Castle Rock – With a week left until voters cast their ballots in the biggest issue election in a decade, Gov. Bill Owens urged voters along the Front Range on Tuesday to say yes.
Owens started the day in Colorado Springs on the University of Colorado campus at a rally for the budget measures. He was surrounded, he estimated, by 300 students and faculty.
The governor then headed north to a town hall meeting in Castle Rock where he explained Referendums C and D and took questions.
Later, Owens hit the airways with his pitch during the afternoon drive on a metro-area talk radio show.
“I, as a conservative Republican, wouldn’t be pushing it as hard as I am if I didn’t think … these referenda were vital for Colorado’s future,” Owens said.
Referendum C asks voters to allow state government to keep an estimated $3.7 billion over the next five years that would otherwise be refunded under the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights.
Its companion measure, Referendum D, would use some of the money collected to improve schools, roads and pay off other state obligations through bonding.
During a presentation to about 50 people at a public library in Castle Rock, Owens said the state needs to keep the money to restore cuts made after the state saw revenue drop 16 percent earlier this decade.
Opponents have argued that because the total state budget has grown every year since TABOR passed, there have not been cuts. Owens said they’re wrong. There have been cuts to the general fund, he said.
Owens also fired back at critics who have suggested that a constitutional amendment requiring increased spending on K-12 is to blame. Even if the state didn’t have Amendment 23, Owens said, “that’s only a 10 to 20 percent part of our current fiscal shortfall,” which will be $370 million to almost $500 million next year.
He also leveled criticism at opponents who have suggested that the state spends too much money on undocumented immigrants. He said the state only provides services required by the federal government: K-12 education and emergency care.
“If you defeat C because of illegal immigration … those illegal immigrants are still going to have their legal ability to get exactly what they have today,” he said. “It’s just that the rest of us won’t have as good of roads and won’t have as good of schools.”
Don Russell stopped to listen to Owens after returning a library book. Taking notes during Owens’ speech, Russell said afterward he had wavered on whether to support the issue. But after listening to Owens, he said, “It sounds like something we need.”
“I think I’m leaning more toward a yes.”
Staff writer Chris Frates can be reached at 303-820-1633 or cfrates@denverpost.com.
