Editorial: Blaming TABOR

Denver Post: The state senator wanted me to know just what we're up against in Colorado. "Every civilization that has relied on direct democracy has suffered a bloody end," exclaimed Colorado Springs Democrat John Morse, "and we do direct democracy in Colorado." I had called Morse because he is an outspoken member of a committee of lawmakers and other leaders charged with finding long-term fixes for the beleaguered state budget. And it didn't take him long to home in on the nub of the problem as he sees it. Every other state, Morse says, has four choices when confronting a budget shortfall: raise taxes, borrow, hike fees or "cut valued public services." Colorado, thanks to its constitution, has only "two of those options." What Morse means is that the Colorado legislature has only two options (or 2 1/2, if you properly classify certificates of participation as borrowing). The Taxpayer's Bill of Rights does in fact allow voters to raise taxes — that irksome direct democracy business, of course. But to Morse, "that is the most offensive part of TABOR." Offensive or not — and I love that particular check on government ambition — voting on taxes isn't going away. Most Coloradans still support this grassroots power, as Morse concedes, and even our Supreme Court wouldn't dare invent a rationale to circumvent it. That being the case, what will this committee do? "I hope we get to look at a whole range of things outside TABOR because quite frankly, we need to look at how we run government," Weld County Commissioner Sean Conway, a Republican, told me. Still another committee member, Sen. Greg Brophy, R-Wray, had another good suggestion: "We need to figure out a workable rainy-day fund that isn't financed initially by raiding all of the transportation funds."

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