DENVER-
The House tentatively approved a plan Friday that would ask voters to make it harder to change the state constitution by popular vote.
Opponents had asked for more time to make their case and to consider alternatives.
Rep. Al White, R-Winter Park, said his measure (House Concurrent Resolution 1001) would require a three-fifths vote by the voters to change the constitution and a simple majority to change laws.
However, for five years after a voters approved a law, the Legislature would have to come up with a two-thirds vote to repeal it.
The measure still faces an uphill battle. It needs a two-thirds majority on the final House vote to even make it to the Senate.
White said the state constitution has become cluttered with amendments, such as a ban on trapping furry animals, because voters don’t trust lawmakers to leave their laws intact.
House Speaker Andrew Romanoff, D-Denver, said there is no reason to pass a plan this year because it wouldn’t appear on the ballot until 2008.
Romanoff has proposed a plan that would offer voters an incentive to pass laws, rather than constitutional amendments, by requiring fewer signatures to get them on the ballot and by barring lawmakers from making any changes for a number of years.
He said there will be plenty of time next year to put a measure to voters in time for the 2008 general election, the next opportunity lawmakers have to get something on the ballot.
Romanoff said voter concerns that lawmakers would use it to undo protection for limits on state spending could be allayed by grandfathering in all previous constitutional amendments and requiring the same procedure to change them as it did to put them in the constitution.
Senate Minority Leader Andy McElhany, R-Colorado Springs, has said objected to White’s proposal because it would also grandfather in previous constitutional amendments.
He said a much-maligned ethics law approved by the voters last fall still would have passed if a 60 percent supermajority was required.
The ethics law has left many people confused about whether it bars the families of state employees from accepting some college scholarships.
