Proposition 137: Direct Sporting Goods Sales Tax Revenue for Conservation

What It Would Do

Proposition 137 would not raise taxes on sporting goods like bikes, boats, golf clubs, hunting and fishing gear, or ski and camping equipment. Instead, it redirects the existing state sales tax revenue already collected on those purchases — an estimated $175 million a year — into a new "Conserve and Protect Colorado's Water, Land, and Forests Fund" dedicated to conservation, wildlife, outdoor recreation, and wildfire risk mitigation. It does this by exempting that revenue from Colorado's TABOR spending limit.

Fiscal Impact

The measure's effect on the state budget depends entirely on whether Colorado is over or under its TABOR cap in a given year:

• In years the state is over the TABOR cap, the measure reduces individual taxpayer TABOR refunds — by an estimated $26 to $83 for single filers.
• In years the state is not over the TABOR cap, there's no refund to reduce, so the same roughly $175 million is instead pulled directly out of the state's General Fund — the same pool of money that funds schools, health care, transportation, and other core state priorities.

Critically, the measure contains no clause limiting the transfer to surplus years only, so it keeps taking that money out of the General Fund whether or not the state is actually over the TABOR cap.

Why We're Voting No

Boulder Progressives strongly supports wildfire mitigation and wildlife conservation. Unfortunately, this measure is poorly written and threatens to do more harm than good. Because it lacks a trigger limiting it to years when the state is above the TABOR cap, in every other year it simply pulls funding out of the General Fund that would otherwise go to things like schools, transportation, and health programs. We're proud to stand with State Senator Judy Amabile, the Colorado Democratic Party, and many others in asking for a better-written measure that funds conservation without robbing the general-fund priorities that the people who need them most depend on.

Sources: Colorado Public Radio 2026 Voter Guide; The Colorado Sun; Colorado Democratic Party (coloradodems.org/2026-ballot-initiatives).