Monthly Archives: June 2024

Jun 25

TABOR Committee Press Statement About RTD Ballot Question

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June 25, 2024

 

 

                                                                                                                                Contact: Penn Pfiffner
Phone: 303-233-7731
Email: constecon@hotmail.com

 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

 

The Regional Transportation District (RTD) is proposing a 2024 ballot measure to permanently eliminate TABOR spending and revenue caps. The RTD has retained hundreds of millions of dollars in taxpayer’s TABOR rebates over recent years. Yet, the RTD Board wants to claim this proposed ballot measure isn’t a tax increase.

The TABOR Committee opposes the RTD ballot measure to permanently eliminate taxpayer’s protections.

  1. The ballot language doesn’t legally comply with TABOR by clearly expressing the amount of the tax increase. The district has retained millions of TABOR rebates, the proposed measure is a tax increase.
  2. TABOR limits waivers to four years, allowing for voter review. The RTD ballot measure permanently eliminates taxpayer protections. It’s a forever tax increase with a blank check.

 

TABOR Committee, board chairman Penn Pfiffner stated: “The Regional Transportation District (RTD) is one of the largest tax collectors in Colorado. RTD wants to use misleading ballot language to eliminate TABOR rebates. This is clearly a tax increase and a blank check to a government district that has failed to deliver on FasTracks campaign promises. Taxpayers would be best served getting their TABOR rebates starting in 2025 to use on a transportation method that fits their lives.”

 

The TABOR Committee was formed in 2009 to protect the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights (TABOR).
DefendTABOR.com

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Jun 18

A Voter Revolt Grows in California. Gov. Gavin Newsom and Democrats in Sacramento try to block anti-tax and anti-crime initiatives from the November ballot

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A Voter Revolt Grows in California

Gov. Gavin Newsom and Democrats in Sacramento try to block anti-tax and anti-crime initiatives from the November ballot.

 

By The Editorial Board

June 16, 2024 3:56 pm ET

California Gov. Gavin Newsom speaks at a rally in support of Freedom to Marry, a ballot measure to remove Proposition 8 from the state Constitution, Friday, June 7, 2024, at Manny’s at 16th and Mission streets in San Francisco. (Jessica Christian/San Francisco Chronicle via AP) PHOTO: JESSICA CHRISTIAN/ASSOCIATED PRESS

We’ve told you about California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s lawsuit to block a citizen initiative from this November’s ballot that would make it harder to raise taxes. Now his Legislature is trying to sabotage another initiative that would toughen penalties for theft and drug crimes. Why do Democrats fear voters?

Law enforcement, businesses and local elected officials across the Golden State are campaigning to roll back parts of Prop. 47. That’s the 2014 initiative that made misdemeanors of drug possession and theft of less than $950 in goods. Supporters including Mr. Newsom said it would save money by reducing incarceration.

The George Soros-backed initiative cut the state prison count, but Californians are paying a high price. Organized criminals exploit the law’s lax penalties. District attorneys say Prop. 47 prevents them from leveraging the penalty of jail time to induce addicts into treatment. Police often don’t arrest thieves or drug users because the crimes go unpunished. Retail theft, vagrancy and open-air drug use have spiked.

Thus the citizen initiative, which would toughen penalties for shoplifters and drug dealers. Someone with two prior convictions for theft could be charged with a felony on the third offense no matter the amount. The value of stolen property from multiple thefts could be combined for a felony charge. Continue reading →

Jun 13

Voters will likely be asked to permanently spare RTD from TABOR limits

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Voters will likely be asked to permanently spare RTD from TABOR limits

By Nathaniel Minor

  • Jun. 12, 2024, 5:16 pm

 

 

 

 

Kevin J. Beaty/DenveriteAn RTD train slowly approaches the Belleview Avenue station in south Denver. June 6, 2024.

The Regional Transportation District will likely add a question to the November 2024 ballot asking voters to permanently allow it to keep revenue that would otherwise be refunded to taxpayers under the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights.

An RTD board committee unanimously endorsed the “debrucing” ballot question on Tuesday, a reference to TABOR’s author Douglas Bruce.

RTD’s full board will vote in late June on whether to send the question to voters. The agency currently has two different exemptions from TABOR for different parts of its budget; one expires later this year, the other in 2050. The ballot measure would ask voters to spare RTD’s entire budget from TABOR limits permanently.

Board chair Erik Davidson said if the soon-to-expire exemption were to lapse, RTD might have to refund tens of millions of dollars a year to taxpayers.

He also cited recent polling commissioned by RTD that showed nearly 70 percent support for the ballot measure among respondents.

“To me, it’s an easy answer to say that we proceed,” Davidson told the committee on Tuesday.

Most voters know TABOR as the reason Coloradans vote on taxes. But it does a lot more than that.

The lengthy constitutional amendment voters passed in 1992 also puts restrictions on how much revenue every government in Colorado can collect every year. Any excess revenue beyond a limit set by formulas within TABOR must be refunded to voters. TABOR also contains a “ratchet effect” that can lead to tighter limits and bigger refunds after a recession. Continue reading →

Jun 02

Martinez: Legal fight over tax hike without voter consent continues

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The National Taxpayers Union Foundation (NTUF) continues to fight for residents in Northern Colorado. Back in March, in a major victory for taxpayers, a unanimous panel of the Colorado Court of Appeals agreed with us that a doubling of the property taxes in a few Northern Colorado counties violated the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights (TABOR).  But the case continues, because the Lower South Platte Water Conservancy District has now sought review from the Colorado Supreme Court. We recently filed our brief in opposition.

The case, Aranci v. Lower South Platte Water Conservancy District, involves residents challenging a tax increase by the water district, arguing it violates TABOR. The controversy arose when the district doubled its mill levy in 2019 without seeking voter approval. The residents filed a class action lawsuit, asserting that this increase violated the TABOR requirement that governments must ask voter consent for any tax rate increases, as well as seeking a refund for what was illegally collected.

The district court initially ruled in favor of the water district, finding no violation of TABOR under a narrow exception articulated in Huber v. Colorado Mining Association, which was about a ministerial tax adjustment based on inflation. However, the court of appeals unanimously reversed that ruling, declaring the mill levy increase was not ministerial and holding for the residents on five independent grounds. Continue reading →