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Down to business

Top priorities for a new legislative session

The Rocky

Published January 10, 2008 at 12:05 a.m.

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As the state House prepared for business Wednesday at the opening of its 2008 session, a guest who offered the invocation claimed this nation "is in a turmoil like it has never seen before."

What? This bizarre moment was useful, though, as a reminder of the kind of inflated passions and lack of perspective that sometimes find their way into bad legislation.

Let's hope members of the General Assembly confine themselves in the coming months to far more sober language as they discuss the state's real, but hardly apocalyptic, problems. Because there seems to be a growing, healthy consensus that genuine progress can be made in a number of areas that now demand attention.

Among the top priorities, in our view:

Elections. Colorado's primary election is barely seven months away. Given the decision by Secretary of State Mike Coffman to decertify some voting machines in 53 counties - and the uncertainty over whether those devices will eventually be approved - election officials have lost precious preparation and training time. The legislature has got to provide direction so this state doesn't turn into the laughingstock of the nation.

Should Colorado move toward uniform election technology statewide? Is a mail-ballot election for 2008 the only way to avert a disaster at the polls?

We've frequently stated our reservations about all-mail elections, and strongly oppose their adoption on a permanent basis. That said, mail ballots enjoy growing support not only within the Colorado County Clerks Association but with top Democratic lawmakers and the governor. We just hope that before lawmakers make up their minds, they genuinely try to determine whether it's possible to get the existing machines recertified in time to have smooth-running elections this year.

Constitutional reform. Years of talk and no action have left a flawed initiative process intact as well as a constitution in which various provisions work at cross purposes. It's time to reform the process to give citizens an incentive to take initiated statutes, instead of constitutional amendments, to the ballot and to ensure that the amendments get a more thorough vetting.

Senate President Peter Groff evidently agrees. On Wednesday he created a "select committee" to look at how to tackle these matters. The panel will also consider a series of useful ideas from a constitutional commission convened by the University of Denver.

We're also intrigued with an idea by House Speaker Andrew Romanoff for a ballot measure asking voters to temporarily lift the rule that limits constitutional amendments to a single subject. That would be followed by another amendment in 2009 reconciling conflicting mandates in the constitution. But we'd want to see more details before backing any such plan.

Taxes. Last year, Gov. Bill Ritter suggested he might push for a tax increase to create dedicated revenues for health care, transportation or higher education. Now he and legislative leaders seem to have backed away from any notion of a general tax hike, which is a good thing. After all, heath care is likely to be dealt with next year by a new president and Congress, while courts have made independent state action more difficult.

Meanwhile, a significant tax hike for transportation would be a very hard sell, based on past experience. We've suggested that higher registration fees, which the legislature can impose on its own, and possibly an extension of the sales tax to motor fuel would suffice for roads.

The one levy that lawmakers definitely should target for a hike is the severance tax, which delivers much less revenue to Colorado than the severance taxes in neighboring states for similar amounts of production. Those states stockpile severance revenues in huge permanent funds - another practice that Colorado should mimic. Finally, a portion of the new money should be diverted to shore up higher education.

Any lawmaker who read the Rocky's series "Beyond the Boom" would also surely see the necessity of fixing the scandalous way severance taxes and royalties are disbursed - a system that lets the Department of Local Affairs distribute 15 percent of revenues to local governments with scant oversight and elastic criteria.

Education. The priority here, among a host of recommendations, should be Romanoff and state Treasurer Cary Kennedy's proposal to raise as much as $1 billion to repair decrepit schools around the state through innovative use of the Colorado Public School Permanent Fund, which is benefiting from commercial leases and mineral royalties on state lands. In some rural districts, school infrastructure is literally collapsing.

Granted, the priorities we've outlined may not excite some voters, but every one is critical to basic services or long-term good governance. Addressing them would qualify the next few months as a highly productive session.

Comments

  • January 10, 2008

    6:27 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    glowrock writes:

    For once, an editorial by the Rocky I can find myself in complete agreement with. The priorities laid out in this editorial make a lot of sense, and seem to be very bipartisan in nature.

    Good for you, Rocky!

  • January 10, 2008

    9:41 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    vudumom writes:

    You want money for schools? Do what the average family does when money is tight. Sit down and look at where the money is going. Where can you cut money without doing without. For example, if a family is spending $200 dollars a week on groceries and eating out at least 3 or 4 times a week ,there is where money is being wasted. With top heavy administrations running our schools I think this needs to be looked at. How many lunches are the tax payers paying for? How many cell phones?How about looking at personel,do we have too many people doing a one person job?How about reimbursements for gas ,mileage,and other perks in the budget for administrators?Let's look at all the stuff the tax payers have no idea they are paying for for the administrators of our school.Adams 12 has conferences in mountain resorts all expenses paid for 4-5 days and you can bring your family.How much do you think that costs tax payers?Can't they have a conference in one of their schools or headquarters?Stop throwing good money after bad.Start looking at ways you can save money and let the schools actually benefit from the money directly. Stop with the trickle down effect of funding our schools.That is the main problem.
    The money is sent to the administration and by the time it trickles down to the schools they are only getting a small fraction of it after the administration gets their hands on it.