Colorado’s November ballot took its final 14-initiative shape Wednesday as Gov. Jared Polis signed a tax-cut bill resulting in the withdrawal of two high-profile initiatives that sought to achieve even bigger tax reductions and lead to bigger revenue losses for governments.
With the removal of Initiatives 50 and 108 from the ballot, the remaining issues either have no direct impact on businesses or affect only specific business sectors, such as firearms dealers and operators of veterinary practices. But former DaVita CEO Kent Thiry is pushing one voting-reform measure, Initiative 310, in hopes that it can help more moderate and often business-friendlier candidates to survive the primary- and general-election processes more often.
The Democratic governor this afternoon signed House Bill 1001, a measure passed in the most recent special legislative session that reduces tax-rate assessments for homeowners and a few businesses and caps annual increases in statewide property-tax revenues. As part of a deal connected to the passage of that measure, Advance Colorado and Colorado Concern withdrew Initiatives 50 and 108, which would have capped property tax revenues and lowered tax-assessment rates to levels below those in HB 1001.
“This bill provides immediate as well as ongoing property tax relief for hardworking Coloradans by cutting the residential and commercial property tax rates and capping future increases,” Polis wrote in a signing letter to legislators, who OK’d the bill by a 3-to-1 margin. “The bill saves Coloradans money on utility bills while ending the property tax wars as well as protecting our schools and local taxing districts from the devastating effects of current ballot initiatives.”
Initiative proponents explain ballot withdrawal
Advance Colorado President Michael Fields, who officially withdrew the measures Wednesday morning with the Colorado Secretary of State’s office, also extolled the signing in a news release. He said the bill offered two very important protections to taxpayers — a “significant and permanent property tax cut” and an enforceable cap.
“Coloradans across the political spectrum have made it clear that they need substantial and meaningful property tax relief,” Fields said. “Today, that is what this new law delivers.”
While the move reduced the total number of ballot initiatives only from 16 to 14, it removed what was setting up to be one of the biggest initiative fights during the upcoming election. Still, the election won’t be short on hot-button races — from the presidential slugfest to legislative contests impacting the size of Democrats’ Capitol majorities to a battle in the Denver-area 8th Congressional District that could help determine control of the U.S. House.
Election changes could take center stage
But maybe the most watched measure by business leaders now becomes Initiative 310, which continues Thiry’s efforts to change state election laws to reduce the impact of partisan primaries tending toward more extreme candidates in both parties. In the last decade, the businessman successfully pushed measures that allowed unaffiliated voters to cast votes in either party’s primary, established presidential primaries to replace long-standing caucuses and created a bipartisan redistricting commission.
Initiative 310 would replace the current primary system, in which Republicans and Democrats send one candidate each to the general election, with one in which contenders from all parties and the unaffiliated ranks compete together. The top four vote-getters in what is known as a “jungle primary” would advance to the general election, were voters would rank the quartet in order of their preference; the candidate with the lowest amount of support would be eliminated and have their supporters’ votes transfer to their next choice, until one candidate tops 50%.
Amber McReynolds, an initiative supporter and former head of the Denver elections division, noted in a presentation earlier this year increasing numbers of voters tend to express concern about extremist candidates, and this new system could add moderation. States such as Alaska, where some moderates have lost primary races but used the jungle-primary system to win the general election, employ the system now.
Opposition to ballot measure coming from several circles
“We have this very closed process to access the ballot, at least on the primary side of things,” McReynolds said. “All eligible voters should have the freedom to vote for any candidate in every election.”
But leaders from both parties have criticized the proposal. And during a hearing before the Legislative Council on Wednesday, representatives from both the senior lobby and organized labor said that the Blue Book manuals explaining ballot initiatives to voters should explain that if approved, the initiative could cause confusion by allowing state and federal races to fall under this new system while local races may be determined in a different manner.
“It doesn’t tell the whole story that some offices will be elected on the current system and some offices will be elected on the ranked-choice, top-four system,” said Sandra Parker-Murray, a representative for Communication Workers of America Local 7777.
Other ballot measures
In addition to Initiative 310, statewide voters this November will also be able to cast ballots on the following 13 measures:
- Amendment G, which would expand the Homestead property-tax exemption to veterans with disabilities rated at less than 100% but who are assessed by the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs as having individual unemployability status.
- Amendment H, which would create a new Independent Judicial Discipline Adjudicative Board to conduct disciplinary hearings and hear appeals of informal remedial action orders from the Commission on Judicial Discipline.
- Amendment I, which would make first-degree murder an offense for which defendants are ineligible for bail.
- Amendment J, which would revoke the currently unenforceable provision in the Colorado constitution declaring that marriage is valid only between one man and one woman.
- Amendment K, which would move up deadlines for filing initiative and referendum petitions and declaration of intent for judges and justices by one week and would let nonpartisan staff publish the texts and titles of ballot measures at least 45 days before an election.
- Amendment JJ, which would allow the state to retain and spend all sports-betting tax revenue collected beyond the $29 million authorized in 2019 when voters approved Proposition DD to permit sports betting and use tax revenues for water resources.
- Amendment KK, which would impose a 6.5% excise tax on firearms dealers and manufacturers and ammunition vendors, beginning on April 1, to fund crime-victim services, mental-health services and the School Disbursement Program Cash Fund.
- Initiative 89, which would establish a right to abortion in Colorado’s constitution and end the state’s ban on public funding of abortions.
- Initiative 91, which would prohibit the trophy hunting — hunting primarily for the display of an animal’s head or other body parts rather than for the utilization of meat — of mountain lions, bobcat or lynx.
- Initiative 112, which would delay eligibility for parole for people convicted of several serious crimes — including second-degree murder, first-degree kidnapping or first- and second-degree sexual assault — until they’ve served at least 75% of an imposed sentence.
- Initiative 138, which would create a constitutional right for parents to direct the education of their school children and create a right of school choice for those parents and children.
- Initiative 145, which would establish qualifications and registration requirements for veterinary professional associates.
- Initiative 157, which would create in the Department of Public Safety a $350 million Peace Officer and Support Training Fund to assist in recruiting, training and retaining officers and to create a death benefit for the spouses or children of officers killed in the line of duty.