Trio of anti-tax petitions on deck for 2010

Face The State Staff Report

Three anti-tax petitions are being circulated in hopes of rolling back recently-enacted tax and fee increases at next year's election. Backers of the initiatives emphasize the grassroots nature of their endeavor, but Colorado's most prominent tax-cutting activists are at work in the background helping to shepherd the measures to the ballot.

Initiatives 10, 12 and 21 have been approved by a state panel regulating initiative titles and are in the field where volunteers are gathering signatures. Proponents say they are fed up with a series of tax increases backed by Gov. Bill Ritter and the state's Democrat-dominated legislature. Increased vehicle registration fees, property tax hikes and increased school taxes are among their chief complaints, with the initiatives designed explicitly to reverse the most prominent of those revenue hikes. If passed, the initiatives would dramatically alter Colorado's tax system and severely reduce government revenue.

Initiatives target specific revenue streams, debt instruments

Earlier this year, the General Assembly passed "FASTER," which increased vehicle registration fees across the board and generates an additional $250 million in state revenue annually. Coloradans began paying the increased fees - which average $32 a vehicle the first year - on July 1. Outrage over the new fees was so pronounced, the Jefferson County Clerk and Recorder's office spent nearly $50,000 to hire off-duty police to provide security at three motor vehicle offices.

In response, a new group calling itself Coloradans for Tax Reform is circulating Initiative 10, which would create a flat $10 per year per vehicle registration fee. The measure would also lower the 2011 income tax rate from 4.63 percent to 4.5 percent and require the rate continue to decline by 0.1 percent over ten years until it reaches 3.5 percent. Most telephone taxes are also repealed.

“I can’t carry enough petitions,” said Natalie Menten, a prominent Lakewood activist supporting the measure. “People love it, and the timing of this is perfect because of Democrat’s policies and what the courts have done.”

The state commission addressing Colorado's long-term revenue and spending meets again this week, and much of the panel's focus has been on the degradation of revenue to the state general fund. The tax-cutting proposal mirrors the major ideological rifts that define the current debate over budget reform, with conservatives looking to reduce the size of government and liberals seeking to grow revenues. Despite this charged political backdrop, the group says its strategy to significantly reduce state income is one of "moderation."

"Some will complain tax breaks are phased in too slowly," the group's Web site says. "That's a sign of our moderation.”

While Initiative 10 would primarily limit revenue to the state, Initiative 12 seeks to limit property taxes, a primary funding mechanism for local government. The petition language limits local tax rates and and strengthens citizens' rights to lower taxes through the initiative process. If approved by voters next November, this measure dictates that it “supersedes conflicting laws, opinions, and constitutional provisions, and shall always be strictly interpreted to favor taxpayers.”

The impetus for the ballot measure is a recent Colorado Supreme Court ruling which upheld a 2007 law that froze all property tax rates, otherwise slated to automatically decrease, without a public vote. Petitioners in a lawsuit challenging the tax increase argued the law violates the state Constitutional provision, which guarantees voter approval of any legislation that increases government revenue.

A third measure, Initiative 21, seeks to restrict the issuance of TABOR-exempt debt by state and local government. “Do you know how much your total Colorado state and local debt burden is? Neither do we,” says the petitioners' Web site. At issue are "certificates of participation" issued by government agencies and enterprises, the proceeds from which have generally been used to finance capital construction projects. A test case involving the University of Colorado's issuance of COP debt was heard by the Colorado Supreme Court, which ruled the financing scheme is not subject to voter approval as is the case with other public bonds.

Initiative 21, if passed, would still allow for local bonded debt, but only for strictly limited periods and amounts and only if approved at a November election.

Bruce likely a driving force

The six sponsors of the three initiatives said they are working together to qualify the initiatives for next year's election, but would not provide further information as to the connection between them. Michelle Northrup, a Black Hawk resident and proponent of Initiative 21, referred all questions to the initiative Web sites. “We really want people directed to the Web sites, and we don’t anything we say to be misinterpreted,” she said.

It's very likely former state Rep. Doug Bruce, a Colorado Springs Republican who originally authored TABOR, is at the center of the effort. All three initiative Web sites have a similar style and low-budget appearance as Bruce's own site, and all are hosted on the same computer server registered to a Colorado Springs IT consulting company.

Bruce did not return Face The State’s requests for an interview.

So far, the signature gathering process for all three measures is an all-volunteer effort. According to Northrup, her anti-tax coalition has no current plans to hire anyone to collect signatures. “This is just a group of people interested in lowering taxes and this is one way to do it,” she said.

In 2006, a property rights initiative obtained 40,000 signatures from volunteers. At the time, it was the most ever obtained by an exclusively volunteer effort. Amendment 48, a 2008 measure to define "personhood" as beginning at the moment of conception, was the first ballot measure to be successfully circulated exclusively by volunteers. The majority of its signatures were gathered in churches.

In order to be certified for the 2010 ballot each petition needs to submit 76,047 valid signatures from Colorado voters by July 12 of next year.