A recent story in Colorado Politics caught my eye, as I learned of a “citizen initiative” that has qualified for the November ballot. It seems supporters of Initiative 177 have collected enough signatures, 146,165 legitimate ones out of a total of 189,508 collected, to clear the hurdle needed for a proposal to appear on the state ballot.

Now, I’ve oft written about my objection to the very concept of citizen initiatives, well, existing at all. We elect a legislature to legislate. The folks we send to Denver are able, indeed required, to do deep dives on the significant issues and legislation before them.

The whole point of a republic, where the people rule through their elected representatives, is those we elect to office can become experts and advocates for particular issues. If you have a pain in your belly, do you want a doctor, an expert in the field of medicine, to decide what treatment you should receive? Or do you want your neighbors to get together and decide what medical therapy you will receive?

Of course not, but that is essentially what our initiative process is all about. Highly complex issues get decided by inadequately informed voters, often reacting to scare tactics.

In our wonderful Colorado, organizations (usually claiming to be just regular grassroots folks) can set up tables outside supermarkets and big-box stores with (often) paid signature collectors harassing people going in and out of the store, often with a call to “save Colorado” or some such banality, in search of a signature. And thus, a proposition reaches the ballot.

And now, largely through the actions of one far-right political action organization, we will be asked this November to decide if Coloradans do, in fact, have a “right” to buy natural gas.

I’ll give you a moment to reread that last sentence.

Yup, a right to buy natural gas.

An organization called Advance Colorado is responsible for more than half the ballot initiatives this year, a very conservative group that is largely funded by lots of dark money and utilizes the traditional far-right dog whistles, asserting falsely everything is just terrible in Colorado. They declare “crime is soaring” on their website, even as actual violent and property crimes are down by double digits. We’ve all heard the phrase, often attributed to Voltaire, Daniel Patrick Moynihan and others, that everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but not their own facts. Advance Colorado appears to disagree.

But let’s see what all the fuss is about, shall we?

Initiative 177, a “citizen” initiative, states in its entirety, “Be it enacted by the People of the State of Colorado: SECTION 1. In the constitution of the state of Colorado, add section 17 to article XVIII as follows: Section 17. Right to natural gas. (1) CONSUMERS HAVE THE RIGHT TO PURCHASE NATURAL GAS FOR COOKING OR HEATING IN HOMES OR BUSINESSES THROUGHOUT THE STATE. (2) DISTRIBUTORS AND UTILITIES HAVE THE RIGHT TO SELL NATURAL GAS FOR HOMES OR BUSINESSES.

I’m not sure why things like this end up in all caps, but as you see, this initiative is all about giving us, the citizens of Colorado, the right to buy natural gas.

Ok, but do we really need legislation on this? Do we also need an initiative that gives us the right to buy, say, bread? How about snow shovels? Do we have a right to buy Klondike bars?

Fundamentally, Initiative 177 is an effort to get something enshrined into the state constitution, something the backers could not get passed through the legislature. You know, that group the people elected to consider legislation on our behalf? So rather than accept defeat, the dark money flowed in and signatures were collected. And the end run around the elected representatives of the people was complete or at least will be complete come November.

Now, frankly, when one first reads the text above, it doesn’t sound especially suspicious or scary. A right to buy natural gas? Sure, why not? Like millions of others, I heat my house through natural gas and I like to stay warm.

But one should also ask, who the heck is trying to stop you from buying natural gas in the first place?

Understanding Colorado has been a national leader in moving away from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources helps the picture become clearer. This initiative is not about some “right” you have to buy a particular product but rather is about protecting the fossil fuel industry and their massive profits. If the state constitution is amended to require the availability of natural gas, well, there will need to be protections put in place for natural gas suppliers against those nasty clean-energy folks.

Now, I’m not against natural gas. It is a far better choice for energy production than, say, coal. And I strongly believe natural gas is the best technology to use as we, over the next decades, move to renewable energy sources.

But the idea we need to amend our state constitution to protect one particular industry against technological advances is just wrong. Should the first Colorado voters after we became a state 150 years ago have amended the state constitution to require the sale of horseshoes? How about a voter initiative back in, say, 1915, to require the availability of straw hats?

This is, frankly, a silly initiative created to look like a grassroots effort, but is in fact an effort using lots of dark money to protect a particular industry from the march of time.

Until we get rid of citizen initiatives in Colorado (which we never will), we as voters must ensure we are fully informed on the various items placed on our ballots to bypass the legislature. We should be very careful what we allow onto our state constitution, and a “right” to buy gas should not be passed. Frankly, I oppose just about every “voter initiative.”

Well, maybe just that one on Klondike bars would be OK…

Hal Bidlack is a retired professor of political science and a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel who taught more than 17 years at the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs.