Colorado’s three living former governors and its current chief executive say they oppose a November ballot initiative that would term-limit state Supreme Court justices and Court of Appeals judges.
In what one former governor called an unprecedented bipartisan appeal, the leaders asked voters Monday to reject Amendment 40, which would force nearly half of the judges and justices off the state’s appellate courts.
“Let me just say it in one word. This is a terrible amendment. This is not just a bad idea, it is a terrible amendment,” said former Democratic Gov. Roy Romer. “The system we have in Colorado is one of the best in the nation in terms of the checks and balances of how a judge is chosen. It’s a very good system.”
Joining Romer at a news conference in the state Capitol were former Democratic Gov. Dick Lamm and two Republicans, Colorado Attorney General John Suthers and House Minority Leader Mike May. Suthers said he spoke for himself and GOP Gov. Bill Owens. May said he spoke for himself and John Vanderhoof, a Republican governor from 1973 to 1975.
John Andrews, a former Colorado Senate president and chairman of the group pushing Amendment 40, said the gathering was a “group of political insiders and lawyers claiming we don’t need any additional checks and balances on political insiders and lawyers.
“The political establishment rallies around a discredited status quo. No surprise there,” he said.
Amendment 40 would allow the justices and Court of Appeals judges to remain on the bench a maximum of 10 years. It would make the justices face a retention vote every four years, instead of every 10. The amendment would also make the appeals court judges face a retention vote every four years instead of every eight.
May said he believes the initiative strikes at American democracy.
“I think it is particularly important for those of us who call ourselves conservative Republicans, who have a tradition of respect for the Constitution and the founding fathers, … not to vote for an amendment that undermines the very doctrine that we hold dear to us,” May said.
Suthers said he has not hesitated to criticize certain court decisions, but Amendment 40 would hurt “the quality, the independence and impartiality of our appellate courts.
“I have concluded that it does nothing to enhance judicial accountability and would … undermine judicial independence,” Suthers said. “Both so-called conservative judges and liberal judges would be subject to term limits. Bad judges might be off the bench sooner but so would good judges.”
Amendment supporters say term limits are necessary because they will increase accountability of the judges and limit abuses of power in the judiciary, according to the Limit the Judges website.
In their statements, Owens and Vanderhoof criticized the amendment, Owens saying it would seriously impair doing business in Colorado and Vanderhoof calling the amendment a “giant step backward. The proposed constitutional amendment puts partisan politics right back into Colorado’s courts.”
Lamm said the most important fact was that all of Colorado’s living former governors and the current governor are “unanimous that this is a bad idea.
“You do not want to vote for something where you are going … to take (out) five of your seven sitting Supreme Court justices and seven out of your 19 appellate court justices,” Lamm said. “Institutions need continuity.”
Staff writer Howard Pankratz can be reached at 303-954-1939 or hpankratz@denverpost.com.
