The Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights is under attack. For at least a decade, Democrats in the Colorado legislature — backed by the Colorado Supreme Court in erroneous rulings and occasionally supported by faithless Republicans — have thwarted some of the protections afforded to Coloradans by the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights.
Typically, these successful assaults against TABOR have come from taxes disguised as “fees.” In fact, this past legislative session Democrats even proposed financing a paid family leave program with a payroll tax (like the Social Security tax) that they would again have labeled a “fee.” (This legislation is likely to return next session.)
But this year’s attack — Proposition CC, put on the ballot by the Democrat-controlled General Assembly and backed by Gov. Jared Polis (D) — is particularly troublesome. Recall that the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights was passed in 1992 and provides two essential protections for Coloradans. First, the amendment requires a vote of the people to raise taxes (unless legislators call it a “fee,” as discussed).
Colorado has awarded $7.6 million in Enterprise Zone tax credits to Comanche Solar PV in Pueblo County. The 156-megawatt Comanche solar array, shown here on Jan 20, 2019, is the largest solar project in the state of Colorado. (Mike Sweeney, Special to The Colorado Sun)
A Colorado Sun analysis of $223 million in tax credits awarded from 2013 to 2018 found that the state is often doling out taxpayer dollars without much evidence that each tax credit is producing economic activity that wouldn’t have occurred otherwise
UPDATE: According to Lawrence Pacheco, spokesman for Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser, the state filed a motion on July 30 to extend the deadline until Sept. 4 to request the entire full Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals hear the case. The request was granted on Tuesday.
“The Attorney General has said he will defend the constitution and that’s what he will do,” Pacheco said by email Thursday morning.
Complete Colorado attempted to get hold of Weiser through Pacheco before the story published; however, Pacheco did not return phone calls or email requests until after the story published. Weiser was also aware prior to publication that Complete Colorado was attempting to get hold of him through a series of Tweets with Complete Colorado.
Regardless, Complete Colorado regrets the original error.
DENVER — Although he campaigned on a promise to defend the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights (TABOR) despite his personal opinion of the nearly three decades old constitutional amendment, Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser made his first move in the opposite direction by letting a deadline pass to argue an ongoing TABOR case in federal court.
Weiser had until Tuesday to ask that the entire circuit court hear the case after a 3-judge panel from the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a lower court’s ruling. The lower court had ruled that local governments do not have the right to sue.