For a while, it looked as if Colorado finally had found a way to fund its long-neglected, crumbling highways: sidestep the legislature with a ballot proposal. 

Then, ruling Democrats at the Capitol sabotaged it.

Initiative 175 would guarantee funding for Colorado’s deteriorating roads, bridges and highways by tapping $700 million in revenue from transportation-related taxes and fees the state already collects. The initiative’s organizers submitted more than 188,000 voter signatures to the Secretary of State’s Office in late May, and on Tuesday, it qualified for November’s statewide ballot.

But lawmakers — resentful of citizens’ end-run on their power over the purse — resorted to treachery to stop it. Near the end of the 2026 legislative session, they rammed through House Bill 26-1430 — preemptively gutting Initiative 175. The bill moots the ballot proposal by cutting the same gas taxes and vehicle fees the initiative redirects — by an equivalent $700 million.

It’s the handiwork of a legislature captivated by anti-car dogma and pipe dreams of expanded mass transit. In other words, a legislature contemptuous of how most Coloradans get to work, school, the grocery store or just about anywhere else.

If voters approve the popular Initiative 175 on Nov. 3, HB 1430 will negate it. And yet, lawmakers also will find themselves with less revenue — i.e., their too-clever-by-half stunt will slash taxes on which they rely for play money to grow state government.

As much as lawmakers deserve the motoring public’s wrath, getting mad doesn’t pay. What to do?

What if Gov. Jared Polis — who unflinchingly signed HB 1430 into law — were to atone by calling a special session of the legislature? 

That’s the thinking of trucking industry veteran James Lee, who is chairman of the board of the Colorado Motor Carriers Association. The truckers on whom we depend for food, dry goods and a lot more, naturally, have a distinct interest in making our state’s major traffic arteries passable once more. 

In last Sunday’s Gazette, Lee offered up the gambit as a compromise. In Lee’s words:

“The governor still has time to make a difference on this critical matter.  He could ask a working group of people knowledgeable on the transportation funding issue … to come together shortly with a charge of developing a recommendation for consideration by the General Assembly. … In conjunction with announcing the working group, the governor could announce a special session of the General Assembly for mid-August with the single subject being the addressing of the state’s transportation needs with particular attention on restoring our highways and roadways in the state. This mid-August time frame still would allow for a referred ballot measure to be added to the November ballot if it was one of the recommendations of the working group.”

We’d add that the ballot proposal could propose to earmark a fixed amount of funding annually for highways. Being a compromise, it would be a more modest amount than that proposed by Initiative 175 but still enough to make progress on backlogged highway projects.

The idea is a long shot, to be sure. The governor might wince at the thought of a special session in his lame-duck year.

Then again, Polis seems to delight in surprising the political class. 

Besides, he and the legislature have spent the past seven-plus years building bike lanes and planning choo choo trains and calling them “transportation” — even though they’ll never get very many people anywhere of consequence. 

Now, it’s time for the governor to address the mode of transportation the rest of us ordinary Coloradans actually use.