U.S. Senate: Vote for Joe O’Dea. Colorado should elect a senator who will achieve positive change. Republican Joe O’Dea is a self-made businessman whose lifetime work has netted positive results. Let’s replace incumbent Michael Bennet, a Washington insider who has achieved almost nothing after occupying the Senate seat for 13 years.

Governor: Vote for Heidi Ganahl. Colorado needs change, and Republican Heidi Ganahl, currently an elected at-large CU regent, is the right person at the right time to lead us to it. The state of our state is far from great under first-term incumbent Gov. Jared Polis; he is smart and likable but unable or unwilling to tackle our woes: Crime, fentanyl, homeless camps, inflation – the list goes on. Let Ganahl restore Colorado to a safe, affordable, more livable state again.

Colorado attorney general: Vote for John Kellner. Republican Kellner is the DA of Colorado’s largest judicial district, the 18th, and a former judge advocate in the U.S. Marines. He has spent his career putting bad guys behind bars. That’s the AG Colorado needs right now amid skyrocketing crime. Incumbent and former law professor Phil Weiser is a respected scholar but has proven reluctant to call out the soft-on-crime Democratic majority at the state legislature.

Colorado secretary of state: Vote for Pam Anderson. The Republican is a former Jefferson County clerk who led the state county clerks association. She is widely respected as an expert on elections and for conducting them impartially and above the political fray. Colorado urgently needs that kind of secretary of state to replace first-term hyper-partisan incumbent Jena Griswold, who has embarrassed the office with her self-promotion and political ambition.

Colorado treasurer: Vote for Lang Sias. Colorado could not put the state treasury in more capable hands. Republican Sias, who served in the legislature, is a former U.S. Navy combat fighter pilot and current commercial pilot – as well as a licensed attorney. He also holds a master’s degree from the prestigious London School of Economics. He knows business, finance and the state’s fiscal affairs far more thoroughly than incumbent Dave Young, a former legislator and teacher who led the Greeley teacher’s union. Sias is the clear-cut choice.

3rd Congressional District: Vote for Lauren Boebert. The GOP incumbent reflects her vast, rural district and is a pit bull for its interests. Her votes in Congress are true to her constituents.

4th Congressional District: Vote for Ken Buck. The Republican incumbent and former prosecutor is dedicated to conservative principles that resonate in his eastern plains district.

6th Congressional District: Vote for Jason Crow. The incumbent Democrat has won respect as a veteran with a distinguished service record, a prominent attorney – and an elected Democrat who has managed to sidestep his party’s radical lurch to the left in recent years.

7th Congressional District: Vote for Erik Aadland. The mainstream Republican combat vet, West Point grad and former energy industry manager offers real hope for saving the open CD-7 seat from a Democratic contender far to the left of retiring centrist Democrat Ed Perlmutter.

8th Congressional District: Vote for Barb Kirkmeyer. The state’s newly minted CD-8 has a chance to be represented in Congress by one of our state’s more experienced and respected political pros. Republican Kirkmeyer, a small-business owner and armer, was a county commissioner and governor’s cabinet member. She knows government and policy.

State Board of Education in the 8th Congressional District: Vote for Peggy Propst. She’s a veteran voice for education reform and school choice who previously served on the State Board of Education from the 5th Congressional District. She also was an El Paso County Commissioner, giving her years of experience in public service.

State Proposition 121: Vote YES. Both candidates for Colorado governor rightly have called for eliminating the state income tax. Prop. 121 would take us a step in that direction, lowering the Colorado’s income tax rate for individuals and corporations from 4.55% to 4.40%.

State Proposition 122: Vote NO. It would legalize mushrooms containing psilocybin and psilocin and other hallucinogenic drugs used mainly for recreation. Ignore the smokescreen about psychedelics’ use in therapy; Prop. 122 means more impaired motorists and minors.

State Proposition 123: Vote NO. It would ding taxpayers’ surplus-revenue refunds – $145 million in the first year and about $290 million a year thereafter – to fund an assortment of housing-related programs through the state bureaucracy. Down a rabbit hole, in other words.

Denver Initiated Ordinance 305: Vote NO. It’s a $12 million-a-year tax hike that will add even more to the price of renting in Denver – slapping a $75 annual excise tax on nearly every rental apartment, townhome, mobile home and house in the city. The revenue would be used to hire lawyers for people facing eviction – a service Denver City Hall already provides.

Denver Initiated Ordinance 306: Vote NO. It micromanages recycling and composting by apartments, condos, non-residential structures and restaurants in the city. The added regulations and red tape would raise rent and the cost of doing business.

Denver Initiated Ordinance 307: Vote NO. It would assess property owners a fee to repair the city’s sidewalks. There is already a modest city fund to pay for sidewalk repairs on a piecemeal basis. Let’s stick with that approach for now.

Denver Referred Question 2I: Vote NO. It would raise Denver property taxes a total of $36 million a year for the Denver Public Library. We love libraries and books, but the city should find the money within its current, $1.49 billion budget before asking taxpayers to pony up more.

Denver Referred Question 2J and Question 2K: Vote NO on both. They would let the city keep excess tax revenue from two sales taxes OK’d by voters in 2020; one purports to fight climate change, the other, to help the homeless. Both only add bloat to City Hall’s bureaucracy.

Denver Gazette Editorial Board