Proponents of Amendment 38 note that over the past decade, the state legislature passed more than 4,000 laws but citizens successfully initiated only 14.
So what’s the problem? Isn’t that the whole purpose of representative government?
Amendment 38 would make it easier for citizens to put statutory and constitutional changes on the ballot, at all levels of government. This sounds like a good idea – but it isn’t.
We elect legislators (and county commissioners and city council members) to consider problems and then decide what should be done. This is representative government.
It requires these legislators to come up with ideas and examine them thoroughly to see if they’re any good. The legislators, representing two major political parties (so far, anyway; there may be others someday) and many more points of view argue over whether this idea or that is worth anything at all.
Most of the time these diverse personalities, with their diverse philosophies, decide that some of this and some of that might work, and so they put the pieces together, add some words and remove others and pass a bill. More often than not, the governor signs it, and it becomes law. Basic civics. Representative government.
Sometimes this solves the problem, and sometimes it doesn’t. But at least the problem has had a thorough airing. And the process has a rational rhythm to it, even though sometimes it’s not pretty.
Because it can be un-pretty, and petty and partisan and even futile, it’s no surprise that the legislative process has fallen into disrepute. But it does benefit from the competition of ideas. Debate and disagreement create a realistic laboratory for how well an idea will work.
The problem with initiatives is that the people who draft them don’t have a wide range of views. They start and end on the same page. They’re all grinding the same ax the same way. They don’t see the problems that an opposition bloc loves to point out. Too often, the things the proponents have overlooked don’t become apparent until the laws go into effect.
Only 21 states have granted their citizens the right to go directly to the ballot, bypassing the legislature, when they want to change state laws. Eighteen allow citizens to initiate changes to the state constitution. Colorado permits both, one of only 15 states to do so (only 14, if you consider the Massachusetts requirement that statutory initiatives go to the legislature first).
In Colorado, the legislature’s statutory changes over the past decade outnumber citizens’ statutory changes by more than 300 to 1. But, that’s the legislature’s job.
The figures on constitutional amendments are much closer. For every five constitutional amendments successfully proposed by the legislature, three have passed after being put on the ballot by citizens. Every constitutional amendment requires voter approval, whether it’s initiated by citizens or referred by the legislature.
If anything, the deliberative difference is more stark when it comes to constitutional amendments. Citizen activists prefer constitutional amendments because the legislature can’t change them without getting voter approval. A statutory change invites legislative “fixes.” It’s no surprise, then, that a constitutional amendment is the preferred vehicle of the committed activist.
The state constitution is too long already, around six or seven times the size of the U.S. Constitution. It has more nitpicking rules than broad principles.
More and more, it seems the best course is to vote no on all initiatives, especially those that amend the constitution. They tend to be poorly thought out, and they’re almost impossible to get rid of. Or, perhaps give serious thought to only those initiatives that remove something from the constitution or the statutes. If they add something, just say no.
Fred Brown (punditfwb@aol.com), retired Capitol Bureau chief for The Denver Post, is also a political analyst for 9News.
