Here are the eight Colorado midterm ballot measures funded by billionaires

The right wing political group Advance Colorado is a dark money group that does not disclose its donors. The Colorado Times Recorder (CTR) studied Advance Colorado for two years to find out more about them, and found it is “a coordinated network of think tanks, media outlets, and advocacy groups — all working together to turn billionaire wish lists and conservative policy into Colorado law.” CTR found Advance Colorado is primarily funded by Colorado billionaires Phil Anschutz and the Walton family, and the multi-millionaire Adolph Coors Foundation. CTR’s information on Advance Colorado, how it works and its relationship to its wealthy conservative patrons, can be found here. 

Advance Colorado has put eight ballot measures on Colorado’s mid-term November, 2026 ballot.

In general, the measures backed by Advance Colorado’s uber-wealthy donors seek to deregulate polluting industries, increase prison sentences, cut taxes,  make it harder to raise taxes on Colorado’s wealthiest residents and make it harder for people to vote.

A primary funder of Advance Colorado is the state’s wealthiest resident, Philip Anschutz. In May of 2025, Forbes ranked Anschutz the 130th richest person in the world, with a net worth of $19.3 billion. He made his initial fortune from fossil fuels. His portfolio now includes energy, newspapers, theaters, arenas, and sports teams. Anschutz owns Anschutz Entertainment Group (AEG), the world’s largest owner of sports teams and sports events, and the world’s most profitable sports and entertainment venues including Staples Center, O2 Arena, and the Home Depot Center in Los Angeles. Anschutz also owns the Colorado Springs Gazette, the Denver Gazette, Colorado Politics, the Broadmoor Hotel and major sports teams. He has a residence in Denver. Fortune magazine named Anschutz “America’s greediest executive” in 2002.

The Walton family, known as the “richest family in the world,” is collectively worth about $482 billion. It derives its wealth from the WalMart retail chain. The Walton family owns historic and high end properties in Colorado and bought the Denver Broncos in 2022 for $4.65 billion. They are prolific funders of charter schools in Colorado and across the country, which draw money away from traditional public schools.

The Adolph Coors Foundation is a Denver-based, private family foundation with reported assets totaling about $204 million in 2026. It funds policy initiatives linked to free enterprise, limited government and “upholding traditional American values.” It helped fund Grand Junction’s new Blackout Sports Field House.

Advance Colorado was created as a back door way for wealthy Republicans to continue to influence public policy in Colorado after Democrats gained the majority in the state legislature.  Its goal is to circumvent the state legislature and pass billionaires’ preferred legislation while keeping their extraordinary influence hidden.

Click here for a list of all of the amendments and propositions that will appear on Colorado’s 2026 mid-term ballot, their designated representatives and their primary supporters and proponents.

Below are the eight ballot measures on the November 3, 2026 ballot that got there through the work of Advance Colorado and their funding network of right wing millionaires and billionaires:

Amendment 81: Law Enforcement Reporting Requirements to Federal Authorities —  amends Colorado’s state’s constitution to require all local law enforcement agencies in the state to cooperate with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).  As a Constitutional amendment, it would need a 55% supermajority vote to pass. Amendment 81’s representatives are Advance Colorado’s President, Michael Fields, and the group’s attorney, Suzanne Taheri.

Amendment 82: Right to Natural Gas — This is a constitutional amendment that would add a “Right to Natural Gas” to the state’s constitution. It is a corporate giveaway that defies all current scientific evidence about the sources of global warming and it would forever hamstring Colorado’s ability to fight climate change. Amendment 82 would enshrine oil and gas corporations’ right to sell natural gas, and people’s right to buy it, in Colorado’s Constitution, forever guaranteeing an inviolable market for the oil and gas industry in Colorado. It is already legal to sell and buy natural gas (methane). There are no measures are on the ballot to prohibit the sale or purchase of natural gas. Methane is a potent greenhouse gas and the second-biggest contributor to Earth’s warming after carbon dioxide. Advance Colorado’s Executive Director Michael Fields is a designated representative of Amendment 82.

Amendment 83: A Constitutional Right to Hunt and Fish — This is a constitutional amendment and would require 55% of the vote to pass. The goal of Amendment 83 is to create barriers to future conservation efforts. Opponents of this measure fear it could be used in court to challenge existing bans on cruel hunting practices, like the Colorado’s 1996 constitutional ban on leg hold traps and snares, and older restrictions on hunting with hounds and bear baiting. The designated representatives for Amendment 83 are Suzanne Taheri and Steven Ward, two attorneys with long ties to Advance Colorado. Both list Advance Colorado’s address on the filing.

Amendment 84: Mail Ballot Voter Identification — This is another constitutional amendment that would require 55% to pass.  It requires voters to include the last four digits of their social security numbers, Colorado driver’s licenses, or an identification card numbers on the outside of their mail-in ballot for any federal or state election, and would prohibit county clerks from counting and recording any ballots without this information on the outside of their ballots. Like other voter ID laws, Amendment 84 would create new headaches for county clerks, could potentially block large numbers of  ballots from being counted and addresses the almost non-existent problem of “voter fraud” in Colorado. Advance Colorado attorney Taheri is one of the amendment’s registered representatives, and she used Advance Colorado’s address on the filing. The issue committee registered as supporting Amendment 84 is also located at the same address.

Amendment 85: Plain Language Ballot Questions — Another constitutional amendment, #85 seeks to add language to the Colorado constitution to require all future ballot questions be written “at no more than an 8th grade reading level,” and it prohibits the state legislature from interfering with that standard. Amendment 85 is an effort to make raising taxes on the state’s wealthiest residents harder than cutting them, according to the Colorado Times Recorder. 

Amendment 86: Congressional Redistricting — This is Advance Colorado’s contribution to helping Trump’s effort to make states redistrict in the middle of the decade instead of waiting until after the next census, to try to redraw districts to gain more seats for Republicans. Both of the measure’s designated representatives, Suzanne Taheri and Elizabeth Caven, are from Advance Colorado.

Proposition 132: Penalties for Fentanyl Crimes — This is a statutory ballot initiative and thus requires only a simple majority vote to pass. It increases prison sentences for all fentanyl-related crimes. It would make the penalty for even the lowest level crime or first-time offender equivalent to the same mandatory 8-32 year prison sentence that the highest-level drug offenders get. It is estimated that it will increase the state’s prison population by 900 more people each year, and cost taxpayers $433 million in the first five years after enactment. It does not expand access to treatment or increase penalties for the highest-level drug offenders.

Proposition 136: The Income Tax Rate Cap — Proposition 136 would permanently cap the state’s income tax rate at the current 4.4%, while allowing only reductions in that rate in the future. Since state income taxes fund health care, human services, higher education, road maintenance and state courts and prisons, the measure would likely result in the need to cut vital services, but it would help further enrich big business and wealthy state residents who can afford to pay a higher state income tax rate. Opponents assert that wealthy citizens sought to put Prop. 136 on the ballot as a countermeasure to Amendment 87, because if it passes it would put Amendment 87 in legal jeopardy. Amendment 87 seeks to establish a graduated state income tax that would have wealthier Colorado individuals and companies pay a slightly higher state tax rate than average people earning less. If the two measures, Prop. 136 (the permanent 4.4% cap on state income tax) and Amendment 87 (the graduated state income tax) both pass, they would conflict, lead to confusion and require a potentially costly legal battle to resolve, putting an obstacle in the way of enacting the graduated income tax.