by Mark Chesnut - Monday, May 5, 2025
and Wildlife (CPW) Commission’s recent settlement of an “open meetings” lawsuit charging that two commissioners collaborated to write an op-ed last October in support of a controversial 2024 state ballot initiative to ban all cat hunting. Known as Proposition 127, the move aimed to put an end to hunting mountain lions, bobcats and the already federally protected lynx, which voters ultimately rejected on Nov. 5, 2024.
Filed by Safari Club International and the Sportsman’s Alliance Foundation, the lawsuit called out two current CPW commissioners for violating the state’s open meetings laws in support of the ballot initiative. Specifically, Jessica Beaulieu and Jack Murphy, along with former commissioner James Pribyl, highlighted their qualifications as wildlife commissioners and encouraged readers to vote yes on the initiative.
“Proposition 127 simply protects Colorado’s majestic mountain lions and bobcats from highly unpopular, unscientific and unwarranted abuse and exploitation that in no way contributes to our bright future of ethical outdoor recreation in our great state of Colorado,” the op-ed stated.
It also falsely stated: “There is no research, no evidence to suggest that the recreational hunting of wild cats brings any public benefit or solves any problem. It’s not managing populations, wildlife, public safety or conflict. As a science-backed agency, we are held to a higher standard and one of science, not mere opinion and conjecture.”
The lawsuit by the advocacy groups claimed that the two commissioners must have collaborated outside official meetings to prepare the op-ed—a direct violation of the state’s open meetings law.
“The CPW Commissioners had these discussions without appropriate public notice and opportunity to participate, as the Open Meetings Law requires,” the lawsuit stated. “And the Op-Ed itself is a meeting under the Open Meetings Law. Rather than following the law, CPW Commissioners Beaulieu and Murphy published an opinion piece in support of their personal ideologies. This Op-Ed contains demonstrably false information about mountain lion management, undoubtedly due in part to the lack of public input that would have corrected these misstatements.”
Ultimately, the lawsuit asked that the court grant preliminary and permanent injunctive relief pursuant to the open meetings law to restrain and enjoin defendants from meeting in private to discuss CPW Commission positions, grant preliminary and permanent injunctive relief pursuant to the open meetings law requiring defendants to comply with all provisions of the open meetings law in the future, award to plaintiffs their attorneys’ fees, costs and expenses incurred in the action and award other relief as the court deemed appropriate.
According to a December report in the Colorado Sun, after the op-ed was published, CPW spokesperson Travis Duncan told the Sun that the commissioners had not broken any laws.
“Voting commissioners are not DNR [Department of Natural Resources] employees, they are unpaid volunteers, so they do not fall under DNR’s HR personnel rules,” Duncan wrote. “As the commissioners were speaking as private citizens, this subject was not before the commission as an item of business and no open meeting law violation occurred.”
However, in March CPW agreed to settle and paid plaintiffs a $2,332 settlement. The settlement also requires that CPW commissioners undergo formal training on both the state’s open meetings law and the state’s predator hunting regulations.
About the Author
Freelance writer and editor Mark Chesnut is the owner/editorial director at Red Setter Communications LLC in Jenks, Okla. An avid hunter, shooter and field-trialer, he has been covering Second Amendment issues and politics on a near-daily basis for over 25 years.