Your Colorado statewide ballot just got a little bit longer.
According to the Secretary of State, two more initiatives have qualified for the 2016 ballot:
Initiative No. 98 allows unaffiliated voters to participate in primary elections without having to declare being a member of a certain party, as is the current law. However, Republicans and Democrats could decide to forgo having a primary election and instead choose their general election nominees at the assembly or convention, providing that 75 percent of the party’s state central committee agrees.
Initiative No. 140 restores a presidential primary to be held before the end of March in presidential election years, and allows unaffiliated voters to participate without declaring to be a member of a political party.
The Secretary of State’s office is still looking at signatures to determine the fate of two more ballot measures, both dealing with fracking (local control and mandatory setbacks).
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Who's behind the amending the constitution question? It strikes me it would make it harder to change/repeal Tabor and therefore must be a conservative cause, but I don't know and I'm curious.
TABOR (or anything else already in the constitution could still be repealed by 50+% and fall under the signature gathering rules it was passed with. – See more at: http://coloradopols.com/diary/86683/and-then-there-were-five-ballot-measures#sthash.7bfbIxVn.dpuf
Not anything already in the state constitution– anything in the state constitution. Say this amendment passes. In five years, another amendment passes with 55% of the vote. That future amendment could be repealed, in whole or in part, with only 50%+1 votes.
The language is repeated in two sections thusly:
Adding harder, subtracting not harder? I like it.
Besides the fact that it would not make TABOR any harder to repeal than it already is there's little political likelihood of it getting repealed any time soon with or without 69. Whatever your concerns about 69, the mistaken belief that if we don't pass it we can more easily repeal TABOR doesn't belong in the equation.
Colorado Independent:
Thank you for the link.
I talked at length with Lee White, one of the authors. It absolutely does not defend tabor. All existing amendments are grandfathered and can be repealed by the same margin, 50 percent plus one, and same signature rules as now. The idea is to make future crap more difficult and tp encourage putting stuff in statute — which still goes by the old initiative rules, instead of mucking up the Constitution.
It's mostly the usual good government types. But if you think back to the bear hunt ban, a lot of Western Slope folks felt disfranchised because a few signature factories — the denver mall, aurora campus, cu and css put it on the ballot with no rural support. The requirement for some sigs from each senate district is designed to give the western slope at least some say.
Jon Cqldra hates it, which is reason enough for me to vote for it. The other source of dumb ideas in this state, Common Scold, also feels it has less power if this passes, so that is another reason to vote yes.
However, if the near total fracking ban makes the ballot, there will be so much money spent to defeat it — and amendment 69 — that all the vote no ads may confuse the public and worthy ones, like death with dignity and minimum wage, may be collateral damage.
I'll side with Jon Caldera on this one, you can side with Greg Brophy.
If those are the only choices, I'll go with Brophy over Caldera any day. At least he drives a prius, is an avid cyclist and at least is not actively hostile to transit.
You keep repeating this phrase, V.
and I am trying to figure out how you justify such a claim. I realize your personal interest has your mind made up on this issue, but that statement, to my knowledge, is just industry hyperbole you are repeating. It has no basis in reality.
I am, as always, willing to be educated, so if you will provide a map or a set of stats that will verify your claim, I will really appreciate it.
I can,t put a link from my fire, but goggle protect Colorado and they gave a map. The setback would ban fracking in 90 percent of Colorado, including 100 percent of my land. Isn't that what you want? The ban is a 2500 radius in all directions from every dwelling in the state.
C'mon, V. It is a surface setback. Nothing precludes directional drilling. No one wants to keep you from the mineral wealth your/our ancestors took from the native inhabitants. We just want to keep the process from damaging, or "taking from", if you prefer, the surface owner.
Directional drilling can reach for miles. The industry brags about how far it can reach, yet wails when we ask them to use it to someone elses' advantage besides their own. Protect Colorado is an industry group. They are the ones pushing the "Decline to Sign" effort, which may be associated with the ruffians who tried to interfere with the volunteer signature gatherers. Small wonder their map is misleading.
That is a bad place to get your talking points, V.
They aren't talking points. Besedes dwellings, you can't be within 2500 feet of park, stream, playground, etc. There is no place that my farm could be developed from. These are the radical ludditesand this is their wet dream. I told you were to find the map. You just don' want to consider the facts because you hope farmers will be stupid enough to vote away our rights. We won't.
here’s the link to the map:
http://www.protectcolorado.com
Who's behind the amending the constitution question? Big money. Corporations and business interests. Check that out for yourself–who supports it and who is financing it. Why? It makes signature gathering more expensive. They can afford it and can still get their issues on the ballot. It hurts grass roots organizations and those without bottomless pockets. It doesn't make the process better, it makes it more expensive. It is a bad idea.
Thank you to everyone for all for all the information. However, have a second question, now: after reading the Colorado Independent article referenced by Canines, I would like to know about Colorado statute initiatives. I got the impression from the article that one reason so many amendments are initiated is that there is no initiative process for statutes. Is this the case?
I believe my question was answered by Canines above, i.e., it is possible to use the initiative process for statutes.
An initiative may come forward seeking to create either statutory law or a constitutional amendment. One reason for seeking to amend the constitution is that any statutory language is subject to change by the legislature. If one is proposing a change, say, legalization of marijuana or greater local control over oil and gas drilling that the legislature has been unwilling to undertake themselves, one might want to see that change made in such a way that the legislature could not subsequently change the law according to its own preferences. Of course, that results in a much more complex foundational governing document.
IIRC, both of the primary election voting initiatives are statutory changes.
Who's behind the amending the constitution question? It strikes me it would make it harder to change/repeal Tabor and therefore must be a conservative cause, but I don't know and I'm curious.
You post, verbatim, the same question that CDW posted 2 days ago. Word for word.
Yep. Makes me suspicious
Clicking on "bruceismail"s name leads to a site selling social media services – how to buy likes, clicks, etc.
So it may be more of a spam attack. I noticed that at one point yesterday, there were over 145 users on line – all here for Ken Buck’s endorsement of Trump? No other big stories on tap.