Coloradans could find an unprecedented four questions related to a single issue – same-sex unions – on the November ballot as advocates on both sides match moves in a high-stakes political chess game.
Coloradans for Fairness and Equality, which already backs a proposed referendum to grant domestic-partnership rights, filed papers late last week for an initiative to negate one filed two weeks ago aimed at barring recognition of such relationships.
And then there’s Coloradans for Marriage, which continues to collect signatures to let voters decide whether to define marriage as a one-man, one-woman proposition.
If all four get on the ballot – and folks on all sides consider that a very real possibility – voters could find themselves facing democracy in its purest form.
Or grassroots legislating run amok.
“This is further evidence that the initiative and referendum processes in Colorado are on the verge of going out of control,” said Bob Loevy, a political science professor at Colorado College. “It’s becoming too easy for the politically motivated who have some money available to get their pet issue on the ballot.
“But in a way,” he added, “it’s marvelously democratic.”
Colorado already had raised some eyebrows because it could become the first state to put a marriage amendment and domestic partnerships on the same ballot.
Then state Rep. Kevin Lundberg, R-Berthoud, joined with Colorado Springs businessman Will Perkins to launch an initiative designed to ban domestic partnerships.
To meet the deadline for filing initiatives for the fall election, Coloradans for Fairness and Equality quickly drafted an antidote and filed it Friday, “just as the door slammed,” communications director Sean Duffy said.
“The whole idea is that if Perkins gets on the ballot, we needed some potential protection on that thing passing,” Duffy said.
Lundberg, whose effort hasn’t yet begun to collect the nearly 68,000 signatures needed to get on the ballot, said gay-rights advocates were trying to confuse voters.
“I think it’s muddying the waters with this fourth question,” Lundberg said, “but if it’s there, then it’s up to the people. That’s the real point. The people of Colorado need to sit down and settle this issue.”
The tactics reflect an emerging political reality in Colorado, Loevy said.
“What we’ve learned,” he explained, “is you’ve got to take initiatives seriously. If you don’t raise money, mount a campaign and hire public-relations personnel, they’re likely to slip through, and you’ve lost a lot of ground.”
Gay-rights supporters claim the Lundberg-Perkins effort is designed to confuse voters, and they plan to watch closely to see if it gains traction before determining how hard to pursue its countermeasure.
“It’s like a poker game,” Duffy said. “We had to do something that would at least allow us to call the bet.”
Coloradans for Marriage, a coalition of religious organizations backing the marriage amendment, has distanced itself from the skirmish over domestic partnerships.
“That’s not our debate,” said Jon Paul, the group’s executive director.
Colorado Springs-based Focus on the Family, one of the primary forces behind the marriage amendment, considers the latest initiative a distraction, said state policy analyst Jim Pfaff.
“Anything that takes away from the primacy of marriage is confusing the most significant issue we need to be focusing on in society now,” he said.
Meanwhile, supporters of domestic-partner benefits for same-sex couples unveiled a $1.2 million television ad campaign that hit the airwaves Tuesday.
The two locally produced ads will run for seven weeks and aim to educate voters about rights sought by same-sex couples, such as the ability to be part of medical decisions involving their partners.
One spot depicts a man in a hospital corridor shut off from his partner’s room. Another simply zooms in on a baby while a voiceover explains some of the rights denied a person “born gay.”
Both ads appeal to voters’ innate sense of fairness, Duffy said.
Paul of Coloradans for Marriage said his group hadn’t planned to run television ads this early in the campaign but will make its push closer to the election.
