By Mary Bottari and Kim Haddow
In Colorado, oil and gas companies are spending tens of millions of dollars to pass ballot Amendment 71 to make it harder for average citizens to use the ballot to amend the constitution
If passed, Amendment 71 will require 55 percent voter approval for constitutional amendments, instead of a simple majority. In addition, those signatures gatherers will be required to get signatures from at least 2 percent of all registered voters in each of Colorado’s 35 senate districts, instead of collecting signatures from major population centers. This measure, which would make it more onerous and expensive for citizens to access the ballot, is part of a broader, emerging effort to block the passage of progressive policies through direct democracy.
In response to the chokehold corporations and their conservative allies have on many state legislatures, progressives are increasingly turning to the state ballot to move reform measures.
To counter that trend, some red states are systematically tightening the rules governing initiatives.
Amendment 71 was written by Vital for Colorado, a front group for the oil and gas industry that names the Kochs’ Americans for Prosperity, the State Policy Network think tank the Centennial Institute, and the Colorado Oil and Gas Association as “supporters.”
The corporate-funded group pushing Amendment 71, “Protecting Colorado’s Environment, Economy, and Energy Independence,” has spent over $14 million on a campaign that features former Denver Bronco’s quarterback John Elway.
The reason for the oil and gas companies’ support for the “anti-initiative initiative?” Two ballot measures that failed to make the signature threshold this year.
Initiative 75 would have authorized local governments to regulate oil and gas development and prohibit the state from preempting local laws or regulations on the industry. While Initiative 78 would have required all new oil and gas developments to be located at least 2,500 feet from the nearest occupied structure.
Both failed to garner sufficient signatures, illustrating that it is already hard enough for citizens to influence state policy in this manner. Even Amendment 71’s sponsors were unable to comply with the new rules they would impose on everyone else. They failed to secure signatures from at least 2 percent of registered voters in each Senate district. A fact, the Denver Post, which opined against the measure, called “offensive and cynical.”
Paul Jacobs, president of Citizens in Charge and a proponent of the initiative and referendum process, calls the measure a “Trojan horse.” “Amendment 71 sounds good but it will destroy Colorado’s initiative process by raising the bar far beyond what any citizen group can reach. Powerful politicians and their cronies would like it to be more difficult for citizen groups to get on the ballot than it is for politicians and billion dollar corporations.”
POST ELECTION UPDATE: Amendment 71 passed in Colorado.
Funny thing is it all started by them using the referendum in Colorado to get to this point in time, it was the tabor amendment over 30 years ago that killed funding for Human Services (by limiting taxes )and now they no longer need that route they are ending it, ironic…
Well, the citizens of Colorado were conned. It is not just the oil & gas industry. Colorado would be unlikely through the new “higher bar” to have been able to have decriminalized marijuana–an initiative that took millions from drug cartels, directed those millions toward improving the state, generated jobs and was opposed by the prison industry lobby–and of course their politicians who represented the industry’s interests, not the peoples’ interests. It will now be likely impossible to achieve a single payer health plan for all residents, an aspiration opposed by the insurance industry who sucks billions from health care to no benefit of care or patients, and big pharma who wants to make it criminal to purchase prescription drugs on a global open market. These corporations spent millions, got past governors to piously proclaim “it’s only fair” and managed to con Colorado citizens out of the only power they had to prevent corrupt politicans from selling out their interests.
Texas does not allow public initiative and referendum by petition. As a result, Texas is tightly controlled by the Republican Party and there is little chance for the public to influence legislation in the public interest. The congressional and state districts are also gerrymandered to encourage more extreme right candidates to run and be assured of election if they win the primary. Colorado should not be conned into giving up this valuable public right to initiate legislation when the majority political party is not responsive.