Go to the mobile version of this Web site.

Login | Contact Us | Site Map | Paid archives | Electronic edition | Subscription Questions | Extras

Colorado Constitutional rewrite considered

By Berny Morson, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published February 21, 2009 at 12:05 a.m.

Text size  

More Colorado Government

More stories »

The Colorado Constitution needs major surgery - in the form of a constitutional convention - to untangle conflicting provisions added over the years, some lawmakers say.

Driving consideration of what one legislative leader calls "the nuclear option" are provisions that govern state spending. One amendment limits state spending, while another requires more spending for schools.

"You can't do an algebraic formula," state Rep. Don Marostica, R-Loveland, said of those two provisions, and several others that govern how the state spends its money. "The math doesn't work."

Marostica is a member of the Joint Budget Committee, which drafts the annual state spending bill. He recently sought advice from staff attorneys on whether the legislature can call a constitutional convention limited to financial issues.

Some lawmakers, including Marostica, are wary of calling a convention with unlimited powers to rewrite any part of the Constitution.

Marostica is not sure when the attorneys will get back to him.

The legislature is unlikely to muster the two-thirds vote needed to begin the process of calling a convention, even to revise a limited part of the constitution, several lawmakers said. That's because many members are committed to one or another of the conflicting provisions in the current constitution.

"I don't want to do that," Sen. Dave Schultheis, R-Colorado Springs, said of the possibility a convention would scrap state revenue limits. "It's the only restriction we have on runaway government."

Document is 740 pages

At about 740 pages, the constitution the legislature uses is 27 times as long as the U.S. Constitution.

It includes provisions on everything from trapping fur-bearing animals to medical marijuana.

The provision limiting state revenue, called the Taxpayer's Bill of Rights, was added by voters in 1992. It caps revenue growth by the annual amounts of inflation and population growth and allows tax increases only by referendum.

Amendment 23, added by voters in 2000, guarantees public school funding, in effect carving out an exception to Tabor for K-12 education.

To meet that obligation while honoring the Tabor limits, lawmakers have had to cut other programs. One result has been sharp increases in college tuition over the past eight years as state support declined.

Complicating the problem is a 1994 amendment, added at the urging of legislators, that limits ballot items to a single subject. The idea was to preclude another amendment such as Tabor, which has many parts, but it also precludes any amendment broad enough to untangle the financial mess.

The result is a constitution that prevents lawmakers from managing the budget, said former U.S. Sen. Hank Brown.

"We've got state finances on auto pilot," said Brown, who wrestled with the financial problem during three years as president of the University of Colorado.

Brown has been saying for several years that only a constitutional convention can do the kind of overhaul that can resolve the problem.

Among those ready to proceed is Sen. Al White, R-Hayden, also a member of the budget committee.

'Cleaned up, modernized'

"I'd like to see the constitution cleaned up and modernized and let it function as it's supposed to, because right now, I don't think it does," White said.

"I think the only way to really solve the problem ultimately is to throw the whole thing on the table and let good reasonable people work on it and offer to the citizens of the state of Colorado a new constitution to vote on," White added.

Others are less sure.

Senate President Peter Groff, D-Denver, said he's been "intrigued" since White and former House Speaker Andrew Romanoff raised the idea a few years ago. Groff said he's "leaning in favor, but we would really have to see what it would take."

House Speaker Terrance Carroll, D-Denver, said a convention is "risky" because delegates could go into any part of the constitution.

Carroll said he'd like to look for conventional solutions to the state's problems before invoking what he called "the nuclear option."

Brown said an even harder job than setting up a constitutional convention will be winning voter approval for whatever delegates draft.

Calling a convention

* The legislature, by a two-thirds vote in each house, can ask voters at the next general election whether to call a constitutional convention.

* If voters approve it, the legislature designates a time and place for the convention and provides funding for it.

* Voters would elect 70 delegates, two from each state Senate district. They would draft a new constitution or revise the current one.

* The results would then go to voters for approval or rejection on a date to be decided by the convention.

Comments

  • February 22, 2009

    9:05 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    Lowtaxequalsfreedom writes:

    Why so many soft Republicans on the jbc?

    Face it, these guys just want to increase the size,scope and influence of the state.

    There is no contradictions. They hate to ask the voter because it is a blow to their ego.

  • February 22, 2009

    9:07 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    Lowtaxequalsfreedom writes:

    http://cotaxreform.com/

  • February 22, 2009

    9:09 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    Lowtaxequalsfreedom writes:

    State Constitutions have to be larger than the Federal Constitution.

    Think about it.

  • February 22, 2009

    9:13 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    Lowtaxequalsfreedom writes:

    A representative democracy/republic is pure tyranny. A constitution is the only thing that creates balance.

    The citizens make the rules, the elected officials play the game.