This week, we’re talking with Ann Marie Awad and Xandra McMahon, the hosts and executive producers of Hate State, a narrative podcast made by LOOKOUT and Odd Bird Sound and Word. The three-part miniseries, out now at lookout news dot org and wherever you get your podcasts, traces how Colorado went from a state known nationally for its anti-LGBTQ voting record to one with some of the strongest protections for LGBTQ+ people in the country. Much of that old reputation comes from 1992, when voters passed Amendment 2, which barred the state and its cities from protecting gay, lesbian and bisexual people from discrimination.

But the series also looks at how that progress could shift with next week’s election, and how the tactics that earned Colorado the name “the hate state” never really went away. Instead, they spread across the country, and now they’re showing up in Colorado again.

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This November election, five states will determine the civil rights of transgender people in various ways, from their ability to play on sports teams, to access to public facilities.

In Colorado and Arizona, those measures have been galvanized and paraded by lawmakers and activists who have been the figureheads of the battle, but in partnership with Westword, LOOKOUT was able to find the person behind the ballot initiatives — a man named Tim Mooney, an Arizona resident and conservative consultant whose company has made millions in the past decade helping craft and pass ballot initiatives in multiple states.

We speak with Election Accountability Fellow Lorenzo Gomez on what his reporting showed on how Mooney is able to work behind the scenes in crafting these ballot measures, the way language is used to push ballot initiatives ti pass, and what it means for the LGBTQ+ community in the Southwest.

Reporting related to this episode: https://www.lookoutnews.org/tim-mooney-ballot-initiatives-in-arizona-and-colorado-for-2026/

https://www.lookoutnews.org/colorados-hate-state-name-is-being-challenged-with-proposition-134-and-proposition-135/