The right incentives
Lawmakers want to push activists away from amendments
Rocky Mountain News
Published May 9, 2008 at 12:05 a.m.
State lawmakers nearly let the clock run out before passing Senate Concurrent Resolution 3 - a referendum for the November ballot that would make it more difficult for voters to amend the constitution than to pass a statute.
Though SCR 3 passed the Senate April 21, winning final passage was a close call, coming mere hours before the session adjourned on Tuesday. It was amended twice in the last two days of the session. And a couple of the amendments weakened the measure's likely impact.
Yet once the high-wire act was over, lawmakers still came up with a measure that's worth supporting. It provides incentives for citizen groups to pursue statutes rather than constitutional amendments and yet does so without imposing major barriers to direct democracy.
The idea is to enshrine fewer complex policy matters such as the minimum wage or Amendment 23's education spending ratchet in the constitution, where a another vote of the people is required to make any change.
The incentives take the form of a higher signature threshold for constitutional amendments and a requirement that every amendment's petitions be circulated statewide.
To get a statute on the ballot, petitioners would have to collect signatures totaling at least 4 percent of the most recent vote for governor. That's less than the current requirement for both statutes and amendments, which is 5 percent of the most recent vote for secretary of state.
Placing an amendment on the ballot, by contrast, would require signatures equaling 6 percent of the vote for governor. Moreover, at least 8 percent of the signatures for any amendment would have to be collected in each of this state's seven congressional districts. Currently, there is no similar requirement.
The original version of the bill, which we preferred, mandated that 10 percent of the signatures come from each district.
A more worrisome last-minute change watered down a provision that would protect initiated statutes from legislative meddling. One reason initiative sponsors seem to favor amendments over statutes is that the legislature can tinker with statutes but can't mess with amendments.
To alleviate that worry, the original version of SCR 3 stated that during the first six years any initiated statute is on the books, a two-thirds vote of both houses of the legislature would be required to alter it. The final version of the resolution, however, cut the period to five years. Much less than that, and initiated statutes would barely have any significant protection.
The shorter time frame clearly weakens the incentive for citizen activists to choose statutes over amendments; it would have been better for lawmakers to add a year to a statute's immunity rather than subtract one.
We do think one last-minute amendment made the final product better. It adds a public review of proposed statutes and amendments. Under it, proposed initiatives must be submitted for review by the legislature's legal staff; the General Assembly can call hearings to discuss the measures before they reach the ballot.
The legislature couldn't modify any proposed initiative. But a public review could expose potential weaknesses - or suggest improvements.
SCR 3 could slow the recent tendency to clutter the constitution with policy measures. And it could do that without sapping the vitality of the initiative process. Taken together, they're worthwhile goals, and we hope Coloradans will agree this fall.
Post your comment
Registration is required. Click here to create your free user account, or login below.
Comments are the sole responsibility of the person posting them. You agree not to post comments that are off topic, defamatory, obscene, abusive, threatening or an invasion of privacy. Violators may be banned. Click here for our full user agreement.
Featured
-
Denver turns 150
Read about the city's history, look at old photos and see a list of influential Denverites.
-
Mount Crushmore
Which four Broncos greats should be immortalized on Mount Crushmore? Vote here.
-
Winter Escapes
Your insider’s guide to the copious joys of the coolest season.
-
Rocky Multimedia
The news comes alive in our videos and slide shows. Catch up on what's happening today.
-
Weekend plans?
Figure out things to do this weekend with the help of our entertainment calendar.
-
Season To Share
The Post-News Season To Share campaign provides grants to area nonprofits.
-
The Rocky @ 150 Years
The Rocky was there when Colorado became a state in 1876. Read our coverage.
-
A Dozen on Denver
And the winner is... Robert Ziegler! See the whole fiction series by clicking here.
-
Rocky Mountain Music
Mark Brown blogs on the new Guns N' Roses album
May 9, 2008
7:14 a.m.
Suggest removal
Mike_In_Hartsel writes:
Bull hockey. How about simple changes: no amendments to the state constitution that require spending of any type, no amendments in odd-numbered years, and that a randomly-selected first grade class shall every ten years re-draw the redistricting lines based upon popluation (they certainly will do a better job than the legislature or the courts).
May 9, 2008
8:50 a.m.
Suggest removal
jacka writes:
Hartsel's simplicity enlightening
May 9, 2008
11:30 p.m.
Suggest removal
peterpi writes:
Huh, 16 hours have passed and not one of the usual suspects is screaming about their Divine Right to foul up the state constitution in any fashion they wish.
May 11, 2008
11:09 a.m.
Suggest removal
p_myers661 writes:
Sorry peterpi, I was in the hospital for a while.
How dare the filthy peasants (voters) place laws in the constitution instead of passing statutes that can be worked around or declared unconstitutional before they have a chance to be enforced.
Right on. Those politicians know far better than anyone else that laws should only be the concern of the noble politicians. Looks like they squeaked it out so it might not be an issue during the legislative session. Another midnight lynching of the rights of the voter to limit the power of the politicians. No wonder they love this. They tried to kill the initiative that made constitutional changes possible too. Lucky for us, the people were tired of passing initiatives to place laws on the books only to have our "betters" ignore our intentions and kill or gut such measures in favor of buying votes with tax money. Go ahead, try this one. Let's see if it can pass the same year they are trying to kill TABOR with another initiative.