Category Archives: Editorial

Nov 18

Colorado AG Suthers correct to appeal TABOR decision

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By Rob Natelson

Guest Commentary

Attorney General John Suthers is correct to appeal a federal judge’s decision that allows the anti-TABOR lawsuit to continue.

The case arose when a group of government apologists sued in federal court to invalidate Colorado’s 20-year-old Taxpayers Bill of Rights (TABOR). That measure assures that voters have the final say over most state and local tax increases. The plaintiffs won an unexpected victory last month when Judge William J. Martinez found-despite U.S. Supreme Court precedent to the contrary-that most of their claims were “justiciable” (resolvable in court).

The plaintiffs contend that TABOR leaves Colorado without a “fully effective legislature”-a phrase apparently invented for the occasion. This, plaintiffs say, violates Article IV, Section 4 of the U.S. Constitution. That provision, known as the Guarantee Clause, guarantees to each state a “Republican Form of Government.”

The plaintiffs’ claim, however, is not well-researched. And the background of the Guarantee Clause reveals it to be absurd. Continue reading →

Nov 18

EDITORIAL: TABOR is a Colorado asset

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Oct. 31–Critics are using the 20th anniversary of the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights to bash the voter-approved constitutional amendment as something devastating to our state. They talk as if government budgets and the economy are one in the same. Fund governments more, and we’re good to go. Fund them less, and it somehow amounts to an economic crisis.

Take, for example, comments in a Monday Gazette news story by Wade Buchanan, president of the nonprofit Bell Policy Center. Buchanan explained how TABOR causes a “ratchet effect.” TABOR limits growth in government revenues and spending with a formula that is based on spending in prior years. When recession strikes, government spending and revenues decrease. When the economy recovers, governments are limited by a formula that ties them to recession-era revenues and spending.

Advocates of less government think it’s a brilliant way of achieving their goal. Politicians and bureaucrats tend to hate the ratchet, as it prevents local governments — in jurisdictions where taxpayers have not voted to opt out of TABOR restrictions — from benefiting from economic recovery. Continue reading →

Nov 17

Raison d’être

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The Colorado Taxpayer Bill of Rights (TABOR) Foundation is a resource to educate and inform how TABOR protects Colorado taxpayers from runaway government spending.

Anything posted on this site is not an endorsement of any political cause, party, or group.

Nov 17

Do Citizen Votes on Taxes and Laws Violate the Constitution’s Requirement of a “Republican Form of Government?”

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IP-12-2012 (October 2012) Author: Robert G. Natelson

PDF of full Issue Paper

Introduction: Opponents of popular participation in government have long argued that when a state constitution or legislature permits the people to vote on revenue measures and other laws, this puts the state out of compliance with the U.S. Constitution’s Guarantee Clause: the requirement at all states have a “Republican Form of Government.” Traditionally, their argument has been that the Constitution draws a sharp distinction between a republic and a democracy, and that citizen initiatives and referenda are too democratic to be republican. Recently, a group of plaintiffs sued in federal court, challenging Colorado’s Taxpayer Bill of Rights (TABOR) relying on a variation of this theory.

In this Issue Paper, Professor Rob Natelson, Senior Fellow in Constitutional Jurisprudence and the author of the most important scholarly article on the Guarantee Clause, sets the record straight. Marshaling evidence from Founding-Era sources and from the words of the Founders themselves, he shows that the phrase “Republican Form of Government” permits citizen lawmaking—and that, in fact, most of the governments on the Founders’ list of republics included far more citizen lawmaking than is permitted in Colorado or any other American state. He further shows that the principal purpose of the Guarantee Clause was not to restrict popular government, but to protect popular government by forestalling monarchy.

http://liberty.i2i.org/2012/10/26/do-citizen-votes-on-taxes-and-laws-violate-the-constitutions-requirement-of-a-republican-form-of-government/