By Quentin Young | editor
“Initiative 195 qualifying for the ballot means voters have the opportunity to create a fairer tax code that rebalances the scales.”
– Christina Soliz, executive director of New Era Colorado
Canvassers received petition packets as they prepared to gather signatures in support of a graduated income tax ballot measure at a Protect Colorado’s Future event in Denver on July 18, 2026. (Photo by Chase Woodruff/Colorado Newsline)
By Chase Woodruff
Coloradans will vote this November on a ballot measure that would raise income taxes on the top 3% of earners and slightly cut them for everyone else. Backers of Proposed Initiative 195 submitted a sufficient number of petition signatures to qualify for the 2026 ballot, the Colorado secretary of state’s office said Tuesday. If passed, Initiative 195 would eliminate the flat-tax requirement contained in the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights, a 1992 constitutional amendment that enacted a number of strict limits on Colorado’s tax system. The state income tax rate is currently set at 4.4% for all earners, setting it apart from most states with progressive or graduated income tax systems, under which higher earners pay higher rates.
Alex Sánchez, CEO of Voces Unidos, speaks during Latino Advocacy Day on March 17, 2025 at the Colorado Capitol. (Photo by Sara Wilson/Colorado Newsline)
By Sara Wilson
More Latino voters in Colorado think the state is heading in the wrong direction than the right one, the first time that’s been the case in six years of an annual policy poll on their views. Forty-six percent of Latino voters told researchers they think the state is in a decline, according to poll results from the Colorado Latino Policy Agenda. Forty percent think the state is heading in the right direction, and 15% don’t know. The poll found there was even less optimism about the direction of the United States
A U.S. Postal Service whistleblower in a report published Sept. 1, 2026, alleged that USPS rushed the development of electronic tools to comply with a Trump administration policy placing new restrictions on mail-in voting. (Photo by Simone Hogan/Getty Images)
By Jacob Fischler
The U.S. Postal Service rushed the development of electronic tools to comply with a Trump administration policy placing new restrictions on mail-in voting, and defied a court order to stop work on the system, according to an explosive whistleblower complaint published Tuesday by Democratic U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal. The unnamed whistleblower predicted the result could be “foreseeable catastrophic disruption to our coming nationwide elections based on the reckless pursuit of readying a new, insufficiently tested, poorly planned mail-in ballot screening system.”
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