Rosen: A guide to Election 2006

Friday, October 6, 2006

With fully 14 statewide proposals on your Colorado ballot this election, it's no wonder I've been showered with requests to offer my recommendations. I'm flattered that conservatives are looking for guidance from a trusted source. Liberals, I suspect, want to know my choices so they can vote the opposite way.

First, a disclosure: I've grown increasingly disaffected with the ballot initiative process in our state. It's better in theory than in practice. The presumption is that it enables well-informed voters to circumvent unresponsive legislators and take direct democratic action. Although there have been a handful of worthy ballot initiatives, the reality is that few voters invest the time to become intelligently informed. Hence, too many nice- sounding (but destructive), demagogic and downright nutty issues can be bought to the ballot by well-funded special interests. They succeed or fail based largely on the impressions created by simplistic and misleading 30-second TV and radio ads.

This is democracy at it worst, which is why our Founding Fathers took care to create a constitutional republic instead.

Representative government is far from perfect, but it's still preferable to the excesses and rashness of direct democracy. Our Colorado Constitution is being overwhelmed with too much minutiae better dealt with as statute.

And that's why I'm voting No on Amendment 38: Petitions, which would take us further down this road.

Yes on Amendment 39: School District Spending Requirements. But just barely, and mostly for symbolic reasons. Its intent is to force local school districts to devote at least 65 percent of their budgets to classroom instruction. It won't hurt, but the problems with public education go much deeper than budgets. If it passes, educrats will likely figure out a way to get around it. See Referendum J below.

Yes on Amendment 40: Term Limits for Judges. I favor an independent judiciary, but not judges who want to be independent of the Constitution. We'll lose some good judges to term limits, but the good they do is exceeded by the harm done by bad judges. We'll still get bad judges, but they'll pass through the system before their arrogance grows with seniority.

No on Amendment 41: Standards of Conduct in Government. This is feel-good moralizing. More bureaucracy, meddling and impractical micromanagement in a futile effort to dictate "ethics."

No on Amendment 42: Colorado Minimum Wage. This is bad law, bad economics and has no business in the state constitution. See my column of Sept. 29.

Yes on Amendment 43: Marriage. Marriage is the union of one man and one woman only. Other gender and mathematical arrangements should be called other things. (See Referendum I below.)

Yes on Amendment 44: Marijuana Possession. It's time to decriminalize petty drug offenses. It's a lost cause anyway. Even Clinton smoked the stuff (and I bet he did inhale).

Yes on Referendum E: Property Tax Deduction for Disabled Vets. Only applies to 100 percent disabled veterans. The revenue loss is negligible. It's an appropriate token of our appreciation.

Yes on Referendum F: Recall Deadlines. No big deal. Provides more flexibility in regulating recall elections of state officials.

Yes) on Referendum G: Obsolete Constitutional Provisions. Just a formality. This is periodic, technical housecleaning of obsolete constitutional language.

Yes on Referendum H: Limiting a State Business Income Tax Deduction. Raises the after-tax cost to businesses that employ illegal aliens. Won't do much to stop illegal immigration, but it's a marginal discouragement.

Undecided on Referendum I: Domestic Partnerships. I have no objection, in principle, to a domestic partnership statute that grants official recognition to same-sex unions and provides for things like joint property ownership, debt sharing, inheritance, medical stewardship and hospital visitation. Such a bill was offered in the state legislature and was defeated by Democrats. This referendum goes beyond that to impose requirements on employers and health insurers to award benefits to same sex-couples that may not be extended to opposite-sex, unmarried couples. Some companies voluntarily offer such benefits. I'd prefer a revised version of the proposal eliminating these mandates.

No on Referendum J: School District Spending Requirements. This is a transparent ploy by educrats and teachers' unions to distort the definition of what constitutes "classroom instruction" in order to sabotage Amendment 39 above.

No on Referendum K: Immigration Lawsuit Against Federal Government. This would direct the Colorado attorney general to sue the federal government for enforcement of immigration law, a lame gesture by Democrats to sound tough during the recent special legislative session on immigration reform. Such a hopeless lawsuit would be a waste of time and taxpayer money.

Mike Rosen's radio show airs daily from 9 a.m. to noon on 850 KOA. He can be reached by e-mail at mikerosen@850koa.com.