If you see “Article X, Section 20” on your ballot, it means TABOR and deals with you giving up your Colorado state-constitution- mandated refund.
Oct
23
Category Archives: Ballot Initiative
Oct
21
Pot, minimum wage and plastic bags: Your guide to 2016’s hot ballot measures
More than 160 ballot measures going before voters this year
’Legalize it’: On Election Day, voters in different states get a say on recreational marijuana; hiking the minimum wage; and more.
On Nov. 8, Americans won’t just get their say on Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump: voters will weigh in on a slew of ballot measures concerning everything from the minimum wage to marijuana.
More than 160 statewide ballot measures are certified to go before voters this year in 35 states, according to Ballotpedia. While that’s down from some past years, the issues remain the kinds that stir voters up. Here’s a look at some hot-button measures facing Americans around the country on Election Day.
Minimum wage: There are measures to boost the minimum wage on the ballot in Arizona, Colorado, Maine and Washington. And in a referendum that may prove to be the bane of South Dakota teenagers, voters in that state will decide whether the minimum wage should drop by $1 an hour for workers under the age of 18. Continue reading
Oct
07
Young: Raise the bar? Not if we can’t be rid of TABOR
I’ve got a four-word reason not to vote for Proposition 71, the Nov. 8 ballot issue that would make it harder to amend the Colorado Constitution.
Four words: Taxpayers’ Bill of Rights.
Now, understand: I agree with the sentiment behind Proposition 71. It’s just that voters should fear the likely result: a lifetime of TABOR.
I say this while admitting that proponents of 71 are right. The state constitution is too easy to amend. And TABOR is prima facie evidence of that.
Based on how TABOR has impacted Colorado, the last thing voters should want to do — particularly the voters of Fort Collins — is change the constitution in a way that makes it harder to amend TABOR out of it.
No, don’t make it harder to revoke bad fiscal policy. Give smart fiscal policy an even chance to win.
TABOR, approved by voters in 1992, is not just bad policy, it’s the worst policy Colorado voters ever conjured. Its spending limits impede lawmakers from making the most fundamental policy decisions, whether they involve highways or schools, water or the environment.
When bad economic times hit, state services get clobbered. When good times come around, those services are prevented from reclaiming what ground they lost. TABOR is to blame.
TABOR causes the state to do crazy things like ask voters for permission to spend money they’ve authorized. Right now Fort Collins voters are being asked that very thing. Continue reading
Aug
06
Hate Big Government? Crush New Smoking Taxes
In 2013, Coloradans overwhelmingly defeated Amendment 66, which would have been a $1 billion annual tax increase. The politicians wanted this tax increase, but the voters said no by a margin of 66-34. Thanks to TABOR, they had to ask us. We said politely declined.
This November, we will have the opportunity to vote on Amendment 69, which would create a single-payer health plan in Colorado at the cost of a new 10% payroll tax. It’s been widely panned, even by the Democrats, including US Senator Michael Bennet.
Jul
23
Blake: “Decline to sign” campaign is first of its kind
Colorado has never seen an advertising and public relations campaign like it: Trying to stop an initiative before it gets to the ballot.
The campaign urging citizens to “think before you ink” is being sponsored by advocacy groups financed by the oil and gas industry. It is aimed at a couple of pending proposals that would severely restrict drilling in Colorado.
Proposition 75 would grant local governments the power to regulate, even effectively ban, drilling for oil and gas. Prop 78 would require that new oil and gas wells be at least 2,500 feet from occupied structures — a restriction that the industry claims would ban new wells from 90 percent of the land in the state.
We’re not likely to find out whether the campaign has worked or not until petitions are turned in by the Aug. 8 deadline.
But the campaign is already being blamed in part for the failure of an unrelated anti-TABOR initiative which was withdrawn this week by its sponsors. It would have permitted the state government to keep revenues collected above the spending limits imposed by the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights for the next 10 years. Instead of returning the money to taxpayers, the state would spend it on public education, transportation and mental health.
Backers of Prop 117 were “unable to raise the large amount of money necessary to gather enough signatures to qualify” for the ballot, Lisa Weil of Great Education Colorado told the Denver Business Journal.
Maria Garcia Berry, a political consultant who had been helping Weil and others promote 117, told me its death was “collateral damage” inflicted by the oil and gas industry’s campaign urging citizens to look more closely at the anti-drilling initiatives now circulating.
But that’s not all, she said. The oil and gas industry has effectively driven up the cost of collecting signatures by “conflicting out” just about every major signature gathering company in Colorado — Black Diamond Outreach, Kennedy Enterprises, Taylor Petition Management, to name a few. They’ve been reserved by the drilling industry or being used to circulate other initiatives it likes, such as Prop 96, which would make it more difficult to pass a state constitutional amendment.
Someone at Pac/West Communications, an Oregon-based firm retained by the oil and gas industry, dreamed up the idea of running TV ads urging citizens to think twice before signing a petition. If successful, it would reduce general election expenses considerably but since the industry has spent so many millions on PR already, it might hardly notice.
“Professional signature gatherers are hired guns who get paid when you sign their petition,” begins the latest TV spot. “Every signature is money in their pocket, which explains the effort to ban oil and natural gas development here.” Continue reading
Jul
20
Colorado Priorities shelves ballot initiative to curb Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights
PUBLISHED: | UPDATED:
Organizers have shelved a ballot initiative to loosen the grip of Colorado Taxpayer’s Bill or Rights on the state’s ability to fundschools, transportation, mental health and senior services.
The executive committee of the Colorado Priorities campaign suspended the effort Monday night. The measure would have needed the signatures of at last 98,492 registered voters by Aug. 8 to get on the November ballot.
TABOR sets a revenue cap based on population and inflation. Everything over that must be refunded to taxpayers under the constitutional amendment passed by voters in 1992. Initiative 117would have allowed the state to keep that revenue.
Jul
20
Ballot campaign to suspend Colorado’s TABOR revenue caps ends
ED SEALOVER | DENVER BUSINESS JOURNAL
Dan Ritchie, one of the leaders of the Building a Better Colorado initiative
DENVER BUSINESS JOURNAL – Concerned about ballot fatigue and suffering from a lack of fundraising, organizers of the Colorado Priorities campaign to pass a statewide de-Brucing ballot initiative blunting the impact of the state’s Taxpayer Bill of Rights ended their efforts for the 2016 election on Tuesday.
The proposal would have allowed the state government to keep any revenue it collected above the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights limit over the next 10 years and put it to prescribed uses — at least 35 percent toward education, at least 35 percent toward transportation and anything else toward mental-health and senior services.
Doing so would have eliminated the possibility of TABOR refunds that otherwise would go to statewide taxpayers when revenues exceed the caps.
However, organizers said they became increasingly worried about getting their message out during an election that could feature as many as 10 other ballot initiatives, as well as presidential and U.S. Senate races in this state.
Read more at the Denver Business Journal: http://bit.ly/29WUagr
Jul
20
TABOR timeout ballot measure won’t go to voters this year
A group trying to convince voters to hit the pause button on the state’s Taxpayer Bill of Rights, which limits government spending, has officially called it quits.
The effort would have been what Coloradans call a “de-Brucing,” named as such because the architect of TABOR is an anti-tax folk hero named Douglas Bruce. (Fun fact: He’s sitting in prison right now on charges that stem from a previous bust for tax evasion.)
Backed by a group called Colorado Priorities, the ballot measure would have asked voters in November if they wanted to grant the state government permission, for 10 years, to retain tax money that flowed over TABOR-mandated revenue caps. TABOR currently requires any revenue generated over projected limits to go back to individual taxpayers in the form of refunds.
If voters approved the measure, that money would instead have gone specifically toward transportation, education, mental health and senior services.
Colorado Priorities would have had to gather nearly 100,000 valid signatures in Colorado to get their proposal on the ballot. Petitioners were asking voters for their John Hancocks as recently as last week. The ballot measure grew out of an initiative called Building a Better Colorado, a bipartisan group of state leaders who held meetings around Colorado to determine what measures to try and put to voters this year. Continue reading
Jul
20
Ballot campaign to suspend Colorado’s TABOR revenue caps ends
Concerned about ballot fatigue and suffering from a lack of fundraising, organizers of the Colorado Priorities campaign to pass a statewide de-Brucing ballot initiative blunting the impact of the state’s Taxpayer Bill of Rights ended their efforts for the 2016 election on Tuesday.
The proposal would have allowed the state government to keep any revenue it collected above the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights limit over the next 10 years and put it to prescribed uses — at least 35 percent toward education, at least 35 percent toward transportation and anything else toward mental-health and senior services.
Doing so would have eliminated the possibility of TABOR refunds that otherwise would go to statewide taxpayers when revenues exceed the caps. Continue reading
Jul
20
Backers Pull Ballot Measure That Would Have Put TABOR On Pause
Backers Pull Ballot Measure That Would Have Put TABOR On Pause | CPR
Colorado Priorities, a group backing a ballot measure that would have eased a revenue cap on state government, announced Tuesday that it has suspended its campaign.
The measure would have temporarily suspended refunds to taxpayers, as the Taxpayer Bill of Rights — or TABOR — requires when revenue collection outpaces population growth and inflation. The group says that revenue is needed elsewhere, especially in the state’s school and transportation systems.
Colorado Priorities’ executives cited a crowded ballot in their decision to stop their campaign.