“It’s healthy in a democracy to have a safety valve.”

The balance of who should be making decisions and through what mechanism creates a democratic system that is, by design, complicated. This is at the heart of the wolf reintroduction story, which was kickstarted by a citizen-led ballot. So, we sat down with direct democracy expert John Matsusaka for a deep dive into this governing process.  

What exactly is direct democracy? It sounds straightforward: the people vote directly on an issue. But the machinery behind it, and the philosophy underneath it, is more complicated than that. Colorado ranks third in the country for the total number of citizen-led ballot measures, and it has been baked into our state process since 1910. It is a way for people to have their perspectives heard when they feel the current decision-makers are not representing their interests. As the debate over wolf reintroduction continues five years after the vote, we explore how we decide what decisions should be in the hands of voters and what should be with government officials and agencies, what it means to govern from a slim majority, and if democracy is backsliding in our increasingly polarized world.