Death by a Thousand Laws

Colorado’s Legislative Assault on Freedom

Colorado is no longer governed - it is managed. Through an accelerating flood of legislation, regulatory mandates, and ideological enforcement mechanisms, the current ruling majority has engineered a system of incremental constitutional erosion. No single bill destroys liberty outright. Instead, each law chips away at fundamental freedoms until citizens find themselves buried under bureaucratic control, compelled compliance, and shrinking personal autonomy. What is happening is not reform. 

It is systematic power consolidation.

Instead of respecting constitutional boundaries, Colorado lawmakers now openly test how far they can push those boundaries before courts intervene. In doing so, they shift the burden onto citizens - forcing them to spend years and fortunes defending rights already guaranteed. The result is a government that no longer protects liberty, but licenses it. The constitutional order is being replaced with administrative dominance, and Coloradans are paying the price.

1) Weaponized Firearm Regulation – A Direct Assault on the Second Amendment

Colorado’s sweeping new firearm restrictions create layers of mandatory training, licensing, fees, permit systems, and bureaucratic hurdles designed not to promote safety, but to discourage lawful ownership altogether. By forcing citizens to navigate complex approval systems simply to exercise a constitutional right, lawmakers are effectively turning the Second Amendment into a privilege granted by government.

These laws punish law-abiding citizens, impose financial barriers on working families, and establish centralized databases that dangerously resemble de facto firearm registries. Criminals will ignore these mandates, as they always have. Only lawful citizens comply - and only lawful citizens are disarmed by policy. This is not public safety. 

This is civilian disarmament by regulation.

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed. 

NO except clause, NO unless clause, No "for safety" clause!

2) Taxpayer-Funded Abortion Mandates – Compelled Participation in Moral Policy

Colorado now forces taxpayers to fund abortion procedures through Medicaid, regardless of moral, ethical, or religious objection. This represents a direct violation of freedom of conscience and erodes foundational principles of religious liberty and individual autonomy.

Rather than allowing citizens to live according to their deeply held beliefs, the state has weaponized public funding to force ideological compliance. This not only expands government intrusion into personal morality but permanently embeds controversial practices into the state’s financial structure, diverting resources from mental health, rural healthcare, emergency services, and veterans’ care.

This is not healthcare reform - it is compelled ideological taxation.

3) The Colorado AI Act – Crushing Innovation Through Regulatory Overreach

The so-called Colorado AI Act imposes sweeping regulations across employment, insurance, healthcare, finance, education, and housing. While framed as consumer protection, the law functions as a compliance minefield that discourages innovation, drives startups out of Colorado, and increases costs for businesses and consumers alike.

Even Governor Polis acknowledged serious concerns about economic damage. Yet lawmakers charged forward anyway, signaling a governance model where ideological ambition outranks economic reality. Heavy regulation stifles entrepreneurship, reduces job creation, and drives capital flight - hollowing out Colorado’s economic future in the name of political posturing.

4) Cannabis Crackdowns – Recriminalizing Legal Behavior

Legislation now being pushed would raise the legal purchase age to 26, impose severe THC limits, and restrict quantity purchases to absurd levels. These proposals would collapse legal cannabis markets, push consumers back to illegal drug dealers, and devastate small businesses.

Colorado built an entire regulatory and tax structure around legal cannabis. Now lawmakers threaten to dismantle it - sacrificing public safety, economic stability, and tax revenue - all while empowering black-market operations they once claimed to oppose.

This is regulatory sabotage disguised as public health.

5) Housing Mandates – Destroying Local Control and Property Rights

Through sweeping zoning mandates, the state now overrides local community planning, forcing density increases, eliminating parking requirements, and mandating accessory dwelling units regardless of neighborhood infrastructure.

Local citizens lose control of their own communities. Property owners see their investments destabilized. Congestion increases, public services strain, and community identity erodes - all in service of top-down urban planning ideology.

This represents a fundamental violation of property rights, local governance, and democratic self-determination.

6) Speech & Parental Rights Erosion – Government as Moral Authority

Under new anti-discrimination expansions, the state increasingly inserts itself into speech, family decision-making, custody disputes, and parental authority.

These laws create compelled speech frameworks, ideological enforcement systems, and vague compliance requirements that invite selective prosecution. Parents are steadily displaced as primary moral authorities over their children - replaced by state-approved doctrine.

This is not tolerance. It is ideological coercion enforced through legal threat.

7) Budget Crisis, Medicaid Cuts & Priorities – Citizens Pay While Illegal Benefits Expand

Colorado now faces nearly a $1 billion budget shortfall, driven largely by explosive Medicaid expansion, regulatory mandates, and unsustainable spending models. To close the gap, lawmakers have cut Medicaid provider payments, higher education funding, and mental health services - all impacting legal citizens.

At the same time, Colorado continues funding healthcare programs that extend Medicaid benefits to undocumented immigrants, costing over $50 million annually without federal matching funds. This expansion directly competes with healthcare resources for lawful residents, forcing rationing, longer wait times, and provider shortages.

The result is a government that prioritizes non-citizens while reducing care for taxpayers who fund the system. 

That is not compassion - it is fiscal betrayal.

Constitutional Collapse by Legislative Design

Colorado’s current governance model is no longer centered on protecting liberty - it is built around controlling behavior, compelling compliance, and regulating personal choice. Each new law compounds the damage, producing an expanding architecture of surveillance, restriction, taxation, and administrative dominance.

This is not the result of incompetence. It is the product of ideological certainty paired with unchecked political power.

When one party controls the legislature, executive branch, courts, education systems, regulatory agencies, and enforcement mechanisms, citizens become subjects. And constitutional rights become permissions.

Colorado is not dying from one catastrophic law.

It is being suffocated by a thousand cuts.

Governor's Oath of Office

I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support the Constitution of the United States, and the Constitution of the State of Colorado, and that I will faithfully discharge the duties of the office of Governor, according to the best of my ability.