Denver November 2004 Election
It seems likely that some modifications to the TABOR amendment, Amendment 23, and the Gallagher amendment will be on the November 2004 ballot. Here's an editorial from the Rocky Mountain News on the subject [December 15, 2003, "Frontal assault on TABOR or 23 would be fool's mission"]. The editorial maintains that any radical changes put in front of voters are likely to fail. From the opinion piece, "It's always easier to defeat a ballot initiative than to pass one, especially a proposal targeting a voter-approved law. Conservatives will sabotage any ballot measure that tries to undermine TABOR's core principles and liberals will crush any similar attack on Amendment 23. The only reforms with any chance of passing are those that attract a coalition from across the political spectrum, with each side willing to concede modest revisions in its favorite amendment in return for similar concessions from the other side."
Here's an editorial from today's Denver Post on the subject of TABOR, Gallagher, and Amendment 23 [December 15, 2003, "Coffman leads the charge"]. According to the Post editors, "Coffman's detailed plan likely will irk both Republicans and Democrats, which means he may be on to something. He wants to change all three of the voter-approved constitutional amendments whose effects combined during the recent recession to create a fiscal disaster in Colorado. He also has proposed creating a "rainy day fund" to bail out the state in future bleak years. His plan is to tweak both the Taxpayer's Bill of Rights, a sacred cow for many Republicans, and the education- boosting Amendment 23, a pet project of many liberals, while retaining the basic tenets of each law. He also would overhaul the Gallagher Amendment, approved in 1982 to control residential property taxes."
The redistricting fight is not over yet of course. The ongoing lawsuits in the case still cast a cloud over the district boundaries for next fall. Peter Blake discusses proposed solutions in his column in last Saturday's Rocky [December 13, 2003, "Blake: Proposals to fix redistricting fiasco varied, plentiful"].
From the Denver Post [December 7, 2003, "Spin Cycled"], "Saying he is worried about budget cuts and academic freedom issues, lawyer and former Colorado Democratic chairman Howard Gelt is throwing his hat into the ring to represent the 1st Congressional District on the CU Board of Regents. His steering committee includes former state Sen. and Denver mayoral candidate Penfield Tate;Daniel Yohannes, retired vice president of U.S. Bank; and Rick Ridder, a political consultant at the Denver firm Ridder/Braden Inc., among others."
5:42:22 AM 
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