This secretive group warps democracy in Colorado

In Colorado, “citizen” too often means a secretive group of rich conservatives out to reshape state law in their image.

The group, Advance Colorado, uses the citizen initiative process to put right-wing ballot measures before voters, who might not see through dumbed-down language or misleading campaigns.

Republicans in Colorado have never been in more disarray. The state party is in chaos, and Democrats have enjoyed trifecta statehouse dominance since 2019. Into that void came Advance, which has emerged as the one source of conservative influence in state politics. 

The problem is that it has commandeered what’s meant as a safeguard for citizens to promote the agenda of a hidden wealthy clique. Advance has warped an expression of direct democracy into an oligarchic veto on democracy, and it threatens to do lasting damage in the state.

The direct democracy spirit behind citizen-initiated ballot measures goes back to the earliest days of the republic. But in the wake of the Gilded Age, with that era’s public corruption and corporate abuses, defenders of democracy increasingly turned to citizen initiatives as a way to reclaim power for the people.

In 1898, South Dakota became the first state to adopt a process for statewide initiatives. Since then about two dozen states have followed. Colorado was an early adopter, having passed an initiative right in 1910, and today it is among the most active initiative states in the country.

The process has often worked as intended. In 1972, for example, a grassroots movement for government transparency led to the passage by initiative of the Colorado Sunshine Law. It was a watershed moment for responsive state government.

The process can also go terribly awry. That’s what happened in 1992, when Doug Bruce, an eccentric anti-tax zealot, snookered voters into passing the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights. Bruce, now a MAGA stalwart, was later convicted on felony tax evasion charges, and the persistent damage TABOR has done to state finances is incalculable.

Now, perversely, the process can serve the interests of the Gilded Age 2.0 villains of Colorado.

Advance was started in 2020 by former Republican Gov. Bill Owens and Phil Anschutz, the state’s richest resident, and it’s led by conservative operative Michael Fields. It’s a “dark money” group, meaning it doesn’t disclose its donors, though news reporting has revealed some details about Advance’s operation.

Its supporters “include an invite-only group of four or five dozen donors who gather for dinner twice a year,” according to The Denver Post. An investigation by Colorado Times Recorder shows Advance is part of a network of conservative entities such as the think tank Common Sense Institute and Anschutz-owned newspapers, such as the Colorado Springs Gazette. 

These nodes of conservative influence work toward common goals, according to the investigation. 

“The Advance Colorado network exists to convince voters to vote against their own best interests, and in the best interests of its billionaire donors,” the report says.

In 2024, Advance backed several ballot measures, including a successful initiative that forced the cash-strapped state to spend $350 million on a new police officer training and support fund. Another ballot measure it threatened to run coerced the whole state Legislature into a special session that year. Lawmakers feared the group’s proposed property tax cuts would cause financial devastation to education, fire protection and other local services across the state. 

This year, Advance is outdoing itself. It worked on more than 20 potential citizen initiatives this cycle, and six of them will appear on the ballot. The group often focuses on fiscal policy and public safety, but one of its measures this year veers directly into MAGA territory — Amendment 81 would require that local law enforcement cooperate more with federal immigration authorities.

Its other measures would create a climate-harming “right” to buy natural gas, ban the kind of congressional redistricting that some Democratic-led states pursued after Republican-led states created more U.S. House seats for the GOP, and cap the state income tax, which could block a proposed tiered tax scheme that would hike rates for the richest Coloradans and lower them for everyone else.

As Shad Murib, chair of the Colorado Democratic Party, told the Post, “It truly is remarkable what you can do when you have donors and corporations who are willing to spend tens of millions of dollars in secret money to influence our politics.”