You, your friends, your relatives – every U.S. citizen has the First Amendment right to petition the government to change laws under the constitution.
Voters have the chance this fall to decide if the petition process in Colorado needs additional rules.
Amendment 38 would amend the state constitution to allow petitioners to challenge any elected official decision, from school board to special district. It also would allow petitioners an additional year to collect signatures. They currently have six months.
Supporters say it makes rules for petitioning more fair, simple and uniform.
Opponents say Amendment 38 would take away too many government checks and balances and gives petitioners carte blanche over traditional representative government in which elected officials make virtually all decisions.
“It allows petitioners to hold government hostage,” said Bill Ray, a spokesman for Coloradans for Responsible Reform, a group which opposes the measure. “You have, basically, a group of people for their living, their hobby, they petition things on the ballot.”
A Petition Rights Amendment spokesman did not return calls and an e-mail request for comment. Amendment 38 will save taxpayers money, according to the website,
“No candidate can credibly claim to support political reform yet oppose the main vehicle for grassroots political change in Colorado,” Doug Campbell, a proponent, said in a press release posted on the web site.
Political activist Douglas Bruce is a supporter of the Petition Rights Amendment, according to the group’s web site PRA2006.com. Bruce’s Taxpayer Bill of Rights, or TABOR, was passed by voters in 1992, a statewide constitutional amendment that curbed the power of elected officials to raise taxes.
“The real goal of petition haters is to keep us from reforming government,” Bruce said in a letter posted on the Petition Rights Amendment’s web site.
Voters turned down similar petition amendments in 1994 and 1996, Ray said.
