Sometimes it takes Colorado voters a long time to latch on to an idea, but once they do, they’re slow to give it up.
Consider the long string of initiatives intended to restrict, or even reverse, government growth. There were at least eight tax-limiting amendments before the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights passed in 1992. But now that TABOR’s on the books, it will be difficult to get voters to turn their backs on it, if history is any guide.
It doesn’t matter if the issue is liberal or conservative. A liberal ballot issue, Colorado’s ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment for women, passed with a 64.3 percent favorable vote in 1972. Opponents tried to repeal that constitutional provision four years later, but 61 percent of Colorado voters still supported the ERA.
A conservative issue, banning public funding for abortions, passed by fewer than 10,000 votes in 1984 – 50.4 approval. An attempt to repeal that ban four years later failed by 265,000 votes; fewer than 40 percent of voters wanted to take the ban off the books.
The big issue on this November’s ballot was put there by the legislature and Gov. Bill Owens. It asks voters to let the state keep revenue it raises from existing taxes for the next five years. Essentially, it’s a “de-Brucing” measure, named for Douglas Bruce, the Colorado Springs anti-tax activist who wrote the TABOR revenue-limiting initiative.
Since TABOR’s passage, there have been 7,829 such elections in local government or special districts to override TABOR limits, with 7,507 – 95.9 percent – winning voter approval. In contrast, the state government has offered 18 ballot issues to override TABOR provisions but only six have been approved. That record suggests the statewide Referendum C may face longer odds than the popular local “de-Brucers,” just as the initial idea of limiting the state’s power to tax had a difficult time.
TABOR passed in 1992 after a long string of tax-limiting initiatives failed. The record goes back to 60 years before Bruce’s amendment passed.
In 1932, a citizen initiative to limit taxation of motor fuel and vehicles lost 2-to-1.
Two years later, in 1934, two anti-tax measures failed. A vote-on-taxes initiative giving the people sole power to approve excise taxes lost, 149,098 to 126,649. Voters also rejected an initiative to limit the gas tax to 3 cents a gallon.
Perhaps emboldened by this, the Colorado General Assembly in 1936 presented a referendum asking voters to approve a state income tax. It passed, but narrowly, with only a 51.2 percent favorable vote.
Then followed a 30-year lull in major tax issues. A generation later, in 1966, citizen activists started circulating petitions again. There were several attempts to either limit taxes or require voter approval for any tax increase.
Eight of them were rejected before TABOR passed in 1992. But each year, they got a little more popular support.
In 1966, voters rejected a property tax limitation initiative, 386,650 to 178,245, or just 33 percent in favor.
A 1972 property tax limitation fared worse. It got only 23.5 percent of the vote.
In 1976, voter approval of taxes got 25.2 percent. There was a second initiative that year to end the sales tax on food. It failed, 639,058 to 406,311, but the legislature later passed a food-tax exemption.
A spending limit in 1978 got 41.3 percent support.
There was another lull, for 10 years, until 1986, when a vote-on-taxes initiative got 37.5 percent.
In 1988, Bruce’s first anti-tax effort got 42.2 percent support. His second, in 1990, got 48.9 percent.
His third effort, TABOR, passed in 1992 with 53.7 percent of the vote – after the eight previous tax-trimming amendments had failed.
But you can’t press your luck. A Bruce effort in 2000 to cut a number of taxes got only 34 percent support. That was the same year that Amendment 23, requiring annual increases in education spending and totally incompatible with TABOR, passed with 52.7 percent support.
Much of this could have been prevented if our great-grandparents had been more prescient. In 1914, Colorado voters rejected a citizen initiative that would have prevented initiatives rejected by voters from appearing on the ballot again for six years.
Fred Brown (punditfwb@aol.com), retired Capitol Bureau chief for The Denver Post, is also a former national president of the Society of Professional Journalists.
