OFFICIAL BALLOT QUESTION

“Shall there be a change to the Colorado Revised Statutes modifying existing law concerning human trafficking of a minor for sexual servitude, and, in connection therewith, creating new law expanding human trafficking of a minor for sexual servitude to include knowingly trading anything of monetary value to buy or sell sexual activity with a minor and increasing the penalty to be life in prison without parole or release?”

Source  Colorado Secretary of State certified ballot title for Initiative 108

NEUTRAL OVERVIEW

Proposition 133 is a statutory measure concerning human trafficking of a minor for sexual servitude, also called child sex trafficking. A YES vote expands the offense to include knowingly giving or receiving anything of monetary value to buy or sell sexual activity with a minor and requires life in prison without parole for anyone convicted of the offense. A NO vote keeps the current Class 2 felony, its 8-to-48-year prison range, and five years of mandatory parole.

Under existing Colorado law, the offense already covers knowingly selling, recruiting, harboring, transporting, transferring, isolating, enticing, providing, receiving, obtaining, maintaining, or making a minor available for commercial sexual activity, as well as specified advertising or travel-service conduct. The measure retains those acts, adds the new buyer-and-seller language, changes the offense to a Class 1 felony, and removes the court’s ability to choose a sentence within a range after conviction.

Source  2026 Colorado Blue Book analysis of Proposition 133

Colorado law treats a minor as unable to consent to commercial sexual activity. Existing legal defenses and protections for trafficking victims remain relevant. The initiative also states that it does not limit the Governor’s standing authority to grant a pardon, commutation, or clemency.

THE PROPONENT CASE

Supporters argue that buying or selling sexual access to a child is not an ordinary sex offense. It turns a child into a commodity, often enables repeated abuse, and can cause lifelong physical and psychological harm. They contend that a person proven beyond a reasonable doubt to have committed this offense has shown an extraordinary willingness to exploit children and should never again have the opportunity to reach another victim.

Supporters also argue that the present 8-to-48-year range can eventually return a convicted trafficker to the public. A mandatory life sentence creates certainty for victims, incapacitates offenders permanently, reaches demand as well as supply by expressly including buyers, and delivers an unmistakable public rule: Colorado’s children are not for sale.

THE OPPONENT CASE

Opponents argue that life without parole is Colorado’s most severe available criminal punishment, yet the measure requires it for every conviction and permits no sentencing distinction among different roles or facts. The judge could not weigh age, coercion, the defendant’s role, criminal history, the number of victims, or other circumstances after the jury returns a guilty verdict.

The official Blue Book warns that trafficking victims are sometimes pressured or forced to help traffickers commit crimes. Opponents fear that a mandatory life sentence could be used against a coerced victim, make victims less willing to report or cooperate, and give prosecutors overwhelming plea leverage. They also argue that punishment alone does not prevent trafficking and may redirect resources from investigations, survivor services, prevention, and treatment.

OFFICIAL MEASURE INFORMATION

Current committee listings and contact information: coloradosos.gov/pubs/elections/Initiatives/ballot/contacts/2026.html.

THE COLORADO CONSERVATIVE RECOMMENDS YES

WHY WE RECOMMEND YES

We recommend YES because protecting children from deliberate commercial sexual exploitation is among the clearest and most important duties of government. Proposition 133 is an extreme measure, but it is aimed at an extreme offense: knowingly buying, selling, or facilitating commercial sexual activity involving a child. The measure asks Colorado to say that children come first and that an adult proven to have traded in a child’s sexual exploitation will face the full weight of the justice system.

The moral line is simple. A child cannot consent to being bought or sold for sex. Money, shelter, drugs, gifts, transportation, or any other thing of value do not turn exploitation into a transaction between equals. The adult buyer creates demand. The seller and trafficker create supply. Both participate in a market that survives only by consuming the safety, liberty, and future of a child. Proposition 133 correctly brings the buyer inside the trafficking statute rather than treating demand as distant from the harm it purchases.

Life without parole is not a sentence we support casually. It permanently removes ordinary release, greatly limits a judge’s role, and commits taxpayers to confinement and medical care for the rest of an offender’s life. That severity is justified here because the covered crime is intentional, commercial, and directed at a minor. A person convicted under this statute is not being punished for an accidental association or an unpopular belief. The prosecution must prove the charged conduct beyond a reasonable doubt, including the required knowing mental state.

Permanent incapacitation also has a concrete purpose. A convicted offender serving life without parole cannot return to the community and victimize another child. The sentence gives survivors certainty that the person convicted of exploiting them will not reappear after a release date, and it tells trafficking networks and would-be buyers that Colorado will not treat the commercial sexual abuse of children as a crime from which an offender may simply age out of punishment.

Deterrence must still be described honestly. No sentence can guarantee that a hidden crime will not occur, and people who believe they will never be caught may not calculate punishment rationally. Investigations, survivor trust, witness cooperation, digital evidence, financial tracing, and successful prosecution remain essential. We do not recommend YES because a life sentence alone will end trafficking. We recommend YES because permanent incapacitation is a legitimate response after proof of this particular crime, and because the law should make the price of creating or feeding this market unmistakable.

The strongest objection deserves a direct answer. Some trafficking victims are coerced into recruiting, transporting, arranging, or otherwise assisting the person exploiting them. The official Blue Book warns that mandatory life exposure could frighten victims away from police or punish a person whose conduct was compelled. Existing victim defenses and protections matter, but they must work in practice, not only on paper. Prosecutors must screen for coercion before filing, defense counsel must have prompt access to trafficking expertise, judges must rule carefully on victim defenses, and appellate courts must correct errors. A survivor acting under coercion is not the moral equivalent of the person controlling and profiting from that survivor.

The absence of sentencing discretion raises the stakes of every earlier decision. Police identification, charging, disclosure of evidence, effective defense counsel, jury instructions, proof beyond a reasonable doubt, and appellate review must all be exact. A mandatory sentence should never become an excuse for overcharging or extracting a plea from a vulnerable person. The tougher the law, the more disciplined government must be in applying it.

The fiscal cost is delayed but real. Legislative Council estimates added prison spending begins in about fourteen years at roughly $180,000 in budget year 2041–42, rises to about $360,000 the next year and $540,000 the year after that, and continues growing for several years. Those figures are not adjusted for inflation; aging prisoners will also require greater medical spending. Courts, public defenders, and district attorneys will face smaller near-term workload increases because cases carrying life sentences generally take longer to litigate. The measure provides no dedicated funding source.

Public safety, however, is a core expense of limited government, not a peripheral program. Colorado should be frugal, but frugality does not require eventual release for an adult lawfully convicted of commercially exploiting a child. It requires transparent budgeting, accurate forecasts, disciplined prosecution, and proof that resources are reaching the offenders and networks voters were told this measure would target.

This measure changes statute rather than the Colorado Constitution. If experience shows that its definitions are catching coerced victims, discouraging reports, producing unconstitutional results, or otherwise operating more broadly than voters intended, the General Assembly may amend or repeal it through the ordinary legislative process. The Governor’s constitutional authority to pardon, commute, or grant clemency also remains. Those safeguards are not substitutes for getting the law right, but they mean voters are not placing an unchangeable sentencing command in the state constitution.

Colorado must pair punishment with prevention. The state still needs trained investigators, strong Internet and financial-crime capabilities, survivor-centered reporting, safe housing, trauma care, family support, school awareness, and services that reduce the vulnerabilities traffickers exploit. It must pursue buyers, organizers, recruiters, and profit flows—not count arrests of vulnerable people as proof of success.

Colorado’s children come first. Anyone who knowingly buys, sells, or facilitates their commercial sexual exploitation should understand that conviction can mean never walking free again. Proposition 133 is severe by design. Its use must be narrow, accurate, and subject to relentless oversight, but its central judgment is right: children are not merchandise, and Colorado will use the full lawful power of its justice system against those who traffic them. We recommend a YES vote.

HOW WE REACHED THE SCORES

Each category uses five tests worth 0 to 10 points. The fixed anchors are: 0 for clear harm or failure; 2 for a material weakness; 5 for mixed or neutral evidence; 8 for a clear benefit with workable safeguards; and 10 for an exceptional benefit with strong controls. Intermediate whole numbers are used only when the evidence falls between anchors.

Star conversion is fixed: 0–4 points earns no star; 5–14 earns one; 15–24 earns two; 25–34 earns three; 35–44 earns four; and 45–50 earns five. The same thresholds apply to every category.

FISCAL RESPONSIBILITY   31 OF 50   ★★★☆☆

The measure funds a core public-safety duty and delays most added cost, but it creates a lifetime obligation without a dedicated funding source or automatic review.

LIMITED GOVERNMENT   24 OF 50   ★★☆☆☆

Child protection is a proper and urgent state function, but mandatory life punishment sharply expands coercive power and removes individualized sentencing.

INDIVIDUAL LIBERTY   29 OF 50   ★★★☆☆

The measure strongly protects a child’s liberty and bodily security, while creating profound liberty risks if coercion, charging, or proof is mishandled.

INSTITUTIONAL INTEGRITY   31 OF 50   ★★★☆☆

The ballot clearly states the permanent sentence and expanded offense, but the measure depends heavily on prosecutorial judgment and requires no public reporting.

LONG-TERM COLORADO IMPACT   34 OF 50   ★★★☆☆

Permanent incapacitation may protect children and reinforce a clear moral boundary, but long-term success depends on survivor cooperation, prevention, and precise enforcement.

OVERALL RESULT

The result supports a YES recommendation because protecting children, incapacitating convicted traffickers, and bringing buyers inside the trafficking law serve a compelling public purpose. The score remains three stars—not five—because mandatory life sentencing eliminates individualized judgment, may expose coerced victims to extraordinary leverage, creates permanent taxpayer costs, and includes no built-in reporting or review requirement.

WHAT WE WILL HOLD GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABLE FOR

Whatever the election result, the publication will compare the promise of child protection with actual charging decisions, survivor safety, case outcomes, prevention work, and taxpayer cost.

HOW WE WILL DO IT

1. Establish the baseline. Record child-sex-trafficking reports, investigations, filed cases, charges, convictions, sentences, plea agreements, victim referrals, and survivor services for at least the three years before implementation.

2. Identify who is being prosecuted. Publish each case by alleged role—buyer, seller, recruiter, transporter, organizer, accomplice, or other participant—without exposing victims. Show whether the conduct involved profit, control, force, repeated acts, or a trafficking network.

3. Screen for coerced victims. Require trained prosecutors and investigators to document screening for trafficking victimization, force, threats, dependency, and coercion before filing a charge carrying mandatory life. Track how often victim defenses are raised and how they are resolved.

4. Audit life-sentence cases. Track charges, plea offers, convictions, acquittals, dismissals, trial length, sentence, appellate results, reversals, and post-conviction claims. Publicly explain any case in which the charged facts materially differ from what voters were told the law would reach.

5. Protect reporting and cooperation. Compare victim reports, hotline contacts, witness cooperation, withdrawals, and referrals before and after implementation. Interview survivor-service organizations about whether fear of prosecution is silencing victims.

6. Measure child safety, not just punishment. Track repeat victimization, identified minors, time to removal from danger, successful network disruption, buyer investigations, and the share of victims receiving safe housing, medical care, trauma treatment, education, and legal help.

7. Follow charging discretion. Compare practices across judicial districts, including use of alternative charges and plea agreements. Examine unexplained differences by county, race, sex, age, indigency, prior record, and defendant role.

8. Follow the money. Compare actual court, prosecution, public-defense, prison, medical, and aging-custody costs with the official forecast. Identify General Fund tradeoffs and distinguish investigation and survivor-service spending from incarceration spending.

9. Test prevention and enforcement capacity. Report investigator training, digital and financial investigations, time from report to charging, clearance rates, coordination among agencies, and whether enforcement reaches organizers and repeat buyers rather than only the most visible participants.

10. Require one-, three-, and five-year decisions. At each review point, state whether to keep, narrow, expand, or repeal the law. Seek immediate correction if it punishes coerced victims, suppresses reporting, produces wrongful or constitutionally defective outcomes, or fails to improve child safety.

Primary accountability records: Colorado Judicial Branch case and sentencing data; district attorney and public defender records; Department of Corrections population, medical, and cost reports; Colorado Human Trafficking Council and law-enforcement data; survivor-service and hotline reports; appellate opinions; clemency records; and General Assembly budget documents.

APPENDIX INITIATIVE 108 TEXT

Source  Colorado Secretary of State final text of Initiative 108

Be it enacted by the people of the State of Colorado

SECTION 1. Legislative Declaration. (1) The people of the State of Colorado hereby find and declare:

(a) Residents of Colorado and other states and territories throughout the United States have seen an alarming increase in human trafficking, especially human trafficking involving minor children;

(b) Current penalties in Colorado law with parole possible in as little as eight years have failed to adequately deter the human trafficking of minor children; and

(c) It is the measure of a fair and compassionate society to ensure that children are not for sale.

SECTION 2. In Colorado Revised Statutes, 18-3-504, amend (2)(a) and (2)(b); and add (5) and (6) as follows:

18-3-504. Human trafficking for sexual servitude - human trafficking of a minor for sexual servitude.

(2) (a) A person commits human trafficking of a minor for sexual servitude if the person:

(I) Knowingly sells, recruits, harbors, transports, transfers, isolates, entices, provides, receives, obtains by any means, maintains, or makes available a minor for the purpose of commercial sexual activity; or

(II) Knowingly advertises, offers to sell, or sells travel services that facilitate an activity prohibited pursuant to subsection (2)(a)(I) of this section; OR

(III) KNOWINGLY TRADES ANYTHING OF MONETARY VALUE TO BUY OR SELL SEXUAL ACTIVITY WITH A MINOR.

(b) Human trafficking of a minor for sexual servitude is a class 1 felony. The court shall sentence a person convicted of such a class 1 felony to the department of corrections for LIFE IN PRISON WITHOUT PAROLE OR RELEASE, as set forth in section 18-1.3-401.

(5) NOTHING IN THIS SECTION SHALL LIMIT A GOVERNOR’S STANDING AUTHORITY OF PARDON, COMMUTATION, OR CLEMENCY.

(6) THE SHORT TITLE OF THIS SECTION IS THE “CHILDREN ARE NOT FOR SALE ACT.”

SECTION 3. Effective date – applicability. This act takes effect on January 1, 2027, and applies to offenses committed on or after that date.