Open Petition Season
(A WTF Public Service Announcement)
Election Year Shenanigans
2018, in case anyone hasn’t noticed, is an election year. An election year has certain harbingers, certain milestones. The Caucuses were a big one, but we’ve got past that! Whew!
And the Primaries are coming up. We’ll be publishing some Practical Primary Pointers (like that?) soon, but WTF is staying neutral on the candidates, for the most part. Except Ken Buck. We’re agin’ him.
But right now, it’s Petition Season. That’s when activists (paid and unpaid) go door to door with clip-boards, gathering signatures to put voter initiatives, most of which will take the form of amendments to the Constitution, on the November ballot.
WTFColorado begs to remind everyone that some of the most disastrous things ever to happen to Colorado have been Constitutional Amendments. Last week the Weathervane had some things to say about the Gallagher and TABOR amendments. Bad, bad, BAD for Colorado.
Then in 2016, there was Raise the Bar. That made it very, very hard to get new Constitutional Amendments on the ballot. A lot of people voted for it, not realizing that doing so at that time would make it harder to get rid of TABOR and Gallagher! Oops! Fortunately, Raise the Bar was weakened by the courts, who found that it violated the principle of One Person, One Vote. Saved by the gavel!
But where’s the lesson in all of this? Especially from Raise the Bar? It is this: if a ballot measure sounds reasonable and is on the ballot in November, some people will vote for it without, perhaps, understanding all the consequences. So the time to squash bad ballot measures is not in November in the voting booth (or mailbox), but here and now, at the door and on the clipboard. Let’s not let any wolves in sheep’s clothing onto the ballot this year, and we won’t have any more TABOR-scale trouble.
So, as a public service (nobody pays us to do this, but you could donate), here is WTF Colorado’s first installment of recommendations on which ballot initiatives deserve to be voted on, and which ones don’t deserve to appear on the ballot.
The Good
Ballot Initiative 93: Great Schools Thriving Communities.
This one would be good for everyone. Would go a long way towards repairing the damage inflicted on education in Colorado by Gallagher and Tabor, by instituting a progressive income tax on Colorado’s wealthiest residents.
Click Here to volunteer to gather signatures.
There are a total of 18 ballot initiatives that hope to repair the damage done to education by TABOR and Gallagher. Just be sure the money goes to public education, and that it is not going to distort other funding by getting tangled up with the TABOR cap.
Ballot Initiative 97: Setback Requirement for Oil and Gas Development
Okay, WTF is pretty sure that this one, which would limit new drilling to 2500 feet or more away from just about any evidence of human activity, is too extreme to stand up in court. It amounts to a ban of oil and gas extraction in the state. That said, let’s keep the O&G lobby spending their money challenging this, and not running deceptive initiatives like 108–113 (see below). Sign it! How could it hurt?
The Bad
A series of ballot initiatives run by the deceptively named political committee “Protect Colorado” would hamstring Colorado’s ability to regulate anything having to do with real property, either mineral rights or surface rights. Read the details here.
Ballot Initiative 108: Just Compensation for Reduction in Fair Market Value by Government Law or Regulation (We call BS!)
Ballot Initiative 109: Just Compensation for Damage Due to Government Law or Regulation (So says Big Oil!)
Ballot Initiative 110: Ditto (Not very imaginative, are they?)
Ballot Initiative 111: Taking Property for Public Use (Faking taking!)
Ballot Initiative 112: Just compensation… (my shiny red hiney!)
Ballot Initiative 113: Taking Property… (but can’t take a joke!)
Levity aside, people. The horror these bills would inflict cannot be called “unintended consequences” because they are fully intended. The people who came up with these doozies don’t believe in environmental protection or any other public good.
The Ugly
Okay, just in case you weren’t paying attention the first time, Ballot Initiatives 108–113 are pure poison. If someone with a clipboard shows up promoting one of these, chase them away. Or set their clipboard on fire! (Just kidding on that one.) Berate the petition-bearer, or refuse nicely. It’s up to you. We never advocate violence, but politeness is optional. Just whatever you do, don’t sign. These bills were designed to seem innocuous, but they’d turn Colorado from a Beautiful Wilderness Playground into a Libertarian Dystopian Playground. Read all about it here. Or take our word for it. Don’t sign. Pretty please.
