Denver District Court Judge Heidi L. Kutcher dismissed Michael A. Hancock’s lawsuit on October 21, 2026, rejecting his bid to remove Amendment 87, a graduated income tax proposal, from Colorado’s November ballot. Ballots were already in voters’ hands.
The 18-page order leaves the measure eligible for the November 3, 2026, election. It also allows the Colorado Secretary of State’s Office to count votes for and against the proposal while Hancock considers an appeal.
Hancock, a conservative activist from Arapahoe County who has also been identified as being from Centennial, sued Secretary of State Jena Griswold and proponents Chris deGruy Kennedy and Kiyana Newell. His lead attorney was Jason R. Dunn, a former U.S. Attorney for the District of Colorado. Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck attorneys filed the case for Hancock.
Griswold said voters should continue to use the ballots they received. The ruling did not remove the measure from the ballot.
The dismissal lets Colorado count ballots while the measure remains on the ballot
The case concerned whether alleged failures to register and train petition circulators required election officials to reject enough signatures to disqualify the proposal. Kutcher dismissed Hancock’s challenge; the order did not strike down the measure or prevent votes from being counted.
The Secretary of State’s Office determined that proponents submitted 130,938 valid signatures out of 165,765. Colorado requires 124,238 valid signatures for a constitutional measure, including signatures from at least 2% of registered voters in each of the state’s 35 Senate districts.
The 10,860 signatures gathered by the circulators at issue were the difference between qualifying and falling short. Hancock’s initial complaint alleged that 9,849 signatures should be rejected. Removing the challenged signatures would have reduced the valid total from 130,938 to 121,089, below the threshold.
The measure qualified for the ballot last month. The lawsuit, filed September 16, was not Hancock’s first challenge: he had also contested it during the title-board process earlier this year.
Kutcher said the alleged paperwork lapses did not establish a fraud-prevention violation
The judge found Hancock had not shown that the alleged registration and training failures amounted to a violation of a law intended to prevent fraud, abuse or mistakes in petitioning. She emphasized the constitutional protection for voters’ participation in the initiative process.
“The rights of the registered electors to participate through the petition process to have initiatives placed on the ballot is a fundamental right,” Kutcher wrote.
She also said invalidating otherwise valid signatures because a paid circulator was not properly registered would restrict that right. Secretary of State’s Office employees testified that the disputed form “primarily provides an additional data gathering tool,” rather than serving as a fraud-prevention measure. Hancock had not alleged fraudulent conduct by a petition entity or paid circulator.
The judge concluded that rejecting signatures on that basis “would violate the supremacy of the constitutional provision for initiatives.”
The lawsuit initially focused on training certificates. It alleged that 69 circulators listed as paid had not completed required training and had not appeared on the registered-circulator list. Updated information from the state showed that 66 had received training and that one other circulator was a volunteer. The office produced training certificates for 65 of the circulators.
Hancock then argued that the signatures should still be invalidated because petition entities had not filed a signed form listing the initiatives they planned to circulate. In an October 14 brief, he asserted that rules required paid circulators to register for the specific initiative before collecting signatures and said 22% of the paid circulators were implicated.
At a Monday hearing, deGruy Kennedy acknowledged some registration mistakes but argued they did not affect enough signatures to disqualify the proposal. He said at most 33 circulators’ signatures could be at issue.
“There were a couple issues where not all the circulators were registered, but I think what we showed is that was not the case in enough cases to disqualify the measure from the ballot.”
The coalition used 18 different entities and 311 volunteers or paid circulators to gather signatures, and spent $620,000 on paid circulators. Its hired petition entity worked only on Initiative No. 195, which became the measure now on the ballot.
The measure would replace the flat rate and direct new revenue to state programs
The proposal would replace Colorado’s flat 4.4% income tax rate for residents and businesses with six brackets, and remove the flat rate from the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights.
| Annual income | Proposed tax change |
|---|---|
| $100,000 or less | Rates would decrease |
| $100,000 to $500,000 | Rates would remain the same |
| Above $500,000 | Rate would rise to 7.4% |
| Above $750,000 | Rate would rise to 7.9% |
| Above $1 million | Rate would rise to 8.4% |
Estimates in the campaign materials range from $2 billion or more in the first year to an expected $2.7 billion a year for the state. Revenue would go to the proposed Colorado Futures Account for public education, health care and early child care programs. Backers say 3% of residents and 5% of businesses would face tax increases.
Illustrative calculations say a taxpayer earning $25,000 would pay $175 less, while reductions for people and businesses below $500,000 could reach $325 per taxpayer. At $550,000 in income, the example gives a tax bill of $25,375, or $1,175 more. At $2 million, it estimates $143,925 instead of $88,000, an increase of $55,925.
Opponents argued higher rates could pressure employers, lead to layoffs at small businesses and prompt large companies to move jobs or future growth elsewhere. Backers said the revenue could help cover rising Medicaid costs, budget-strained K-12 schools and early-childhood programs with limited resources.
Proposition 136 is a separate measure that could cap individual and corporate tax rates at 4.4%. If voters approve both, the 2026 Blue Book says the legislature or a court would have to resolve the conflict; it describes the exact outcome as unclear. Michael Fields of Advance Colorado, which has a competing ballot proposal, said his group was not financing Hancock’s lawsuit.
Hancock’s lawyer said he would ask the Colorado Supreme Court to review the ruling
Dunn said after the decision that he planned an expedited appeal to the Colorado Supreme Court. “We will file an appeal to the Supreme Court tomorrow,” he said on October 21, pointing to the approaching November 3 election.
Dunn argued that Kutcher relied largely on one Secretary of State’s Office witness whose testimony conflicted with other testimony about whether registration helps prevent fraud. He said he believed the state’s high court would agree with Hancock’s position.
DeGruy Kennedy, co-chair of the Protect Colorado’s Future coalition and president of the Bell Policy Center, said supporters were relieved by the ruling and accused anonymous donors of trying to obstruct a vote. New Era Colorado policy and research director Kiyana Powell called the lawsuit a distraction from the question of whether wealthier Coloradans should pay more.
Griswold said her office would continue to uphold state law and ensure voters could cast ballots on measures that qualified. The election is November 3, 2026.
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