Here's an article from today's Denver Post, dealing with the potential ballot proposals for the fall election. They write, "This year's 'blue book,' the little pamphlet that analyzes the pros and cons and content of ballot issues, probably won't be so little. It could well be thicker than a deep-dish pizza, and it won't be nearly as appetizing. Coloradans could face a daunting number of ballot issues next Nov. 7 - the most since 1992, when 13 proposals jammed the ballot. This year, as many as 18 statewide issues could be facing voters, an intimidating and confusing prospect. The list includes five ballot issues put there by the legislature and two citizen initiatives that already have qualified. Petitions for at least seven other statewide issues are circulating among us now, carried by eager signature-hunters who collect a buck or three for every plebiscite-loving small-d democrat they can persuade to put ink to paper.
"Secretary of State Gigi Dennis anticipates eight to 10 citizen initiatives will qualify for the statewide ballot. Three latecomers could be added, including term limits for judges and a couple of proposals to increase state tax refunds. And that doesn't include all the possibilities for local ballot issues that also will be crowding the ballot. Initiatives mean a lot of work for the secretary of state's office, especially the logjam of signature-checking after the Aug. 7 deadline for turning in petitions. Each ballot issue must have 68,000 valid signatures; to be safe, most circulators collect 90,000 or 100,000. A representative sample of 5 percent is checked. On top of that, there are 25 candidate petitions to be scrutinized. That isn't the only reason Dennis is less than enthusiastic about the petition thing. When she was in the legislature, as a Republican from Pueblo West, she favored several unsuccessful attempts to control the process, or at least to make it harder to amend the constitution than to amend state laws. It's not only that this rampant ballot access confuses voters, Dennis says; it's also that 'the voters are at risk of turning us into a true democracy when we are a republic. I don't think it's appropriate that you tie up things like tax policy in our constitution.'"
Category: Denver November 2006 Election
8:33:10 AM 
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