No Campaign Finance Reports for Amendments 60, 61 and Prop 101 Lead to Fines, Then Waivers and Questions

Three initiatives made it onto the 2010 state ballot without their registered agents ever filing a campaign finance report, implausibly indicating that no money was raised or spent in support of the initiatives. The agents said they received advice from a Mr. X, later determined to be Douglas Bruce, father of the TABOR amendment.

The registered agents were Louis Schroeder, Jeff Gross, and Russell Haas of Amendments 60, 61 and Prop 101 respectively. Though each had a co-agent, Administrative Law Judge Robert Spencer determined in June of 2010 that these three men were the primary sponsors, fined each one $2000, and ordered them to submit the overdue campaign finance records. Still, it was more than a year before the first records were filed. Meanwhile the Secretary of State’s office sent repeated notices of ever-increasing fines for not submitting the records.

After racking up over $20,000 each in fines by the fall of 2011, the men finally submitted the finance records, and then requested and were granted waivers by the Secretary of State. In the end, the $20,000+ in fines was reduced to $50. Colorado Public Radio, as part of the State Integrity Investigation, recently questioned the decision to grant the waivers.

Legal Challenge to TABOR May Proceed

On July 30 US District Judge William Martinez ruled that a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of TABOR may proceed. Attorney General John Suthers, representing Governor Hickenlooper, unsuccessfully argued that the plaintiffs didn’t have legal standing to bring forward the lawsuit.

As reported here in May of last year, a bipartisan group of plaintiffs filed suit. The judge declared that the 13 plaintiffs who are current members of the Colorado General Assembly have standing to sue.

Judge Martinez did agree with AG Suthers that TABOR does not violate the Equal Protection Clause of the US Constitution.

David Skaggs, a former US congressman who represented the Boulder area, is one of the attorneys working pro bono for the plaintiffs. The trial will likely begin in early 2013.

A form of TABOR (Taxpayer Bill of Rights) was on the ballot in 1988 and 1990 before it passed 54% to 46% as Issue 1 in 1992.

Lawsuit Filed Against TABOR

One week ago a bipartisan group of 34 plaintiffs filed a lawsuit in US District Court claiming that TABOR is unconstitutional. Plaintiffs note that TABOR, by requiring citizen approval of tax increases, takes away some of the power granted to legislators in Article IV, Section 4 of the US Constitution which states, “The United States shall guarantee to every state in this union a Republican form of government. . .”

Attorney General John Suthers has a 60-day period to respond to the lawsuit but may ask for an extension. Opponents of the lawsuit warn that the entire citizen-initiative process will be in jeopardy if this lawsuit is successful.

Other citizen-initiated amendments have been overturned by courts in the past, in particular, Amendment 2 (to repeal anti-discrimination laws based on sexual orientation) and Amendment 54 (prohibiting campaign contributions from the extended family of government contractors).


Background on TABOR
A version of TABOR (Taxpayer Bill of Rights) was on the ballot in 1988 and 1990 before being passed by Colorado voters in 1992. It added Article X, Section 20 to the constitution.

TABOR requires voters to approve any tax rate increases. TABOR also restricts spending, requiring taxpayer refunds of excess revenues unless voters approved a revenue change, called “de-Brucing” after Douglas Bruce, the author of TABOR. Colorado is unique among the states in having such revenue and spending restrictions.

Many Colorado communities have locally de-Bruced. In 2005 Colorado voters approved Referendum C providing for a 5-year timeout from some TABOR provisions.

In 1994 Colorado voters passed a single-subject amendment to the constitution. In 1995 the Colorado Supreme Court ruled in the Amend Tabor case that TABOR “contains multiple subjects.” The result is that undoing TABOR via a voter-approved, constitutional amendment would require passing multiple ballot measures, a tricky feat to accomplish in any election year.

The single-subject provision for amendments to the constitution was originally Senate Concurrent Resolution 93-004. It was referred to and passed by Colorado voters in the 1994 election. The single-subject language can be seen in Article V, Section 1 (5.5) and Article XIX, Section 2 (3) of the Colorado Constitution and in Title 1, Article 40, Section 106.5 of the Colorado Revised Statutes.

Colorado General Assembly website
http://www.leg.state.co.us/
The menu on the left contains links to the Colorado Constitution and the Colorado Revised Statutes.