Ballot propositions for Colorado

Got my Colorado ballot proposal book the other day. Here’s what I think. Your mileage may (will almost certainly) vary.

Amendment 38: Petitions: The thrust of this amendment is to make it easier to use the petition process to get proposals on the ballot. It also expands the petition process from beyond city/state to include school districts, special districts, counties, etc.

I’ll be honest in saying that I tend to mistrust the petition process. I think it’s good that it’s there, as a safety valve versus our elected representatives, but willy-nilly petitions rarely make good public policy, and expanding the process to school districts, special districts, every nook and cranny, only spreads the craziness that a disaffected minority can wreak. Further, under the bill (as analyzed) no elected official will be allowed to discuss any petition proposals once the petition forms
are ready for signatures. Huh? Present law now at least restricts public officials to provide factual information about such proposals, but this proposal seems to change that. It also extends the petition signature gathering process, and if you don’t get your signatures in on time, you can roll them over to the next year (whether the person involved has changed their mind or not). And petition proposals can force an election every year, not just even numbered years.

There are some good things about this measure. Cleaning up and standardizing some processes makes sense. I like (as in California) the opportunity for proponents and opponents to speak out on the measure (alongside the state analysis); sometimes the messenger is as significant as the message.

But not only does the proposed constitutional amendment make it easier to put forward ballot proposals, the proposal also turns petition proposals into quasi-constitutional amendments. They’re statutory, but they can only be changed by the governing bodies with voter approval. Well, yeah, it’s really annoying when an elected official buys into effectively overturning a successful citizen ballot measure. But the recourse there is to vote the bums out, or let them defend their actions. Turning petition proposals
into sacrosanct law, untouchable without another petition or ballot measure, makes government way too inflexible (or simply calls for a lot of court challenges as to whether law X is actually overturning a substantial amount of law Y.

My vote: No.

Amendment 39: School District Spending Requirements: Nobody likes to hear that their school district money is going to pay fat cat superintendents or school board member junkets to Mazatlan. But this proposal enshrines in the state constitution how school districts spend their money by individual programs — which things must be part of a minimum 65% of the expenditures, which need not.

I will confess that I don’t much care for constitutional amendments. Granted, the state constitution serves a different role than the federal — but it should still be reserved for significant issues. Instead, it tends to be used in petition processes to stick things out there that can’t be easily addressed or changed by the elected legislature. To my mind, codifying spending priorities for school districts doesn’t rise to that level.

The problem with such micro-management, even if not done for some covert purpose (reducing certain controversial services) is that it doesn’t provide the spending flexibility that districts need. In a district that has high transportation costs (think of a far-flung district with a lot of school busses), you’re going to be SOL — bus drivers and transportation are not a priority item (and so have to find a slice of that other 35%). Neither are nurses, food service, or building maintenance.

School boards are locally elected. If they’re not maintaining good budgetary control, the point of their being elected is that they can be unelected. But having the state constitution control overall district budget proportions just sounds like a bad idea to me.

My vote: No.

Amendment 40: Term Limits for Supreme Court and Appeals Court Judges: I’m a huge fan of an independent judiciary, whose members are minimally beholden to political pressures of the moment, who don’t have to worry about how their decisions are going to possibly offend current political groups or affect future employment.

Adding term limits (another practice I disagree with) to judges does nothing except make judges more sensitive to the political fall-out, and give people unhappy with judicial decisions on high cases, a chance to wait for a few years to have another shot at it. Especially since, given how supreme court justices are currently clumped, it would mean a majority would be reappointed by whomever is governor in 2009 (and every ten years thereafter).

That’s just not good sense. My vote: No.

Amendment 41: Standards of Conduct in Government. There’s some good stuff here. Currently ethics investigations of state elected officials are handled by special legislative committees; this proposal would create an ethics panel with a nice distribution of members. There’s also some tempting bits about keeping officials out of lobbying jobs for a couple of years.

But the state/lobbyist revolving door, though distasteful, doesn’t seem to rise to the level of needing a state law against it. And this new ethics commission would have purview over everything down to the city level — which sounds to me like a recipe for overload.

I’m tempted, but I’m not tempted enough. My vote: No, maybe.

Amendment 42: Colorado Minimum Wage: This proposal would increase the minimum wage levels in Colorado for both normal and tipped workers to higher levels than the federal law holds, and would then continue to adjust them from there based on inflation.

There are a lot of intelligent people — not just political hacks — who assert that the minimum wage is harmful to the economy, and that it doesn’t serve the populations it’s meant to. For myself, call it my stubbornly liberal streak, but I think if we’re going to have a minimum wage, it should be at a decent level.

My vote: Probably yes.

Amendment 43: Marriage: Enshrines one-man/one-woman marriage into the state constitution.

Bah. My vote: No.

Amendment 44: Marijuana Possession: Legalizes, under state law, possession of 1 oz. of marijuana by adults 21 years of age.

Hmmm. The arguments for (21-year-olds can possess alcohol, and making arrests for a ounce of pot seems ludicrous) are fairly persuasive, and the arguments against (next thing you know, folks will be shooting up heroin! booze is unsafe, too, so maybe we should be talking about stopping people from drinking, instead!) are not.

My vote: Probably yes.

Referendum E: Property Tax Reduction for Disabled Veterans: Reduce property taxes for military veterans with a 100% permanent disability? Hell, yeah.

My vote: Yes.

Referendum F: Recall Deadlines: This bill fits along with legislation passed this year to change how petitions for recalls are processed. It makes it easier to protest a recall petition, essentially, and lets the legislature set some other rules about it.

Hmmmm. The legislature setting the rules of how recalls can be done. Hmmmm. Not really any good enough reasons for it, which seems a reason against it.

My vote: No. Maybe.

Referendum G: Obsolete Constitutional Provisions: Gets rid of some passages that are truly no longer germane. Sure, let’s keep the constitution tidy.

My vote: Yes.

Referendum H: Limiting a State Business Income Tax Deduction: Basically disallows income tax deductions for business to deduct stuff paid to illegal aliens. Because, of course, they’ll admit that they’re hiring illegals. Well, no, actually, it’s either just a “feel good” law, or else it’s a hammer to use on businesses at some later time.

My tendency is to mistrust legislation around illegal immigration (since too much of it tends to be knee-jerk pandering to one or another population), I need to be convinced a lot more.

My vote: No.

Referendum I: Domestic Partnerships: Basically lets same-sex couples garner both the rights and responsibilities of marriage without using the “M” word. This seems like such a just, necessary, and positive thing to do, that I remain amazed that some people find it controversial, let alone personally threatening.

My vote: Yes!

UPDATE: BD’s posting on the same topic made me realize I actually left off two ballot proposals! Yikes! And our one local issue, too!

Referendum J: School District Spending Requirements: A kinder, gentler (barely) Amendment 39 (see above). It’s only a law, not an amendment; there’s a provision for local voters to override it; it includes more stuff (support staff and services) in the 65%; and it requires standardized budget formats for state reporting.

That all said and done, it’s still a bad idea. My vote: No.

Referendum K: Immigration Lawsuit against Federal Government: Requires the state to sue the Feds over enforcement of federal immigration laws. Because (a) it’s so likely to be effective, and (b) we really want to spend $190K/year (estimated) to try it. Feh.

My vote: No.

City of Centennial Referendum 2A: De-TABORize Centennial until 2013: Let’s the city keep excess tax revenue until 2013, rather than having to mail it back to citizens each year. In my opinion, anything that irks Douglas Bruce is worth voting for.

My vote: Yes.

And … this time I think that’s it …