The Voters Are Not the Problem
There is a particular kind of arrogance that settles into government when one party has been in charge too long.
It does not always announce itself with shouting. It hides in bill language, committee calendars, stakeholder meetings, and soft little words like “clarify,” “implement,” “align,” and “protect.”
Underneath all those polished phrases is the same old message: go ahead and vote, Colorado. Just do not expect us to obey.
That is what is making me sick right now.
Not one bill. Not one issue. Not one bad idea rolling around the Capitol looking for a sponsor. I am talking about the prevailing attitude of Colorado’s ruling class. The belief that voters are legitimate only when they produce the answer the people under the Gold Dome already wanted.
The minute voters reach for the steering wheel, the legislature starts looking for ways to slow them down.
We are seeing it right now with transportation.
Coloradans are tired of driving on congested, failing roads. They are tired of sitting on I-25 pretending it is a transportation system instead of a punishment. They are tired of potholes, bottlenecks, endless construction zones, and state leaders who somehow find money for every fashionable progressive experiment but develop sudden fiscal vertigo when regular people ask for roads that function.
So citizens did what citizens are allowed to do. They used the initiative process.
Initiative 175 says money collected from drivers and transportation-related sources ought to go toward transportation. Roads. Bridges. Safety. Planning. Engineering. The Colorado State Patrol. Radical stuff, apparently.
Reasonable people can debate the details. That is what campaigns and elections are for. Put the proposal on the ballot, argue it honestly, and let the voters decide.
But that is not enough for the ruling Democrats under the Gold Dome. Along comes House Bill 26-1430, a bill designed to respond if voters approve Initiative 175. The voters have not even spoken yet, and the legislature is already preparing the mute button. The people may say, “We want transportation money spent on roads.” The Capitol’s answer is, “Cute. We already wrote a bill to make sure that does not really happen.”
That is not representative government. That is elected babysitting.
The excuse is always the same. They are protecting us. Protecting the budget. Protecting priorities. Protecting flexibility. Protecting us from ourselves, which is always the favorite language of people who think your vote is adorable but dangerous.
They are protecting us from better roads, cheaper government, TABOR refunds, and the dangerous idea that our vote should matter.
Nothing says “democracy” quite like drafting a legislative kill switch for a citizen initiative before the citizens have even voted on it.
We are seeing the same attitude with natural gas.
Initiative 177 would give consumers the right to choose natural gas for cooking or heating in homes and businesses. It would also protect the right of utilities and distributors to sell it. This should not require a constitutional amendment. In a sane world, this would be called Tuesday.
People want to heat their homes. They want to cook their food. Restaurants want equipment that works. Families want reliable energy. Businesses want options. Rural Colorado, working Colorado, cold Colorado, practical Colorado understands this without needing a consultant to turn it into a six-page memo.
But under Colorado’s ruling Democrats, normal life increasingly requires a constitutional amendment and a team of lawyers.
Now comes a draft bill (it will likely have a bill number by the time you read this – I’ll update this article as soon as I find out – here is the draft text I received) aimed directly at Initiative 177. As The Colorado Sun reported, legislative leaders are preparing a last-minute bill to blunt the impact of the proposed constitutional amendment. Just like the transportation stunt, this bill would only take effect if voters approve the natural gas measure.
There is the pattern again. The people start speaking, and the legislature starts scheming.
The draft says the right to buy and sell natural gas would not create a right to delivery through pipelines, access to third-party pipelines, use of any particular combustion device, or relief from local land-use authority, police powers, clean heat targets, or gas infrastructure planning.
In plain English: you may have a right to buy natural gas, but the government reserves the right to make sure you cannot practically get it, use it, afford it, permit it, pipe it, install it, or rely on it.
That is not protecting consumers. That is protecting the bureaucracy from consumers.
The bill also says new natural gas service must be paid for entirely by the new customer. That may sound harmless until the regulatory class gets its hands on the phrase “all costs associated.” In government language, that can mean the right still exists on paper while the customer gets buried under costs, delays, studies, planning requirements, infrastructure fights, and regulatory toll booths.
This is how modern Colorado government says no while insisting it said yes.
They do not have to ban natural gas outright. That would be too honest. They can just make it harder to get, harder to connect, harder to permit, harder to afford, and harder to defend. Then they stand at a microphone and say, “Nobody is taking away your choice.”
Right. Nobody took away your car either. They just removed the wheels, drained the tank, locked the garage, and handed you a pamphlet about equity.
If this bill is rushed into committee on a Saturday, in the final hours of the session, voters should understand exactly what that means. That is not careful lawmaking. That is a drive-by. A bill responding to a citizen initiative should get sunlight, debate, and public scrutiny. It should not be stuffed into the last weekend of the session like a raccoon in the trash can.
But the lack of sunlight is not a bug. It is the feature. The less time voters have to see it, the better.
This pattern does not stop with roads or natural gas. Look at TABOR.
Coloradans have said no more than once. In 2019, voters rejected Proposition CC, which would have let the state keep surplus money that otherwise goes back under TABOR. In 2023, voters rejected Proposition HH, another complicated little adventure that mixed property tax relief with reduced TABOR refunds. Normal people heard the question and answered it.
The Capitol heard the answer and apparently said, “Let’s workshop the branding.”
Now they keep coming back. New wrapper. New slogan. New emotional hostage note. Same basic idea: government wants more room to keep, redirect, or manipulate money the constitution says belongs back with taxpayers unless voters say otherwise.
That is not leadership. That is a toddler negotiating bedtime.
TABOR refunds are not couch change the legislature found under the cushions. They are taxpayer dollars. The constitution says government does not get to keep that money unless voters give permission. That last part keeps irritating the building.
Even when voters approve something, the same attitude appears. Sometimes it is called implementation. Sometimes guardrails. Sometimes technical cleanup. Sometimes modernization. But too often, implementation becomes the place where voter intent goes to be modified, padded, narrowed, delayed, or smothered in process until it barely resembles what people thought they voted for.
This is the machine. If voters reject something, bring it back later with better marketing. If voters approve something, regulate it until it limps. If voters might approve something, preemptively build the escape hatch. If the constitution gets in the way, call the lawyers. If citizens complain, tell them democracy is complicated.
No. Democracy is not that complicated.
A constitutional republic runs on consent. Elected officials are not kings, emperors, or tiny regional tyrants with better parking. They are representatives. Hired help. Temporary stewards of public authority that belongs, first and finally, to the people.
That principle matters in Denver. It matters in counties. It matters in towns. It matters anywhere government starts treating voter-imposed limits like traffic cones to weave around.
Even locally, elected officials need to be careful when they approach voter-imposed limits. If a charter requires voter approval above a certain threshold, government should not treat that threshold like a cone drill. Maybe a lawyer can explain the maneuver. Fine. But citizens are allowed to notice when the spirit of a voter-approved limit starts looking a little bruised.
Public limits should not be treated as puzzles to solve. They should be treated as instructions to obey.
The people under the Gold Dome have grown far too comfortable confusing public service with adult supervision. They see voters as impulsive children who might grab the steering wheel. They see citizen initiatives as threats to their carefully arranged kingdom. They see frustration from regular Coloradans not as a warning, but as a management problem.
So they step in to protect us from ourselves.
They are protecting us from demanding that road money go to roads. They are protecting us from choosing the fuel source that works in our own homes and businesses. They are protecting us from keeping our own refunds. They are protecting us from using the constitutional tools available when the legislature refuses to listen.
But Colorado does not have a voter problem. It has a listener problem.
The people are not confused. They are fed up. They are using the tools available to them because the majority at the Capitol has stopped listening and started managing. They are tired of being lectured about democracy by people who spend the final days of session trying to rig the response before the vote is even cast.
A government that respects voters campaigns against a ballot measure it opposes.
A government that fears voters tries to kneecap it before Election Day.
That should outrage every Coloradan, no matter your party. Because today it is roads. Tomorrow it is natural gas. Next week it is your tax refund, your property rights, your school, your business, your local charter, or your ability to tell government no and have that answer mean something.
The job of elected officials is not to protect voters from themselves. The job is to obey them when they lawfully speak.
Colorado belongs to the people. Not the lobbyists. Not the bureaucracy. Not the permanent political class. Not the majority party. Not the folks under the dome congratulating themselves for making everything worse in the name of saving us.
The people hired them.
And lately, the hired help needs a reminder who signs the checks.
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