There is a veterinary care ballot question going before voters in November, backed by Gov. Jared Polis and 2022 Republican gubernatorial candidate and Camp Bow Wow founder Heidi Ganahl. It is, once again, a perfect illustration of why Colorado’s citizen-led ballot proposal question must be remedied.

State Rep. Karen McCormick, a retired veterinarian, brought forward HB24-1048 Providing Veterinary Services Through Telehealth, and HB24-1047 Veterinary Technician Scope of Practice, last session. Both were signed into law after going through multiple committee hearings and ample public comment.

The veterinary telehealth law allows for and defines different types of telehealth veterinarians may legally utilize by establishing a veterinarian-client-patient relationship with consent of the client. This replaces the requirement the patient be examined in an in-person, physical examination. It also allows a veterinarian to refer a patient to a specialist and affords that specialist to provide services under the referring veterinarian’s relationship.

Stay up to speed: Sign up for daily opinion in your inbox Monday-Friday

HB24-1047 requires the state board of veterinary medicine to promulgate rules defining tasks a licensed veterinarian may delegate to a veterinary technician or veterinary technician specialist.

Prop 129 Establishing Veterinary Professional Associates will not — just as the wolf debacle, a proposed mountain lion hunting ban and a proposed slaughterhouse ban did not — go through any stakeholder process. Proponent Apryl Steele is a veterinarian who is now the president and chief executive of the Denver Dumb Friends League. The second proponent listed is Dumb Friends League Public Affairs Advisor Ali Mickelson.

The proposition had a tumultuous trip through the Title Board, where the requirements are a clear question that can be answered yes or no by voters and that it contains only a single subject. It’s a low bar.

Diane Matt was one of the petitioners who asked the Colorado Supreme Court to review the Title Board’s decision to set a title based on their claim of multiple subjects, which is contrary to the state constitution. Matt and Will French, a veterinarian, also claimed the title was misleading to voters and failed to communicate the true intent and meaning of the measure.

Matt is the chief executive of the Colorado Veterinary Medical Association. CVMA represents nearly 3,000 veterinarians and veterinary professionals in the state and has been doing so since 1888.

Proposition 129 dismantles McCormick’s bill, now a law, hands a mess to the State Veterinary Board and tells them to make it happen. If this sounds familiar, it should. The question of whether to create an entirely new profession within veterinary medicine isn’t a question to be posed to voters who, overwhelmingly, are not experts in veterinary care. There will be no stakeholder input, no public comment, no recommendations from professionals who work in veterinary medicine.

The measure itself is vague. It creates this mystical profession, for which there is no academic programs in the state, so there’s no timeline for when someone could be eligible to actually work in the profession. Further, the education requirements and training required do not differentiate veterinary professional associates from existing veterinary care professionals.

In my conversations with McCormick last year during the legislative session, she was concerned about any law kicking open the door to online platforms that peddle medications with a focus on profit. Her telehealth bill went through a robust process to be polished and passed. No such thing will happen to Prop 129, and there is certainly plenty to polish.

The measure is opposed by McCormick, the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA), the American Association of Bovine Practitioners (AABP), American Association of Swine Veterinarians (AASV), American Association of Equine Practitioners (AAEP), American Veterinary Dental College (AVDC), American College of Veterinary Surgeons (ACVS), Independent Veterinary Practitioners Association (IVPA) and the Veterinary Management Group.

Some groups of veterinarians have argued against the measure, saying there are existing veterinary technicians already in the profession who are sorely underutilized. By broadening the scope of what they are allowed to do, the veterinary shortage could be helped. It wouldn’t solve the shortage, mind you, but it could help. By expanding the scope of that work, it could also increase those professionals’ earning potential.

The future of the profession of veterinary medicine shouldn’t be handed to voters and the citizen-led ballot process must be strengthened.

Rachel Gabel writes about agriculture and rural issues. She is assistant editor of The Fence Post Magazine, the region’s preeminent agriculture publication. Gabel is a daughter of the state’s oil and gas industry and a member of one of the state’s 12,000 cattle-raising families, and she has authored children’s books used in hundreds of classrooms to teach students about agriculture.