Category Archives: Colorado Legislature

Mar 02

Blake: Funding transportation needs adds fuel to the fire

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Blake: Funding transportation needs adds fuel to the fire

March 1, 2016 4:50 PM· By Peter Blake

File photo: Todd Shepherd

File photo: Todd Shepherd

If you are looking for an opportunity to pay higher taxes, this is your year.

Already on Colorado’s 2016 ballot is a single-payer health plan that would boost the state income tax rate to 14.63 percent, highest in the nation.

On its heels comes a planned initiative sponsored by the Colorado Contractors Association, which wants more money to build roads and mass transit projects.

Not by increasing the state gasoline tax, now 22 cents a gallon, but by increasing the state sales tax, now 2.9 percent, by up to three-quarters of a cent.

The final figure has yet to be determined, said Bill Ray, spokesman for the planned initiative. The organizers have until March 25 to propose their final ballot language.

They are working backwards from a goal of raising $500 million to $600 million more per year, which under the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights (TABOR) has to be listed on the ballot question. They will consider the state’s current revenue stream and then figure out how much higher the tax rate must be to raise the money.

If taxes are a must, user-pay levies are generally considered the fairest. Those who drive their cars over the roads pay their taxes at the pump. Those who don’t drive don’t have to pay.

But earlier polling by the CCA determined that an increase in the gasoline tax would be “roundly rebuffed” by voters, said Ray.

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Feb 29

Colorado AG: hospital provider fee OK as an enterprise fund; change could help with road funding

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Colorado Attorney General Cynthia Coffman issued a formal legal opinion today that says the Legislature can convert the state’s hospital provider fee into an enterprise fund as a way to boost available tax money for road improvements and education.

In an unusual move, Coffman’s opinion backs Democrat Gov. John Hickenlooper’s position rather than her Republican legislative leaders on the controversial issue.

Cynthia Coffman, Colorado attorney general

Cynthia Coffman, Colorado attorney general

The question posed was whether the General Assembly could establish an enterprise fund with the hospital provider fee revenues and have it be exempt from revenue limitations of the Taxpayers’ Bill of Rights (TABOR).

Coffman wrote in an opinion released today that there are three considerations that determine an entity’s status as a government-owned business, which is one of the requirements for establishing enterprise funds under statute. An enterprise fund has to:

  • Lack the power to tax;
  • Provide government services in exchange for involuntary fees levied on service recipients; and
  • Be financially distinct from its parent agency.

“Today’s formal opinion concerning Colorado’s Hospital Provider Fee is a thoroughly researched legal analysis based on the language of the constitution and informed by Colorado court interpretations of TABOR,” Coffman said in a statement. “It answers a narrow legal question and outlines the minimum requirements under current law to create a ‘government-owned business’ under TABOR.” Continue reading →

Feb 17

Colorado Senate president rebuffs legal opinion on hospital fee, road funding

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Colorado Senate president rebuffs legal opinion on hospital fee, road funding

Feb 16, 2016, 5:23pm MST

Ed Sealover Reporter Denver Business Journal

A new bipartisan legal opinion regarding the constitutionality of a plan to boost Colorado transportation funding has failed to move Republicans in the state Legislature on the issue.

That makes it appear increasingly likely that House and Senate leaders will be unable to agree on a solution to what Gov. John Hickenlooper has called one of the most pressing problems in this session.

Bill Cadman

Colorado Senate President Bill Cadman points on Jan. 6, 2015 to an oversized copy of a… more

Ed Sealover | Denver Business Journal

The plan involves excluding the state’s hospital provider fee from revenue limits set by the Taxpayer Bill of Rights, or TABOR, as a way to create more room in the general fund for transportation and education spending.

Senate President Bill Cadman, R-Colorado Springs, said Tuesday that he gives no credence to an opinion issued last week by Jon Anderson and Trey Rogers, who served respectively as legal counsels for former Republican Gov. Bill Owens and former Democratic Gov. Bill Ritter.

The Anderson-Rogers opinion stated, in contrast to one issued in December by the nonpartisan Office of Legislative Legal Services (OLLS), that turning the hospital provider fee into an enterprise fund — thereby excluding it from TABOR’s terms — would be constitutional because the fee serves the business purpose of helping hospitals defray their cost of providing patient care.

Cadman, however, said that the only reason that the attorneys produced the opinion is because they were paid to do so, though he did not identify any groups that may have funded the effort. Continue reading →

Feb 12

Lawyers for two ex-Colorado governors say Hickenlooper hospital plan is legal

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Lawyers for two ex-Colorado governors say Hickenlooper hospital plan is legal

Corey Hutchins
February 11, 2016 Just In 1 Comment

Lawyers for two ex-Colorado governors say Hickenlooper hospital plan is legal 

As Coloradans wait for an opinion from Republican Attorney General Cynthia Coffman over what’s become the biggest political debate in Colorado, two former executive branch lawyers are weighing in with their own conclusion.

At issue is whether it would be constitutional to reclassify a billion dollar hospital program so money generated from it will not push general fund revenue over mandated limits under the state’s Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights. Democratic Gov. John Hickenlooper and many Democrats in the legislature want a program called the hospital provider fee redesignated so there’s more money in the budget to fund roads, education and other programs.

In a legal review released today by former attorneys for past governors Bill Ritter, a Democrat, and Bill Owens, a Republican, they say the Hickenlooper plan would be “legally sound and fiscally responsible.”

The lawyers are Jon Anderson and Trey Rogers who worked for Owens and Ritter respectively. They did the legal analysis at the request of a coalition called Fix The Glitch, which is made up of business groups, higher education institutions, and other organizations whose interests stand to lose out.

 

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Feb 12

Bipartisan legal opinion surfaces regarding Colorado’s hospital fee and road funding

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Bipartisan legal opinion surfaces regarding Colorado’s hospital fee and road funding

Feb 11, 2016, 2:56pm MST Updated Feb 11, 2016, 3:53pm MST

Ed Sealover Reporter Denver Business Journal

Former legal counsels for the past two Colorado governors opined Thursday that the Legislature can turn the hospital provider fee into an enterprise fund and create more room in the general fund for transportation and education spending — a development that business leaders hope will convince some Republicans who may be sitting on the fence to back the move for such a change.

The release of the opinion came just hours after Gov. John Hickenlooper told a meeting of the Colorado Municipal League that if he can convince legislators to back his idea about turning the fee into an enterprise fund, he would like to use some of the newly freed revenue stream to sell bonds and raise $4 billion to $5 billion for immediate transportation solutions.

Hickenlooper speaksColorado Gov. John Hickenlooper speaks to a Colorado Municipal League meeting on Feb. 11,… more

Ed Sealover | Denver Business Journal

Republican legislative leaders did not react immediately to either the opinion or to Hickenlooper’s bonding plan.

But Kelly Brough, president and CEO of the Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce, said that GOP leaders to whom she has spoken in favor of the enterprising plan have promised her to keep an open mind. And if the constitutionality of the enterprise plan was the tipping point for anyone to oppose the idea, she thinks the new arguments might be enough to push them the other way.

“For those for whom this truly is a legal issue, it could make a big difference,” Brough said. “Now we have two additional attorneys coming out and saying that they feel that the enterprise fund is legal.” Continue reading →

Jan 21

Federal court hears arguments in ongoing TABOR lawsuit

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A question of standing

By John Frank
The Denver Post

POSTED:   01/21/2016 11:03:15 AM MST

The 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver heard oral arguments Thursday on a key question in the long-running legal battle against Colorado’s Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights.

A three-judge panel must decide, once again, whether a coalition of TABOR critics — led by state Sen. Andy Kerr and House Speaker Dickey Lee Hullinghorst — has standing to challenge the merits of the much-contested constitutional provision approved by voters in 1992. The case is Kerr v. Hickenlooper.

TABOR requires that voters approve all tax hikes — which the lawmakers argue infringes on their power and undermines the state’s republican form of government.

To read the rest of this story, click (HERE):

Jan 21

Johnson: Conservatives, beware of Building a Better Colorado’s spending agenda

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Johnson: Conservatives, beware of Building a Better Colorado’s spending agenda

by on January 20, 2016
Donald E.L. Johnson

Donald E.L. Johnson

Colorado conservatives who want to control spending and taxes in the state should keep a close eye on the bipartisan Building a Better Colorado.

Its mission is pretty clear to anyone who has attended one of its some 20 “summits” that have been held around the state and has read its handouts and website.

Building a Better Colorado is intent on making it easier for politicians to increase spending and raise taxes. That is, it wants to repeal TABOR), which has helped keep spending in check in Colorado since it was passed in the early 1990s.

Further, BABC wants to make it harder to amend the state constitution by requiring a “super majority” of somewhere between a 50 percent to 66 percent majority to amend the constitution. Today, it is as easy to amend the constitution as it is to pass a referendum that creates a new law or set of laws that can be changed by the General Assembly.

 

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Jan 20

Roberts: Colorado can’t balance its budget by ignoring its constitution

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“My legislative duty includes necessarily upholding constitutional requirements.” – Senator Ellen Roberts

We’re past the ceremonial days of the 2016 legislature and the only tasks we must complete in a session, based on the state’s constitution, are to pass the budget and the school finance act. Although a short list, these two pieces of legislation require months of noodling, number-crunching and negotiations. This year will be no exception. The budget touches every essential — and many nonessential — governmental services, and will be the biggest challenge we face over the next 120 days.

In their opening speeches, Gov. John Hickenlooper and House Speaker Dickey Lee Hullinghorst, both Democrats, already assigned blame to the Republicans for budget battles brewing on the horizon, saying there’s only one path to reconciling the mess and that’s with their workaround on the Taxpayer Bill of Rights. Their speeches highlighted the word “compromise,” but in a way that suggested perhaps neither has read the book Getting to Yes. There’s an art to compromise, including listening and incorporating the input of others, something sorely missing here.

It’s important to note that the top 2016 challenge in all U.S. state legislatures is balancing their budgets. Unlike Colorado, more than a dozen states failed to meet their 2015 deadlines to balance their budget. So, while the spending limitations of TABOR and other constitutional requirements are hard to reconcile, it’s not TABOR causing the big squeeze, but, as experienced across the country, the very long lists of state spending that are exceeding available revenue. Continue reading →

Jan 20

Guest Commentary: An unlawful swipe at TABOR on hospital provider “enterprise”

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By Penn Pfiffner
Penn Pfiffner is a former Colorado legislator. He is chairman of the TABOR Committee.

Here’s a bad idea: hide a state government function off-budget and sock citizens with a big tax increase in the doing.

That’s what the Hickenlooper administration wants to do with its proposal to redefine the state’s hospital provider charge as an “enterprise.”

Colorado’s tax system is set up so that in a good economy, taxes are collected at a pace faster than growth in population and inflation. When government over-collects taxes, the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights (TABOR) forces it to return the surplus to taxpayers.

Click (HERE) to read the rest of this story

 

 

 

Jan 20

Court to hear arguments about whether TABOR is constitutional

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Court to hear arguments about whether TABOR is constitutional

Corey Hutchins
January 19, 2016

Lawyers on Thursday will argue their case before a federal judge about why they believe Colorado’s voter-initiated Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights amendment to the state Constitution is, well, a violation of the U.S. Constitution.

Since passed in the early ’90s, the complex law requires, among other things, that voters must approve of any tax increase. It also mandates governments to rebate money to taxpayers if the government takes in more revenue than expected. A Colorado Springs landlord and anti-tax folk hero named Douglas Bruce championed the amendment first in his home city, and then took it statewide in 1992. Since then it’s been the law of the land in Colorado, and has become a perennial political controversy. Continue reading →