Colorado lawmakers wrapped up the 2008 legislative session Tuesday by passing a ballot measure that would ask voters to make it harder to amend the constitution but easier to change state law.
Most lawmakers agreed there have been too many initiatives changing the state constitution, sometimes at odds with each other.
“The sense of the people in my district is that we have a constitutional system with infirmities that need to be corrected,” said Rep. Bob Gardner, R-Colorado Springs. “This proposal is not us trying to tell the people of Colorado; it is us responding to the people of Colorado.”
Senate Concurrent Resolution 3 will ask voters in November to increase the number of signatures needed to put constitutional amendments on the ballot while decreasing the number needed to change state law.
Currently, to change either the constitution or state law, petition organizers must gather signatures of registered voters equal to 5 percent of the votes cast for secretary of state in the last election. Unlike a number of other states, Colorado does not require that the signatures be collected by geographical areas, such as congressional districts.
If approved by voters, the measure lawmakers passed would require that petition organizers gather signatures equal to 6 percent of the votes cast for governor in the last election. Changes to state law would require signatures equal to 4 percent of the votes cast for governor in the last election.
Petition organizers also would have to get at least 8 percent of the total signatures needed for constitutional amendments from each one of the state’s seven congressional districts. There would be no such geographical requirement for ballot initiatives to alter state law, though.
Also, ballot initiatives to change state law couldn’t be changed by lawmakers for five years without a two-thirds vote of the legislature.
Lawmakers had to muster a two-thirds vote in each chamber to pass the resolution, which they did.
But a few critics, such as Rep. Douglas Bruce, R-Colorado Springs, remained. Bruce, the father of the initiative-created amendment known as the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights, said the new process would gradually restrict citizen rights “like a boa constrictor,” saying the vote on the measure was “a choice between liberty and slavery.”
Rep. Kevin Lundberg, R-Berthoud, said the changes would mean that only the rich could afford to pay for pricey signature-gathering efforts.
But Rep. Al White, R-Hayden, said no proposal would satisfy everyone, adding that opponents were losing track of their own argument by saying citizens shouldn’t get to vote on changing the process.
Tim Hoover: 303-954-1626 or thoover@denverpost.com
