Colorado voters next month will decide two major criminal justice ballot questions that would increase the amount of time some criminals serve in prison and set aside $350 million for Colorado law enforcement agencies. Proponents of Proposition 128 and Proposition 130, two ballot measures put forth by the conservative advocacy group Advance Colorado for the Nov. 5 election, say they’re needed to curb crime in Colorado. Opponents say they would do more harm than good, the Denver Post reports. The two ballot measures come as Democrats’ control of state government has expanded. Policy debates — including around criminal justice — largely are defined by wings of the Democratic caucuses. For conservatives, ballot questions increasingly have become their sharpest tool to interrupt that paradigm.
“We are putting this up to the voters,” said Michael Fields, president of Advance Colorado, about the criminal justice measures. “The voters can look at it, and they can decide.” Overall crime in Colorado spiked during the pandemic, peaking in 2022, but has been dropping since then, state and local crime data show. Those declines have also been seen nationally, with President Biden trumpeting “record declines in crime” Opponents of the two Colorado measures argue that increasing sentences and diverting $350 million to law enforcement from the state’s budget will not decrease crime and will exacerbate the state’s precarious budget situation. Though Colorado Democrats are far from united on how best to approach criminal justice policy, the legislature has grown more leery of tough-on-crime policies. Several Democratic lawmakers have questioned increases in the Colorado Department of Corrections’ budget. Those two dynamics would be upended by the ballot measures’ passage. “Colorado has led the nation for a long time on criminal justice reform,” said Kyle Giddings of the Colorado Criminal Justice Reform Coalition. “And Prop 128 and 130 would be a major rollback of the efforts over the last 10 years to make sure we are advancing public safety through common-sense solutions, without breaking the bank.”
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