One of the last acts of the Legislature this year was to approve a ballot issue asking voters to tighten the rules on citizens’ initiatives that seek to change the state Constitution.
We join many people — including, no doubt, former Grand Junction state Sen. Ron Teck — in saying, “It’s about time.”
Now the effort must be on persuading voters to approve it.
Teck worked tirelessly during his years in the Legislature to pass a measure aimed a making it tougher to amend the Constitution. And with good reason.
A host of examples in recent years point to the difficulties created by Colorado’s easy initiative system. Here are a few:
✔ The contradictory provisions of the TABOR Amendment and Amendment 23 on public education that continue to wreak havoc with the state budget.
✔ The embarrassment of 2006’s so-called “ethics in goverment” measure, Amendment 41.
✔ This year’s spitting match between labor unions and business interests that could result in a half-dozen measures of dubious necessity on the November ballot.
Teck was never able to muster the two-thirds majority in the Legislature needed to move the measure from the Capitol to the ballot. Rep. Al White, R-Hayden, who worked with Teck on earlier bills, was able to obtain the necessary votes this year.
His measure would raise the number of signatures required to get a constitutional amendment on the ballot. It would also require that a portion of those signatures come from each of the state’s seven congressional districts.
To make the measure more palatable for voters, White’s plan would reduce the number of signatures required for a ballot measure that changes only state law, not the Constitution.
Colorado voters have been asked to make similar changes before. In 1996, they rejected a proposal to require approval by 60 percent of the state’s voters to pass a constitutional amendment. But that was before issues such as the budgetary conundrum created by TABOR and Amendment 23 became so obvious.
Voters this year need to understand the problems that develop when we try to micromanage government through constitutional amendments instead of relying on our elected representatives. They must support White’s plan at the ballot box.
