Lawmakers and special interests routinely ask Colorado voters to raise taxes so they can spend more of our money. Most often, voters say, “No!”
Now certain “progressive” Democrat lawmakers plan to use our own tax dollars to sue us for limiting their power to raise our taxes.
That’s disgusting even by the gutter standards of this legislature.
Having demonstrated their contempt for the rights of law-abiding Coloradans to exercise freedom of speech and to keep and bear arms as protected by the U.S. Constitution, Democrats at our State Capitol now want us to believe they care about respecting that same Constitution.
Assault on taxpayer protections
Led by Reps. Sean Camacho (D-Denver) and Lorena Garcia (D-Adams County) and Sens. Lindsay Daugherty (D-Arvada) and Iman Jodeh (D-Aurora), Democrats have proposed a resolution (HJR 1023) to order the state to initiate a lawsuit challenging the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights (aka TABOR) in our state Constitution.
Defending TABOR is the state’s responsibility, but no one currently holding statewide elected office publicly supports TABOR, so Colorado taxpayers have a right to believe the deck is stacked to screw us.
TABOR was enacted by Colorado voters in 1992, so it’s been the law of our state for more than 30 years. The principle behind TABOR is fundamental to a free society – or what’s left of a free society in Colorado: Citizens have a right to determine how much of our money government takes in taxes.
Among TABOR’s most notable provisions: the legislature cannot raise taxes without obtaining permission from voters. But lawmakers have found a way around that. Instead of calling tax increases “taxes,” they call them “fees.” Coloradans now pay twice as much in “fees” to state government as we pay in “taxes.”
What really chafes big-government lawmakers is TABOR’s limit on state spending. TABOR says government spending cannot grow faster than the growth of population plus inflation. When it collects more in taxes than this limit allows, it must refund the extra money.
Next year’s state budget totals nearly $44 billion, most of which is not limited by TABOR. What really frustrates lawmakers is that $600 million (just 1.3%) must be refunded to taxpayers.
They had our tax dollars in the treasury so they think it’s their money, but TABOR doesn’t give them permission to “keep the change.” They must give it back.
Lawmakers aren’t our overlords
Legislators, the governor and assorted special interests have repeatedly asked voters to repeal the TABOR spending limit. Usually voters overwhelmingly say, “No!” Only twice in 30 years have voters approved changes in TABOR spending limits and both times only narrowly.
Lawmakers have disguised attempts to gut TABOR as property tax reduction. Voters said, “No!” They bloated government spending on health care and human services while choking budgets for education and transportation, thinking voters would raise taxes for schools and roads. Again, voters said, “No!”
Instead, voters told government to do what’s expected of ordinary Coloradans: live within a budget.
So now Democrat lawmakers want the courts to do their dirty work, to declare TABOR unconstitutional under a provision of the U.S. Constitution that guarantees to each state a “republican form of government.” In this context, “republican” means governed by our representatives and free from interference by citizen initiatives.
Here’s why progressive lawmakers are both wrong and hypocrites:
First, the Colorado constitution says, in the very same sentence that gives our legislature the power to pass laws, “the people reserve to themselves the power to propose laws and amendments to the constitution and to enact or reject the same at the polls independent of the general assembly.”
Next, citizens have voted on more than 250 initiated statewide questions since 1912 and approved just over one-third of those. Yet, this lawsuit targets only one of those initiatives – the one that limits their power to force us to pay more taxes.
The people of Colorado have kept for ourselves the power to impose our will on those we elect. Progressive Democrats seem to care about the will of the voters only on election day. On all other days, they intend to do to us whatever they can get away with.
Simply put: the legislature works for the people; the people do not work for the legislature. We don’t elect lawmakers to be our overlords, no matter what arrogance may emanate from the rarified air of the State Capitol.
Mark Hillman previously served as Colorado’s Senate Majority Leader and State Treasurer.
