Colorado’s long-running tug-of-war over taxes just got very real. The state’s Initiative Title Setting Review Board on Wednesday cleared eight versions of a proposal to scrap Colorado’s flat income tax and replace it with graduated brackets, a major procedural win for supporters who want to raise new money for schools, child care, and health programs. The celebration is cautious, though, with an expensive signature drive and likely legal fights still ahead.
As reported by The Denver Gazette, the three-member board unanimously signed off on eight ballot titles at its Jan. 22 meeting. The Protect Colorado’s Future coalition, led by the Bell Policy Center, now has to pick a single version to send into the petition phase. The coalition originally floated a dozen tax brackets, then trimmed and retooled the filings after earlier versions ran into single-subject trouble. The newer titles were crafted to narrow those concerns, and the board concluded that Amendment 71’s 55% voter-approval threshold would not apply because the measures do not fully repeal the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights.
Supporters argue that higher brackets on top earners would pump fresh revenue into K-12 education, child care, and health care, but the actual haul is still a moving target. Colorado Politics reports that nonpartisan Legislative Council staff first estimated about $2.3 billion in new revenue, then revised the potential impact up to roughly $4.1 billion at the high end. That multibillion-dollar swing is exactly the sort of number that opponents say will frame the political fight.
How the petition drive works
Getting from a cleared title to a spot on the ballot is no stroll down the 16th Street Mall. To qualify, supporters must gather at least 124,238 valid signatures and hit a geographic benchmark that requires signatures equal to 2% of registered voters from each of Colorado’s 35 state Senate districts, according to the Secretary of State. That office also spells out the six-month window for signature collection, how sample verification works, and the hard deadlines campaigns have to meet. Because a chunk of signatures is routinely rejected, organizers typically aim for around 200,000 raw signatures to build in a safety margin.
Opposition and next steps
Opponents, including groups that fought the earlier drafts, have already signaled they will challenge the board’s latest actions, and a rehearing is set for Feb. 4. Backers must decide which of the eight cleared titles they will advance and formally register an issues committee before they seriously start gathering signatures. Paid signature drives are not cheap, and, as the Denver Gazette notes, can run as high as $1 million.
Bell Policy Center leader Chris deGruy Kennedy said, “We addressed all the single subject concerns,” and described winning eight unanimous approvals as “pretty good,” a bit of understatement given how easily title campaigns can get derailed.
Legal stakes: TABOR and Amendment 71
The measures would tweak both statutory law and the state constitution, and they directly touch the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights, the constitutional provision that restricts how Colorado can raise and spend revenue. The exact language of TABOR and related exceptions appears in the state’s founding document, and lawyers and policy watchers alike will be parsing how the board’s titles interact with those limits.
What happens next will determine whether voters actually get a say. Key milestones include which title Protect Colorado’s Future chooses to run with, whether the Feb. 4 rehearing alters the board’s decision, and whether any appeal lands at the Colorado Supreme Court. If the titles survive legal scrutiny, campaigns will have until early August to turn in enough verified signatures to make the 2026 ballot, virtually guaranteeing that the fight over Colorado’s income tax structure becomes a marquee storyline of that election season. Colorado Politics has more on the fiscal projections and the full timeline.
