Re: Sept. 17 editorial.
The Denver Postap opposition to Amendment 71’s proposed requirement that future initiatives to amend Colorado’s constitution get a small number (2 percent) of their qualifying petition signatures from each state Senate district was off the mark. Colorado has perhaps the easiest process in the nation for both qualifying and passing proposed amendments, and therefore our great state is unfairly used as a political Petri dish by out-of-state special interests that want to push their policy agenda into some state constitution.
By requiring that proponents of future constitutional amendments include all 35 Senate districts in their signature-gathering process, Amendment 71 will ensure there is some measure of statewide support for proposed amendments to our state’s foundational document. Thirty-one of the 35 Senate districts are on the Interstate 25 corridor between Fort Collins and Pueblo, but Amendment 71 would at least require that proponents get some measure of support from Grand Junction, Durango, Vail and Dillon.
Reeves Brown, Denver
The writer is project director for Building a Better Colorado, which is backing Amendment 71.
The Denver Post has it right. The 35 Senate-district requirement (at any percent required) takes the citizen initiative effort in the polar opposite direction from what we have now. A more plausible way to satisfy the geographic requirement for proposed constitutional amendments would focus on Colorado’s congressional districts. Require a minimum of 10 or 15 percent of registered voters from each district to sign petitions for a proposed amendment.
That would give any proposed amendment geographic variety around the state, without making it impossible to place something on the ballot that might very well be needed in the future.
Pete Simon, Arvada
The Denver Post turned its back on rural Colorado by opposing the Raise the Bar initiative. The Post really hates the status quo where special interests romp around in our constitution every two years, but suggests requiring signatures for constitutional amendments out across the whole state “goes too far.” Give me a break.
The Post worries any one district would have too much power over what constitutional amendments get on the ballot. Earth to The Post — one geographic area already has a monopoly on what makes it on the ballot. That “district” is called Denver and Boulder.
Asking proposed constitutional amendments to show a small amount of support in the rest of the state isn’t unreasonable. It is only fair.
Every rural legislator, Republican and Democrat, supports Amendment 71 for this reason. A huge number of fair-minded leaders from the Denver area, including every governor, also support Amendment 71.
John Justman, Grand Junction
The writer is a member of the Mesa County Commission.
The Postap editorial bemoaning the future difficulty of amending the state constitution as contemplated in proposed Amendment 71 misses the point entirely.
It is supposed to be hard to amend the constitution. Very hard. The constitution is the state’s assemblage of bedrock principles and philosophical underpinnings. Any amendments should rightly be few and far between, arrived at only through the broadest consensus involving exceptional thought, effort, examination and cross-examination. The rest devolves to conventional legislation, where it belongs.
Bud Markos, Grand Junction
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