A supermajority too far

Make it 55 percent, not 60, for constitutional amendments

Published April 25, 2007 at midnight

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For a ballot measure that stirred up so little controversy in most quarters last fall, Amendment 41 certainly has lit a fire under the current legislature.

The measure attracted 62-percent support in November. Since then it's become so unpopular that lawmakers have twisted themselves into pretzels trying to devise ways - many of them constitutionally suspect - to skirt its ban on gifts and awards to public employees.

Presumably to prevent future 41s, lawmakers are also moving a resolution forward that would make it more difficult for voters to amend the constitution.

Direct democracy gives voters a powerful check on the excesses of political insiders and other entrenched interests. Still, we're sympathetic to those who argue that the requirement for a simple majority vote makes constitutional amendments too attractive in comparison with initiated statutes, which are no easier to pass.

Unfortunately, lawmakers are pushing a measure that goes too far: House Concurrent Resolution 1001 would hike the required voter majority for amendments to 60 percent, while ballot measures that added or modified statutes would still need a simple majority.

HCR 1001, which passed the full House on Monday, would also require any attempt by the legislature to amend a statute passed by voters to get a two-thirds majority the first five years the statute is on the books. This particular idea we fully support.

The supermajority concept has been around for more than a decade; in 1996, voters rejected a similar measure with a 60-percent requirement. Back then, Referendum A won only 40.8 percent of the vote. Today's voters, however, might be sympathetic to a supermajority requirement for amendments, given the headaches caused by 41.

It's easy to see why sponsors of ballot measures often prefer to push amendments. If voters pass a statute that the political establishment doesn't like, lawmakers can get rid of it. The problem with HCR 1001 is that a 60-percent threshold for constitutional amendments would virtually eliminate the prospect of passing them at all.

The requirement would have doomed most of the prominent amendments (both wise and unwise, in our view) passed in recent decades: the Taxpayers' Bill of Rights; Amendment 23, the school-funding mandate; GOCO, which channeled a portion of lottery proceeds into paying for parks and open space; and Amendment 42, which starting this year puts the state minimum wage on an inflation escalator, just to name a few.

Since 1990, it appears that only four amendments have met the 60-percent threshold: term limits on elected officials, caps on campaign spending (twice). . . and Amendment 41.

A 60-percent barrier is so burdensome that it would stifle grass-roots activism. A supermajority threshold for citizen initiatives should be no higher than 55 percent. Such a requirement would still provide a major incentive for activists and their wealthy backers to opt for statutory initiatives in most cases, but it wouldn't eliminate their option of addressing broader principles of governance with an amendment on the rare occasions when that makes sense.

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