Ref O defeat retains way to amend constitution
By Alan Gathright, Rocky Mountain News, David Montero, Rocky Mountain News
Published November 5, 2008 at 12:05 a.m.
Source: http://www.rockymountainnews.com/news/2008/nov/05/ref-o-defeat-retains-way-to-amend-constitution/
The one referendum on this election's lengthy ballot that surely would've shortened future ballots failed narrowly.
Referendum O would have increased the number of petition signatures needed to place state constitutional amendments on the election ballot.
Opponent Robert J. Corry Jr. said its failure showed Colorado voters are smart enough to reject bad amendments on a ballot and didn't need the referendum to do the filtering for them.
"People voted for their constitutional right to not have their constitutional rights restricted," he said.
He also said it failed because "it's easier to stop something on the ballot instead of getting something through."
Ref O would have given citizens an incentive to create less-sweeping statutory initiatives, by reducing the number of signatures needed to put one of those on the ballot. It would have made it harder for lawmakers to overturn voter-approved statutes by requiring a two- thirds legislative majority to change them within five years of passage.
It now takes the same number of petition signatures to put citizen-sponsored statutes on the ballot as it does to put amendments before the voters. So activists usually go the amendment route.
Rep. Al White, R-Hayden, said he was disappointed it failed and thinks voters suffered ballot fatigue as Referendum O was far down the list.
"People just didn't get it, and they had a plethora of issues to vote on and simply voted 'no' all the way down the ballot," he said.
White said Referendum O was needed because Colorado's easy-to-amend legal cornerstone had become a kitchen sink for everything from bans on trapping to clashing budget spending caps and mandates.
That clutter, he said, had turned the Constitution into a "doormat." He also said he would try again with another ballot measure again.
CLICK ON YOUR STATE FOR CURRENT BALLOT MEASURES - COURTESY OF BALLOTPEDIA
Sunday, November 9, 2008
COLORADO: DIRECT DEMOCRACY SURVIVES REFERENDUM 'O'
Saturday, October 4, 2008
COLORADO: 18 ISSUES ON THE BALLOT - REFORM THE INITIATIVE PROCESS?
Maybe We Need a Ballot Bailout
By Susan Greene
Denver Post Columnist
Source: http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_10572760
Ballots start arriving this week, and Colorado's are the longest in the country.
This year's 18 ballot issues raise questions about not only the policies they push but also the overuse of direct democracy itself. Initiatives are piling on as a way for special interests to confuse voters, Gov. Bill Ritter to tiptoe around lawmakers and political opponents to bleed each other dry.
Probably not what reformists had in mind when they launched citizen law-making in 1912 so Coloradans could have a voice when not being served by politicians.
Curious, then, that it's Ritter who's pushing this year's most contentious initiative — to end tax credits for oil and gas producers. The governor launched Amendment 58 without taking up the issue with the legislature controlled by his own party.
Many on both sides of the severance debate agree that something's missing in bypassing lawmakers.
"It's called leadership," says Rick Reiter, the consultant running the bid to defeat 58.
Reiter's own record is far from pure. He is the Donald Trump of Colorado's ballot-issue industry, managing at least $22 million in campaigns related to six of this year's measures.
He raised ire when, after helping education and environmental groups push the severance-tax proposal last year, he bailed out to pimp for the gas companies trying to defeat it.
Reiter sees "no contradiction" in his switch, nor in the fact that he helped unions pass state budget reforms in 2005 yet this year is paid to fight four union-backed measures. He goes so far as to insist he's "not opposing labor" and that his bid against Amendment 58 "has nothing to do with oil and gas" — the folks bankrolling the effort.
"Rick Reiter has either lost his moral compass or he never had one," says education activist Tony Lewis.
This year's biggest ballot bombast came after trust- funder union-buster Jonathan Coors floated three anti-labor ballot measures. Unions in turn qualified four of their own initiatives, including a timely one to prosecute fraudulent CEOs.
The result would be mutually assured destruction that would drain business and unions of money and manpower. So, despite opposition in their ranks, business groups unable to convince Coors to drop his right-to-work Amendment 47 are seeking to raise millions to defeat it in exchange for labor nixing its four initiatives.
That, plainly put, is called ransom — with no regard for the meat of the measures.
"The initiative process is being used as a tool for political purposes rather than policy purposes," says Jennifer Drage Bowser of the National Conference of State Legislatures.
Why care that this year's ballot approaches lengths rivaling "War and Peace"?
Because it could mean record lines on Election Day.
Because we as voters are being played as pawns.
And because the clutter is prompting some to argue that ballot initiatives — the very tools used to win suffrage in this country — are no longer a realistic way to make policy.
Perhaps the lowest profile of this year's issues is Referendum O, a plan to make it tougher to float ballot initiatives that mess with the state constitution. Ironically, the measure was referred by House speaker Andrew Romanoff and other lawmakers who themselves are pushing Amendment 59, asking voters to change the constitution by removing language injected by two other voter-approved initiatives.
Eyes wide open, Colorado. We'll need to read the fine print carefully.
Susan Greene writes Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays. Reach her at 303-954-1989 or greene@denverpost.com.
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Editor's note: We received the following insightful comments from a Colorado citizen in response to this post:
Evan Ravitz has left a new comment on your post "COLORADO: 18 ISSUES ON THE BALLOT - REFORM THE INI...":
Colorado's Referendum O should fail, because it allows the legislature to overturn a statutory (not an amendment) initiative with a 2/3 vote or, after 5 years, a majority vote of the legislature. Since a non-representative legislature is the whole reason for ballot initiatives, why allow this?
Here are some reforms that are really needed:
Voters on ballot initiatives need what legislators get: public hearings, expert testimony, amendments, reports, etc. The best project for such deliberative process is the National Initiative for Democracy, led by former Sen. Mike Gravel: http://vote.org/. Also http://healthydemocracyoregon.org/ and http://cirwa.org/
In Switzerland, petitions are left at government offices and stores for people to read and sign at leisure, so there are less aggressive petitioners and you can save your Mace. ;) The Swiss vote on initiatives 4-6 times a year so there's never too many on one ballot.
Legislators have never tried to improve the ballot initiative process, but often try to make it even harder. They'd rather have absolute power!
In Switzerland, representatives are humbler, after centuries of local and cantonal (state) ballot initiatives, and national initiatives since 1891. They call their system "co-determination." This works well for couples, too!
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
COLORADO: 19 INITIATIVES ON THE BALLOT FOR NOVEMBER
Colorado's direct democracy about to get a major test
Rocky Mountain News
Wednesday, August 6, 2008
The postal service may need to add temporary workers just to handle delivery of the massive blue books and ballot packets Colorado voters will receive before November's election.
As many as 19 measures are likely to qualify for the statewide ballot, not to mention local initiatives, legislative races and other contests.
And then there's the presidential election - Colorado will be closely watched as a swing state - and the U.S. Senate battle between Mark Udall and Bob Schaffer, which many expect to be decided by a razor-thin margin.
While outside attention will focus on the presidential and Senate races, the panoply of ballot measures could shape important aspects of Colorado's future for decades to come. At a minimum, November's election will provide one of the state's busiest exercises in direct democracy since 1912, when Coloradans considered 32 statewide questions.
There's a temptation to predict that putting so many measures on a single ballot will simply overwhelm voters. And that as a matter of reflex or principle, the people will reject all of them.
Nice idea. But there's no recent evidence supporting it. Veteran political consultant Rick Reiter, who ran the successful 2004 campaign for Referendum C and is in charge of this year's campaign opposing Gov. Bill Ritter's scholarship proposal, says the notion that voters will lash out in frustration against all ballot measures is an urban legend. Voters have shown a willingness to sort through lengthy ballots and make choices that often surprise.
For instance, 2002 is often cited as a year voters rejected ballot measures wholesale. Recall the "millionaires' amendments" - ballot measures underwritten by wealthy sponsors dealing with election day registration, mandatory mailings of absentee ballots, eliminating caucuses to nominate candidates and bilingual education.
All four amendments lost. But others passed, including Amendment 27, a tough campaign finance reform measure that won 2-to-1, as did measures setting qualifications for coroners and eliminating obsolete laws.
In 2006, 14 separate statewide measures were on the ballot - seven amendments and seven referendums. Half passed, including the infamous "ethics in government" measure, Amendment 41, and the troubling Amendment 42, which put the state's minimum wage on an inflation escalator.
This year's ballot will tackle a fascinating range of issues. Among them will be an anti-abortion measure defining "personhood." Dueling issues dealing with racial preferences in state hiring and university admissions. An initiative raising casino betting limits. A sales tax hike to fund services for the developmentally disabled. Two questions affecting severance taxes from oil and natural gas production. An initiative repealing the education-spending inflator in Amendment 23 and lifting state spending limits.
The ballot measures drawing the most media attention, however, revolve around organized labor. The two amendments that will rankle unions the most would outlaw all-union workplaces where everyone is forced to pay dues and ban governments from deducting dues from employee paychecks.
Those measures will duke it out with four union-sponsored initiatives, including one mandating companies with 20 or more employees to provide medical coverage and another imposing tougher sanctions against corporate fraud.
None of these are simple issues, and voters will have to look behind the campaign slogans if they want to understand their true significance. But then that's something Coloradans have been doing, more or less successfully, for nearly 100 years.
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
INITIATIVE AND REFERENDUM UNDER THREAT IN COLORADO
The following article from a Colorado newspaper illustrates how fragile the direct democratic institutions we have at the state level have become. When those in power are capable of convincing citizens that it is preferable to surrender what little power they have to self-legislate simply because the majority has produced some legislation that they may be in disagreement with, it shows us that we must struggle ever harder to protect the initiative and referendum process where it exists at the state level, and strive harder to expand it at that level, and above to the federal level as well... Clearly, the following article does not he reflect the views of this editor, but the comments posted by one Colorado citizen that appear after the article certainly do. - Editor
A Better Ballot Measure
It's time to raise the bar for constitutional amendments
Rocky Mountain News
Thursday, April 3, 2008
SOURCE: http://www.rockymountainnews.com/news/2008/apr/03/a-better-ballot-measure/
Is the 14th time the charm? Let's hope so. Lawmakers recently introduced Senate Concurrent Resolution 3, the 14th attempt in the past decade to change Colorado's initiative process.
We've long believed that amending the state constitution should be more difficult than passing a statute. But for the most part, we're glad that none of the previous 13 legislative measures to tackle this issue went to voters.
Several would have undermined the initiative by erecting unacceptably high barriers to direct democracy. Among them were requirements that initiated constitutional amendments win three-fifths or two-thirds supermajority votes before passing.
SCR 3 - inspired by a University of Denver blue-ribbon panel on constitutional reform - marks an encouraging change of attitude that does not give grass-roots activism short shrift.
Indeed, the measure could encourage some ballot campaigns, as it would reduce signature requirements for statutes. It would also raise the bar for qualifying constitutional amendments. And it would do both without unduly burdening citizen groups that - unlike deep-pocketed interests - cannot buy their way onto the ballot.
The resolution would base the signature level for qualifying ballot measures on the total votes cast in the most recent election for governor; that's typically higher than the secretary of state's race, on which the current threshold is set.
That said, the signature level for statutes would go down, from the current 5 percent of the vote to 4 percent. Based on the 2006 election, the resolution would reduce the signature threshold from 78,000 to 62,000.
Meantime, constitutional amendments initiated by voters would face a higher limit, needing signatures totaling 6 percent of the vote for governor - now nearly 94,000 verified signers. Petitions for amendments would also have to be circulated statewide, with at least 10 percent of the threshold (or 9,400) collected in each congressional district.
As another enticement for sponsors to take the initiative route, SCR 3 would make it tougher for the legislature to modify an initiated statute in the first six years it's on the books. Lawmakers now need only a simple majority to modify those voter- led measures. Under the resolution, a two-thirds vote in both houses would be required.
This should ease the legitimate concern that it's too easy for the legislature to thwart the will of voters by revising or rejecting ballot statutes lawmakers don't like.
All these changes would give initiative sponsors an incentive to offer statutes rather than amendments - but they would not prevent citizen-initiated amendments from reaching the ballot entirely. Moreover, sponsors could no longer qualify amendments by flooding Colorado's major cities with petitioners and ignoring other residents. Amendments are more likely to have a broad appeal before they go to voters.
There's one largely symbolic provision of SCR 3 that we're not wild about. It would require amendment sponsors to complete their signature-gathering efforts and file proposed amendments with the secretary of state seven months before an election, rather than the current three-month deadline. The idea is to give amendments more time for public vetting. But since voters typically pay little attention to ballot measures (whether they're amendments or statutes) until the final weeks of an election season, we can't see how earlier deadlines would matter much.
All in all, SCR 3 should improve the ways Coloradans directly modify the state's governing documents. We hope the legislature places it on the ballot, so voters can consider and approve it this November.
Comments
Posted by p_myers661 on April 3, 2008 at 8:05 a.m.
Ah yes..
by all means. Keep the peasants away from the process. And if they do manage to pass an initiative it would only require a slightly higher majority of those super beings we call legislators to undo the measure.
Thanks, but no thanks. This is a thinly veiled attempt to shut the door to substantive change. Guess they're afraid we are going to pass a TABOR initiative on fees so they'd have to get rid of their special projects and actually use good sense instead of using our tax money to pay back the unions for getting them elected.
The people have the means to pass laws that are needed by the people whether the professional politicians like it or not (they don't.)
There have been many attempts to cut back the ability of the people in this area. The outrage that we put things in the constitution because they just legislated our initiatives out of existence is still bubbling. Let's put this one on the dust heap with the rest before we end up hogtied and overtaxed.
