AMY HADDEN MASH: Proposed Amendment 83 would create a constitutional right to hunt, fish, and harvest fish and wildlife by traditional methods and establish hunting and fishing as the preferred means of fish and wildlife management in Colorado. Conservative Wisconsin-based pro-hunting group International Order of T. Roosevelt is a major financial backer of Amendment 83.
LUKE HILGEMANN: Because of our previous work, we've tried to pass this amendment in multiple states now. We were asked to come in and consult on the ballot language that was being proposed.
MARSH: Luke Hilgemann is the CEO of the organization. He says it was founded in 1975.
HILGEMANN: It's a group of philanthropists who love to hunt and have worked together for the last several decades to see hunting and fishing protected and preserved here in America.
MARSH: The International Order for T. Roosevelt contributed $1,150,000 to the campaign, according to finance reports on the Colorado Secretary of State website. Other important players are hunter advocacy group Coloradans for Responsible Wildlife Management, national lobbying firm 76 Group, and Wyoming-based Synapse Group, which received $1,150,000 from the campaign to collect petition signatures.
An add from the campaign says, “The anti-hunting community wants nothing more than sportsmen and women to be off of the landscape. They don't want houndsmen. They don't want elk hunters. They don't want bird hunters. We're done...”
MARSH: Dan Gates is the executive director of Coloradans for Responsible Wildlife Management and hosts a podcast called Through the Gates. In a June interview with the Montana-based Wild Sheep Foundation, Gates said that the amendment idea started with wealthy Coloradans whom he did not name.
DAN GATES: They reached out to a group called the 76 Group, who's a strategy company, a lobbying company, and they do ballot initiatives and candidate forums and campaigns. And they reached out to the International Order of T. Roosevelt about language.
MARSH: And Gates said the T. Roosevelt leaders reached out to him to be the grassroots face of the ballot issue. They met in Denver in June to strategize.
GATES: When I got approached by the International Order to engage with them about running the ground game, the infantry as they called it, and they would supply the sea and the air support. We were pessimistic to start with because we've been told for years and years, "Don't worry about the funding."
MARSH: Other than the million-plus from T. Roosevelt, Denver businessman Joe O'Dea donated 25,000 to the right to hunt cause. Safari Club International gave 30,000 in August. Another unknown contributor donated 150,000. Contributor reports on the Secretary of State website do not include Gates's group. Eric Washburn founded Colorado Hunters and Anglers for Sensible Wildlife Conservation in opposition to the initiative.
ERIC WASHBURN: What the proponents of this are gonna do is they're gonna try and convince Coloradans that this is something that is gonna protect opportunities for a family of four to go fishing on a Sunday afternoon. That's not what this is about.
MARSH: He told KDNK that hunting, fishing, and trapping in Colorado are not in jeopardy, and suggests a different motive for Amendment 83.
WASHBURN: We kind of see this as a very right-wing MAGA culture war sort of initiative, which is really designed to repeal a lot of the wildlife reforms that Coloradans, whether it's through voting or through the Colorado Parks and Wildlife Commission, have established over the last 40 or 50 years to make hunting in Colorado more ethical, and frankly, less cruel.
MARSH: He said the ballot language is clear, and mentioned some of the traditional hunting methods that could be protected by the amendment.
WASHBURN: Wildlife killing contests, like old traps, bear baiting, all that stuff. The spring bear hunt, unlimited killing of beavers, and other fur-bearers.
MARSH: Dan Gates of Coloradans for Responsible Wildlife Management admitted that the proposed amendment is designed to slow ballot initiatives that would change hunting regulations.
GATES: It's a device that can create obstacles in people's attempts to try to take away hunting and fishing and traditional wildlife management opportunities.
MARSH: T. Roosevelt's Luke Hilgemann agrees.
HILGEMANN: Unfortunately, in Colorado, we've seen over the last eight years more than 22 attempts to try and whittle away at hunting and fishing rights in one shape or another.
MARSH: He cited 2024's Prop 127 against trophy hunting of mountain lions and other big cats, and the 2025 Scientific Wildlife Management Act that could have changed a state statute that codifies hunting, trapping, and fishing as Colorado's primary wildlife management methods, both of which failed.
HILGEMANN: And so this is an affirmative step forward to say that hunting and fishing deserve to be protected as a fundamental freedom, one that is protected by the Constitution and can't be changed by a political whim like they've tried to do now at least three times with statewide initiatives.
MARSH: In early September, Colorado Attorney General and Democratic gubernatorial candidate Phil Weiser announced his opposition to the proposed amendment, with concerns about possible reinstatement of banned hunting methods and future legal battles. Weiser also said that protecting hunting and fishing in a constitutional amendment is unnecessary. Hunting and fishing are privileges in Colorado, but the proposed amendment would change that.
JUSTIN MARCEAU: A privilege is something that we come to appreciate because it is given to us through a license or through a permission. And a right, by contrast, is an individual entitlement that inheres. And so to me, it's very clear that hunting is not a right because it is a state-regulated permission.
MARSH: Justin Marceau is a law professor at the University of Denver Sturm College of Law.
MARCEAU: We take great pride in this country on celebrating rights, like my right to free speech, my right to freedom of exercise of religion. I don't have to have a license to exercise a religious belief that I view, and that's because it is an inherent right, right? But that's not true of hunting.
MARSH: Marceau added that wildlife in Colorado belongs to the state and not just one group of people.
MARCEAU: The Colorado Supreme Court has said hunting in this state is a boon. It is a benefit. That's because the wildlife exists for all kinds of purposes, not just for hunting purposes.
MARSH: 24 state constitutions now include the right to hunt and fish. Come November, voters will decide if Colorado becomes the 25th.
