Owens, 3 former guvs rip plan for judges

Rosa Ramirez, Rocky Mountain News

Published September 19, 2006 at midnight

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Gov. Bill Owens and three former Colorado governors urged voters on Monday to reject a state constitutional amendment that would impose term limits on some state judges.

Owens joined former governors Roy Romer, Dick Lamm and John Vanderhoof in opposing Amendment 40 on the November ballot.

Attorney General John Suthers read a statement by Owens, who was not present at the news briefing, for the bipartisan Vote No 40 coalition. Vanderhoof, of Grand Junction, also was not at the briefing.

"Initiative 40 would seriously impair doing business in Colorado. Swapping out the appellate courts every 10 years would result in inconsistent rulings and would jeopardize the uniform application of the law," Owens' statement said.

Romer said limiting terms of judges to a maximum of 10 years could discourage well-qualified candidates from accepting a seat on the bench.

And Vote No 40 members said Amendment 40 would bring politics into the courtroom, giving future governors the power to replace nearly the entire Supreme Court every 10 years.

Term-limit backers had been working since January to gain support for the idea. Former state Senate president John Andrews, who is heading the campaign for Amendment 40, said the movement gained a major boost when the Colorado Supreme Court in June ruled against the ballot measure that would have denied most state services to illegal immigrants.

Andrews said citizens are increasingly concerned about "judges who abuse their power and seek to rewrite the laws, not simply interpret them."

The measure would limit how many terms state Supreme Court and state appeals court judges could serve.

Those judges are appointed by the governor. They face a retention vote after serving a two-year probationary period. If voters agree they should stay, appellate court judges serve eight-year terms and Supreme Court Justices serve 10-year terms before facing another retention vote.

Under Amendment 40, they could serve only two four-year terms, after the two-year probationary term. All of those judges would be off the bench after serving for 10 years.

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