[bouldercouncilhotline] Hotline: Some thoughts on Boulder's Legislative Agenda

[cmosupport at bouldercolorado.gov]

Sender: Weaver, Sam

Fellow Council members and Hotline followers,

We have been receiving community feedback recently on one specific part of our current Legislative Agenda.  I am posting the following information and opinion as mine alone so that others in the community can see my rationale for supporting this piece of our City advocacy agenda.  This opinion is not intended to represent Council as a whole, only my personal thoughts on this policy issue.

Recently, the Boulder City Council has been hearing negative commentary on one of the many policy positions that it has approved in its Legislative Agenda.  The City's State and Federal Legislative Agenda outlines the policies that the City hopes to advance at the state and federal level.  The policy issue receiving criticism relates to the detrimental effect that some constitutional amendments have had on state governance.  The City of Boulder desires to enhance the ability for citizens to initiate changes to state laws by adding new safeguards to changes that citizens make to state statutes while increasing the threshold for any changes to the constitution, be that through a citizen-initiative or a general assembly referral.  Nothing in this policy advocacy position would affect City of Boulder referendum policies or practices.

A little background is appropriate.  There are two distinct forms that state-wide citizen initiatives can take: amendment to the Colorado Constitution (constitutional amendment) or amendment to the Colorado Revised Statutes (statutory amendment).  Constitutional amendments that are passed can only be changed by a statewide vote (or reversal by the US Supreme Court), while statutory amendments can currently be amended by another ballot measure, by state legislators through a simple majority vote (and subsequent approval by the Governor), or by state or federal court reversal.

Amendment 37, the creation of the renewable portfolio standard (RPS) for carbon-free power generation in Colorado, was a statutory amendment passed in 2004.  The position of the City of Boulder, as expressed in its Legislative Agenda, would provide successfully-passed statutory amendments like Amendment 37 with additional protections from change by state legislatures for some number of years. This could, for example, require the General Assembly to have a super-majority before amending such statutory amendments and/or prevent them from making any changes whatsoever for a period of time.  In the case of Amendment 37, the fact that the initiative was statutory allowed for the 10% initial RPS level to be increased by the state legislature twice now, once to 20% and then to 30%, providing more clean renewables on our power grid.  Amendment 37 is, in fact, the poster child for how flexible statutory amendments can perform better than rigid constitutional amendments in regards to the interests of citizens of Colorado.

Constitutional amendments have a much less clear track record of serving the best interests of Coloradoans.  In 1992, Amendment 2 passed by a simple majority vote statewide, and prevented the recognition of protected status for homosexual or bisexual citizens by any level of government in Colorado.  It stood as an ugly example of the downsides of direct democracy until being struck down by the US Supreme Court in 1996.

The combination of three other state constitutional amendments that have been enacted by popular vote currently prevent the budgeting process at the Colorado statehouse from having the necessary flexibility to serve the interests of citizens well.  The Gallagher amendment, TABOR, and Amendment 23 have created a relentless tangle of inflexible constitutional requirements that have stripped funding from higher education dramatically, and severely limit state infrastructure improvements.  There have been other notable successes with the constitutional form of amendment, but major failures as well.  Direct democracy advocates only focus on the successes, while policy-makers have to deal with both the successes and the failures.

For good governance, a balance must be struck between direct and representative democracy.  Our US Constitution is much more difficult to amend than our state constitution, perhaps too difficult.  However, some state constitutions may be too easy to amend.  California and Colorado have seen citizen-initiated constitutional amendments pass by a simple majority that are terribly regressive both socially and fiscally.  The most socially regressive have been struck down by the US Supreme Court, but the fiscally regressive policies remain in place to this day, doing great damage to the interests of Colorado citizens.

Making simultaneous changes that provide increased protections for statutory citizen initiatives, while increasing the standard for constitutional amendments is likely to improve the political process in Colorado.  That has been the rationale for City of Boulder support of such changes - to better serve the best interests of Colorado citizens.

Boulder policy-makers remain very interested in hearing feedback from our constituents on this matter, so please weigh in on the proper balance around citizen initiatives in our legislative agenda.  Boulder City Council can be reached by email at council at bouldercolorado.gov<mailto:council at bouldercolorado.gov> .

All the best,

Sam Weaver
Member of Boulder City Council
weavers at bouldercolorado.gov<mailto:sam at sam4council.org>
Phone: 303-416-6130