In its 50th year, the Colorado Union of Taxpayers grades lawmakers ahead of the June 30 primary

DENVER — The Colorado Union of Taxpayers, marking its 50th year, has compiled a 2026 scorecard grading state lawmakers on how they voted to protect taxpayers, and the group’s president read the highest and lowest scores on air days before Colorado’s June 30 primary. On The Kim Monson Show, host Kim Monson, who serves as president of the Colorado Union of Taxpayers, presented the ratings as a practical tool for voters filling out their ballots.

CUT, founded in 1976, rates legislators each session on a single question of how they treated the people who fund state government. The 2026 ratings judged lawmakers on four standards Monson read on the air: how they voted to protect the taxpayer, the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights, property rights, and parental rights.

How CUT grades the legislature

CUT is an all-volunteer organization of about 15 people who give up their weekends during the session to track legislation. About 714 bills and resolutions were introduced this year, she said; CUT took positions on roughly 175, about 40 of which died, and scored lawmakers on the remaining roughly 130 measures that reached a third reading.

Under the group’s longstanding scale, legislators who score 90% or better are designated “Taxpayer Champions,” those at 80% or better “Taxpayer Guardians,” and those at 70% or better “Taxpayer Warriors.”

The highest and lowest scorers

In the House, Monson read the top scores for a group of Republicans, led by Rep. Stephanie Luck at 85.9% and Rep. Ron Weinberg at 85.5%, with Rep. Scott Bottoms among the next tier at 83.5%. Several other Republicans, including Rep. Ty Winter and Rep. Matt Soper, landed in the 60s. The top-scoring Democrat in the House was Rep. Bob Marshall at 34.6%, Monson said, and the lowest was Rep. Lindsay Gilchrist at 11.1%.

On the Senate side, the top score went to Sen. Lynda Zamora Wilson at 91.8%, the only senator above 90%. Sen. Mark Baisley followed at 89.8%, a figure Monson said rounds up to the Champion tier. She told listeners Baisley is now running for U.S. Senate. The lowest-scoring Senate Republican she named was Sen. Barbara Kirkmeyer at 53.4%. The highest-scoring Senate Democrat was Sen. Dylan Roberts at 23.5%, with the rest of the Democrats scoring lower.

A wide partisan gap

Allen Thomas, a guest on the show, said the numbers showed a stark divide between the parties. Even the worst Republican was “two times better than the best Democrat,” Thomas said, while arguing that Republicans should still be held to a higher standard. Teddy Collins, another guest who is running for a state Senate seat, said the ratings are nonpartisan, based only on votes and how lawmakers spent tax dollars. Collins said Colorado is the sixth most regulated state in the nation, with more than 205,000 regulatory restrictions, a ranking the Colorado Chamber of Commerce reported in February.

TABOR on the November ballot

Monson tied the scorecard to two tax fights now in front of voters. The first is a November ballot measure the legislature referred through Senate Bill 26-135, which passed on party lines with no Republican votes. Monson and other opponents of the measure call it Proposition NN. The measure asks voters to let the state keep and spend revenue collected above the TABOR cap, raising that cap by an amount tied to the most the state has ever spent on K-12 education in a single year, currently about $4.6 billion. The retained surplus would fund K-12 schools and early-childhood programs, according to The Colorado Sun. Monson and other opponents say the measure would “totally gut” TABOR. The measure keeps the TABOR amendment in place while letting the state retain and spend revenue above its cap.

A second proposal, a graduated income tax that would replace Colorado’s flat rate, is in the signature-gathering stage and needs about 125,000 signatures by Aug. 3 to reach the ballot, the Sun reported.

Monson framed both measures against the size of state government. Colorado’s state budget for the 2026-27 fiscal year, passed this spring, totals $46.8 billion, she noted. Monson urged listeners to carry the ratings into the voting booth, and Collins called the scores handy for anyone filling out a ballot.