Colorado approves trio of measures protecting children and sports

In an election where Democrats advanced around the country, Colorado voters approved three ballot measures that show their values are not in complete alignment with that party’s policy agenda. The trio of changes to state law involve requiring life in prison without parole for sex trafficking of minors, keeping male athletes out of girls’ sports, and banning sex-rejecting surgeries for minors. 

CatholicVote President and CEO Kelsey Reinhardt celebrated the results of the ballot initiatives in a statement provided to Zeale News. 

“Thank God for this tremendous, hard-fought, beautiful victory for the children of Colorado. Nobody expected this in the deep blue state of Colorado,” Reinhardt said. “I am so proud of Colorado’s Catholics who were relentless. With the strong backing of all four of Colorado’s bishops, they went parish by parish gathering signatures to get these propositions on the ballot after CatholicVote paid for and mailed ballot circulars to every parish in the state.”

She added that the campaign reached every Catholic in Colorado to get the propositions on the ballot and that hundreds of Catholic volunteers wrote 20,000 personal postcards to their fellow Catholic voters, one by one.

All three ballot measures were supported by Protect Kids Colorado, whose chairman Kevin Lundberg, said in a Nov. 4 statement, “For years, Colorado families asked their elected representatives to take these concerns seriously, only to see legislation repeatedly rejected at the Capitol. Yesterday, Coloradans spoke for themselves. … Protecting children is not a partisan cause.”

The results are somewhat surprising given that Colorado elected a new delegation for Congress that is entirely Democrat, including Democratic Socialist Melat Kirios. The only exception to the Democrat sweep was incumbent Republican Jeff Hurd, who won reelection by just over 6,000 votes. 

The latest results for the ballot questions were updated by Colorado’s Secretary of State Office on Nov. 10.

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