Discouraging business investment and job growth by approving Amendment 42 trivializes our constitution and is a risk we cannot afford to take.
Colorado’s constitution is the foundation for governing the state. It provides a structure for how we will live, work and prosper. During the last 25 years, the state constitution has been amended 47 times. This easy access to amending the guiding principles of our state is a problem, and it gives the outside world an image of uncertainty and unpredictability in Colorado.
Voters this year are again being asked to add several new amendments to the constitution. One of these, Amendment 42, would increase the Colorado minimum wage and automatically provide annual increases, even if the state’s economy cannot support it.
Amendment 42 requires an immediate 30 percent increase in the minimum wage in January and increases it every year thereafter based on the “inflation rate” as measured by a fictitious “Colorado Consumer Price Index” (CPI). The folks who think our economy should be regulated in the constitution haven’t told voters that there is no Colorado CPI; the only CPI used in the state is based on prices in the Denver-Boulder region. This CPI fails to recognize the economic diversity of the state, but Amendment 42’s requirement would apply to every employer throughout Colorado.
Colorado citizens know we are at an economic crossroads. Competition is stiff, and the economy is fragile. Chambers of commerce, economic development councils and business leaders across the state have carefully considered Amendment 42 and agree that it is the wrong way to address this issue. Locking this economic policy into the constitution and providing automatic increases indexed to an artificial measurement is a bad idea and should be rejected.
The folks pushing Amendment 42 argue that other states have increased the minimum wage without experiencing economic downturns. What they don’t tell you is that other states – states with which Colorado is competing for investment and economic growth – have a lot more flexibility than Colorado would if Amendment 42 passes. They also don’t tell you that many other states that have increased the minimum wage exempt small businesses, teenagers, babysitters and those seeking entry-level jobs, or shield the physically or mentally handicapped from loss of job opportunities when the minimum wage is increased.
Amending the Colorado Constitution is simultaneously too easy and extremely difficult. If Amendment 42 passes, the only way it can be changed is through another constitutional amendment, a long process that includes legal wrangling, collecting signatures and convincing voters to support the change. Businesses make investment and hiring decisions based on known factors, not hypothetical future political campaigns. Those businesses will have to consider investing in other states, not in Colorado, if the constitutional straightjacket of Amendment 42 is approved.
Last January, the panel created by the University of Denver released the “Principles for Progress: Shaping the Economic Future of Colorado.” In this report, a statewide panel of business and civic leaders researched the state’s fiscal circumstances and proposed comprehensive changes. Of significance is one recommendation that says, “One of the most serious issues facing Colorado is the practice of making fiscal policy by public referenda through amendments to the Colorado Constitution.” According to the panel, such a system of public votes “is a haphazard approach where citizens are asked to make major fiscal decisions in isolation, based on one-sided ‘facts’ provided by proponents and opponents.”
The panelists recommended that the state constitution “be reserved for broad statements of policy, with procedural details placed in statutes.” Simply said, fiscal limits must not be placed in the constitution. Discouraging business investment and job growth by approving Amendment 42 trivializes our constitution and is a risk we cannot afford to take.
The folks pushing Amendment 42 did not ask the General Assembly to address the minimum wage. They did not consult with elected officials, business leaders or employees. Instead, they are asking that we believe that they know more about economic policy than the thousands of business owners and consumers who will be asked to pay the bill. Amendment 42 is wrong-headed, lacks any relationship to the real world or Colorado’s real economy and should be defeated.
Tom Clark is executive vice president of the Metro Denver Economic Development Corp., an affiliate of the Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce.
