companies can make with the use of prison labor (read: slavery) – which, despite being outlawed in Colorado, still very much happens.
Verdict: It’s not just ghoulish, it’s not just destined to kill Coloradans, Prop 132 looks more like an effort to re-increase the fentanyl overdose rate than any sort of public health and safety measure. Vote no.
Amendment 81 – Law Enforcement Reporting Requirements to Federal Authorities
When it comes to red meat, chumming the waters to turn out conservative voters who will theoretically also vote yes on the initiatives Advance Colorado really cares about, the group can’t do much better than Amendment 81 – or, as it’s more accurately called, the Force Police to Cooperate with ICE initiative.
Colorado has placed limits on the extent to which local law enforcement agencies may cooperate with the Department of Homeland Security, including and especially ICE. For instance, local police are not permitted to share personal identifying information about individuals with the feds, hold prisoners past their release date for the purpose of surrendering them into ICE custody, or permit ICE to affect arrests in or around courthouses. Colorado is just one of many states which have enshrined similar legal protections for their residents amid ICE’s rapid, occasionally deadly expansion. [In addition, many cities and counties have also chosen to enact ordinances and policies limiting law enforcement’s interactions with immigration officials.]
Amendment 81 would not just invalidate those laws, it would invert them, placing requirements on local law enforcement agencies to cooperate with ICE. The initiative would require police to notify ICE whenever they arrest or detain someone who is either in the country without documentation, or whose documentation status cannot be ascertained. In effect, it’s a law forcing local police to surrender non-white arrestees into federal custody.
So what’s Advance’s interest in the measure? The same as Donald Trump’s interest: the issue works like a live wire on the Republican voting base. If hunting and fishing don’t bring conservative voters to the polls, if tough-on-crime nonsense like Prop 132 doesn’t bring conservative voters to the polls, Advance Colorado can be all but certain that a chance to exercise the racial revanchism underpinning the MAGA movement and much of American conservatism will do the trick. The proposal is so unpopular with average Coloradans that CTR was able to document its petition circulators lying to would-be signers in hope of getting their signature.
As an added bonus, the initiative is sure to be lucrative for the GEO Group, the private prison company which handles most of ICE’s Colorado detention needs – and there’s nothing Advance Colorado loves more than private industry profits.
Verdict: Though I hope it goes without saying at this point: vote no.
Amendment 86 – Congressional Redistricting
Remember last year when Donald Trump and congressional Republicans kicked off a mid-decade redistricting push in hopes of securing additional seats in congress for Republicans? The theory was that Republicans could potentially avoid losing their majorities during the 2026 midterms if enough Republican-governed states conducted premature gerrymanders years ahead of the next post-census redistricting cycle. Since July of last year, 10 states have successfully redistricted: nine Republican-controlled states, and California. (Utah Republicans attempted to slant the state’s map in their favor, but their proposed map was tossed out by a judge, who approved another map which is believed to give Democrats a competitive edge in a few districts – oops).
Amendment 86 is Advance Colorado’s muddled attempt to throw-in with the rest. Sort of. With Colorado being a blue state, the group stands no chance of achieving a Republican-led mid-decade redistricting, so they want to make sure Democrats can’t redraw Colorado’s maps mid-decade either. What makes the amendment so muddled? The fact that Colorado voters passed two other ballot initiatives several years ago which already replaced partisan redistricting with a nonpartisan process.
Advance Colorado does not want nonpartisan maps. They want Republican maps. With that goal being unattainable in Colorado for the foreseeable future, though, they seem prepared to settle for Amendment 86, which would add a host of additional requirements to the nonpartisan redistricting process – including a mandatory court review, a venue where Advance seemingly imagines it could bring its endless sums of donor money and attorneys to bear on influencing the process.
As it stands, the last Republican gubernatorial nominee lost by 19 points and the current one is almost certain to lose by more. Colorado Democrats never gerrymandered the state’s Republicans into oblivion. Far from it, it was the state’s Democratic voters who enshrined a nonpartisan system to prevent either party from gerrymandering the map. In the end, despite those measures, Colorado Republicans brought oblivion upon themselves. Advance Colorado is just trying to pull the party out of the hole it dug for itself.
Verdict: Amendment 86 is a solution in search of a problem, motivated by nothing more than sheer partisanship and a compulsion to dance to the beat of Trump’s drum. Vote no.
