Recently a on local political podcast, Colorado Gov. Jared Polis attacked Amendment 87, the graduated income tax proposal that would cut taxes for nearly all Coloradans while only raising taxes for the very few who make over a half million dollars a year.
“The biggest existential danger to the state is the $2.7 billion tax increase that also raises taxes for low-income veterans and seniors.” — Gov. Jared Polis, Crux Politica podcast, Sept. 14, 2026
That Polis opposes raising income taxes on anyone, even the super-rich, isn’t all that newsworthy; he’s opposed any income tax for years. In fact, his opposition to this year’s graduated income tax proposal isn’t new either. Long before speaking with Crux Politica hosts Scott Wasserman and Henry Sobanet, he told the Colorado Sun’s Jesse Paul back in May that it would be “devastating” to the state’s economy. When pressed by Paul on the fact that most Coloradans would receive tax cuts, Polis made clear that his objection wasn’t necessarily to the concept of a graduated income tax, but rather that the state’s overall tax revenue would increase.
Two weeks ago, however, Polis’ specific objection to Amendment 87 had changed. The governor is now making the argument put forth by Advance Colorado’s Michael Fields as part of his failed attempts to get Amendment 87 (then known as Initiative 195) thrown off the ballot. The details are clogged with eye-watering legalese, but the short version is that the easiest way to fight a ballot initiative is to convince the state title board to disqualify it, typically for failure to address a “single subject.”
Hence Fields’ argument, made at a Feb. 4 hearing, that the amendment will require multiple types of taxpayers (individuals and businesses) to have all of their income taxed. Fields claimed that “this proposed change alters the constitutional provision fundamentally from a prohibition against charging different taxpayers different rates to a mandate to tax all income (because under the previous construction, all income must be taxed at one rate, but nothing prohibited that rate from being zero).
After the title board dismissed that along with his other objections, Fields appealed to the state Supreme Court, which also rejected his arguments.
The simplest explanation for Fields’ back-to-back losses is a question of grammar more than anything else. Currently, section 20 of Article X of the state constitution, aka TABOR, reads as follows:
“Any income tax law change after July 1, 1992 shall also require all taxable net income to be taxed at one rate, excluding refund tax credits or voter-approved tax credits, with no added tax or surcharge.”
Amendment 87 would change this by deleting two small portions:
“Any income tax law change after July 1, 1992 shall also require all taxable net income to be taxed at one rate, excluding refund tax credits or voter-approved tax credits, with no added tax or surcharge.”
Now prepare yourself for a potential 8th grade English class flashback, via Amendment 87 proponent and Bell Policy Center Executive Director Chris de Gruy Kennedy, who today appeared on the very same Crux Politica podcast as Polis spoke two weeks ago. After summarizing the current TABOR language list above (the one without strikethroughs), de Gruy Kennedy got into the grammar lesson:
“‘At one rate’ is one prepositional phrase. ‘With no added surcharge,’ is another prepositional phrase,” says de Gruy Kennedy.
“Both of those modify the existing language that says ‘all taxable net income to be taxed.’ It is not currently interpreted as a mandate that all income be taxed, because it’s modified by a prepositional phrase. After we pass Amendment 87, it will still be modified by a prepositional phrase. This is not how the English language works. This is not how the law works. Amendment 87 has zero impact on tax deductions for seniors and veterans. The only seniors and veterans who will pay more are those who earn more than $500,000 a year.”
In short, modifiers matter. You can’t interpret “all taxable income to be taxed” without including the prepositional phrase that follows. Fields argued that by striking “at one rate,” the remaining language becomes a mandate that all income be taxed. It’s not. It is a mandate that all taxable net income be taxed with no added surcharge.
Colorado’s top court didn’t buy Fields’ reasoning, but that hasn’t stopped him from making the argument, he’s simply refined his “mandate to tax all income” argument into a more compelling claim: that this could force the state to tax benefits for veterans and seniors. And since he’s using Advance Colorado’s billionaire-backed network to amplify his claims, a whole lot more people are hearing his twice-rejected argument.
In mid-July, Fields started posting repeatedly about how the Amendment 87 (which then was still called Initiative 195) language could raise taxes on veterans and seniors. He sharpened this claim in an Aug. 2 column in the Gazette, claiming that “state tax breaks on Social Security, pensions, and military retirement payments could be ended.”
Reached for comment, de Gruy Kennedy first noted that if Fields’ claim about the risk to seniors were true, Amendment 87 wouldn’t have the support of the Colorado AARP, Center for Aging, Leverage Colorado, or the Alliance of Retired Americans, which it does.
“When Fields realized that voters were seeing through his usual arguments about the ‘largest tax increase in state history,'” says de Gruy Kennedy, “he switched gears to make up a new argument that shows that his understanding of the English language is as limited as his understanding of the law.”
The Colorado Times Recorder asked the Governor’s office to identify where in the ballot measure’s language he sees a specific tax burden for seniors and veterans and whether he agrees with Advance Colorado’s analysis. We have not heard back, but this article will be updated with any response received.
