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Colorado's direct democracy about to get a major test

Rocky Mountain News

Published August 6, 2008 at 12:05 a.m.

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The postal service may need to add temporary workers just to handle delivery of the massive blue books and ballot packets Colorado voters will receive before November's election.

As many as 19 measures are likely to qualify for the statewide ballot, not to mention local initiatives, legislative races and other contests.

And then there's the presidential election - Colorado will be closely watched as a swing state - and the U.S. Senate battle between Mark Udall and Bob Schaffer, which many expect to be decided by a razor-thin margin.

While outside attention will focus on the presidential and Senate races, the panoply of ballot measures could shape important aspects of Colorado's future for decades to come. At a minimum, November's election will provide one of the state's busiest exercises in direct democracy since 1912, when Coloradans considered 32 statewide questions.

There's a temptation to predict that putting so many measures on a single ballot will simply overwhelm voters. And that as a matter of reflex or principle, the people will reject all of them.

Nice idea. But there's no recent evidence supporting it. Veteran political consultant Rick Reiter, who ran the successful 2004 campaign for Referendum C and is in charge of this year's campaign opposing Gov. Bill Ritter's scholarship proposal, says the notion that voters will lash out in frustration against all ballot measures is an urban legend. Voters have shown a willingness to sort through lengthy ballots and make choices that often surprise.

For instance, 2002 is often cited as a year voters rejected ballot measures wholesale. Recall the "millionaires' amendments" - ballot measures underwritten by wealthy sponsors dealing with election day registration, mandatory mailings of absentee ballots, eliminating caucuses to nominate candidates and bilingual education.

All four amendments lost. But others passed, including Amendment 27, a tough campaign finance reform measure that won 2-to-1, as did measures setting qualifications for coroners and eliminating obsolete laws.

In 2006, 14 separate statewide measures were on the ballot - seven amendments and seven referendums. Half passed, including the infamous "ethics in government" measure, Amendment 41, and the troubling Amendment 42, which put the state's minimum wage on an inflation escalator.

This year's ballot will tackle a fascinating range of issues. Among them will be an anti-abortion measure defining "personhood." Dueling issues dealing with racial preferences in state hiring and university admissions. An initiative raising casino betting limits. A sales tax hike to fund services for the developmentally disabled. Two questions affecting severance taxes from oil and natural gas production. An initiative repealing the education-spending inflator in Amendment 23 and lifting state spending limits.

The ballot measures drawing the most media attention, however, revolve around organized labor. The two amendments that will rankle unions the most would outlaw all-union workplaces where everyone is forced to pay dues and ban governments from deducting dues from employee paychecks.

Those measures will duke it out with four union-sponsored initiatives, including one mandating companies with 20 or more employees to provide medical coverage and another imposing tougher sanctions against corporate fraud.

None of these are simple issues, and voters will have to look behind the campaign slogans if they want to understand their true significance. But then that's something Coloradans have been doing, more or less successfully, for nearly 100 years.

Comments

  • August 6, 2008

    12:28 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    jacka writes:

    YES on Amendment 47 for principled economic growth.

    Amendment 47 provides: economic development; equal workplace rights for private sector Coloradans; and brings Colorado a sustainable and fair labor policy.

    In fact, Right-to-Work states have better workforces and lower costs of doing business.

    Amendment 47 stops: forced union dues and forced union fees; unequal workplace protections; and forced unionism as a condition of employment.

    Amendment 47 will curb corrupt Union influence in Colorado politics.

    Amendment 47 is a fair, sustainable and progressive policy.

  • August 6, 2008

    12:31 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    jacka writes:

    "The ballot measures drawing the most media attention, however, revolve around organized labor. The two amendments that will rankle unions the most would outlaw all-union workplaces where everyone is forced to pay dues and ban governments from deducting dues from employee paychecks. "

    So true, YES on 47.

  • August 6, 2008

    6:45 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    VVVV writes:

    Just imagine how many we would have if the legislature actually thought enough of the voting public to ask us, as is required by TABOR, to increase taxes, instead of trying every end run they can think of to increase taxes without our say. Leave it to a bunch of lawyers to think their thinly veiled semantics debates about fees are actually more intelligent than the average voter, even in one of the most educated states in the country. What they don't realize is we elect people because they are dumb enough to go into politics, not because we think they are smarter than us. Dumber people are less likely to get away with the corruption they all dive into.

  • August 6, 2008

    7:35 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    BikerChick writes:

    ..
    Vote YES ON PROP-100 in Denver;

    Strict Law-and-Order is much, much better than reckless anarchy.

    The survivors and families of those murdered and maimed by criminals who operate a motor-vehicle in Colorado without benefit of driver license, proper insurance, and-or valid license plates are quietly weeping in the dark - each and every day.

    How many ?

    More than 100,000 in Colorado today are crying in grief. Frosty Wooldridge often writes on that subject in the DPO Neighbors blogs.

    We must stop the carnage and clamp down on errant drivers who flaunt the laws. The victims are the innocents harmed or killed by the goof-balls. Confiscate the vehicles and incarcerate the drivers. Tough Love will send the proper message.

    Vote YES ON PROP-100 in Denver.
    ..

  • August 6, 2008

    4 p.m.

    Suggest removal

    Konyok writes:

    So, with paper ballots in Denver this is going to be hellish.
    Look for mass confusion and endless recounts ...
    Back to the future!

  • August 6, 2008

    8:24 p.m.

    Suggest removal

    woodwose writes:

    The ability of groups to gather signatures from ordinary citizens to get an initiative on the ballot is key to a successful functioning democracy. In these days of corrupt politicians using comprehensive census data and complicated number-crunching routines to draw districts that allow them to select their voters, sometimes ballot initiatives are the only tool that citizens can use to reign in the so-called "public servants" who are supposed to serve them.

    You only need to look at the New York State legislature to see a completely dysfunctional political entity, that because of the inability of it's citizens to take control via ballot initiatives is irredeemably locked into an endless cycle of corruption and abuse.

    Also ballot initiatives can be used to allow ALL citizens to register their opinion on issues that our gutless politicians find too controversial to address. Amendment 46 is a perfect example. Our legislators and governor are too cowardly to stand up for something that every American should demand: a society devoid of preferential treatment for some people based on their race, sex, creed or sexual orientation. So because of the initiative process everyone now has an opportunity to vote on it.

    And yes, there are thuggish groups like Colorado Unity and By Any Means Necessary that have employed fascist intimidation techniques to try to prevent the signatures from being gathered for Amendment 46. And yes, these groups are abusing the initiative process itself to try to torpedo Amendment 46 with a "counter initiative" that will nullify it if they both pass.

    The reason they are so frantic is because they know that continued preferences based on what you are, rather than what you are capable to, are not supported by the vast majority of voters because they are inherently unfair.

    Despite that the tactics they use are only marginally legal, and morally reprehensible, and despite that they are using the initiative process itself to try to confuse and bamboozle the voters, even if they succeed, the initiative process is too important a tool for the voters not to have.

    Even if it means we have to read through 19 of these things this year when we vote, its worth it, because it keeps the power where it belongs.

    In the hands of the voters.

  • August 6, 2008

    8:44 p.m.

    Suggest removal

    Castle writes:

    Rocky Mountain News writes: "Colorado's direct democracy about to get a major test"

    Does even the RMN not understand that neither the America or the 50 states are not democracys? Not where in the U.S or any of the 50 states will you even see the word "democracy". The US is a Representative Republic, based on law. That's why you see alot of referendums or ballot measures declared un-constitutional, they don't pass the test of Law.

  • August 7, 2008

    9:39 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    enginerd writes:

    The Constitution is supposed to be a framework document that defines the organization of the government, what powers are granted or restricted, how officials are chosen, etc. Details such as Amendment 23's specification on the amount of spending have no business in the Constitution and should be enacted by statute.

    When you get your blue book and read the about the proposed amendments, ask yourself if it belongs in the Constitution or if it could be enacted by statute. Even if you agree with the idea in principle, reject it if they are trying to force something in to the Constitution that could be enacted by statute.

  • August 7, 2008

    12:05 p.m.

    Suggest removal

    Lowtaxequalsfreedom writes:

    Before November the issues will have been sorted through and most people will vote along party lines. Meaning that most people will either voter to expand government and unions or they will vote to limit government and unions.

    Groups like Bell will have a nearly opposite voting recommendation than groups like the I.I.

    It will be fairly simple when the time rolls around.

  • August 7, 2008

    12:11 p.m.

    Suggest removal

    Lowtaxequalsfreedom writes:

    A direct Democracy would allow the people to design the law and Constitution from the ground up with no interface from elected officials. Via telephone voting or computer voting. I am not sure what technology would be used but I do understand that we are nowhere close to a direct Democracy and still very y much resemble a Constitutional Republic. However we are a very strong Democracy via elected officials.

    The Constitution is the checks and balances. We the people make the rule book(constitution) and the politician get to play the game.

    When politicians like Ritter and Romanoff try to design our Constitution for us I become very concerned.

  • August 7, 2008

    5:05 p.m.

    Suggest removal

    Lara writes:

    JackA: HAHAHAHA, amendment 47 is a "progressive policy"?! Have you completely lost your marbles, man?