Colorado voters put the state on sound fiscal footing yesterday, using the escape clause of their famous Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights to fix TABOR’s worst feature. It was a vote of confidence for the state political leadership, which must now return the favor with tax and spending discipline in the years just ahead.
Referendum C released the notorious TABOR “ratchet” that threatened to reduce state services to the sour tune of hundreds of millions of dollars a year. College and parks funding was at risk along with transportation projects – all this even as Colorado’s treasury overflowed with unspendable surpluses.
Referendum C was a five-year timeout from TABOR’s most Byzantine provision. The companion Referendum D, which would authorize a $1.2 billion transportation bonding program, see-sawed through the evening.
Whatever D’s fate, passage of C was a tremendous accomplishment for the bipartisan statehouse coalition that forged the measure last May. We congratulate Gov. Bill Owens, House Speaker Andrew Romanoff and Senate President Joan Fitz-Gerald, who crafted the compromise measures they billed as the Colorado Economic Recovery Act. In the end, 72 legislators – 53 Democrats and 19 Republicans – voted for the package.
That coalition, buttressed with outstanding business, labor and community leaders, held firm even as millions of dollars of out-of-state money poured into the state from national anti-tax groups. The opponents, including two Republican candidates to succeed Owens, launched a relentless campaign of negative radio and television advertising. They waged an energetic effort but couldn’t match the “ground game” of grassroots supporters – volunteers who festooned lawns and driveways with 100,000 yard signs, walked door-to-door and made personal phone calls to friends and neighbors.
University of Colorado president Hank Brown starred in a pair of television commercials underscoring the importance of higher education for Colorado’s future. Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper jumped into the fray – literally – parachuting from an airplane to dramatize how the “glitch” in TABOR was sending the state budget into a freefall. Owens and his legislative allies – among them Democratic Senate leader Ken Gordon and Republican leader Norma Anderson – did voter education on the fiscal measures across the state.
Now, the legislature and Owens have a clear and simple challenge: Spend the money freed up by the voters wisely.
In the end, this tremendous victory for Colorado was won by the people of Colorado – who studied the issues, chose sides and worked through to Election Day. Now, our elected leaders must show they are worthy of the trust the voters placed in them.
