Want to get state lawmakers’ attention? All you need is a few million dollars and an idea big enough to shake up Colorado’s policy landscape.
The special legislative session on property taxes that ended Thursday was the product of two wealthy groups that shelled out large sums to collect enough voter signatures to get a pair of measures on the statewide ballot.
Initiative 108 would have cut property taxes by an estimated $2.4 billion starting in the 2025 tax year, while Initiative 50 would have amended the state constitution to impose a 4% cap on future property tax revenue.
The threat of the measures’ possible effect on state and local finances — particularly K-12 schools and fire districts — was enough to force Gov. Jared Polis and the legislature to the negotiating table. But while it was widely accepted that both initiatives faced unlikely odds of passing, Democrats weren’t willing to risk the long-shot chance they might succeed. The special session — and another $255 million in tax cuts — moved forward a deal in which the measures would be removed from the ballot later this week.
Ballot initiatives backed by wealthy interests prompted the governor and lawmakers to cut deals time and again this year. There were also big compromises reached on medical malpractice lawsuits and oil and gas policy to avoid costly ballot fights.
It’s not a new phenomenon. Ballot measures have influenced what happens at the Colorado Capitol for years. But the pace appears to have picked up in recent years as conservative groups have tried to find ways to shape policy amid historic Democratic power in the state.
“If voters don’t want to approve ballot measures, those ballot measures have no leverage,” said Tyler Sandberg, a Republican political consultant. “They only negotiate with ballot measures they think will pass.”
Sandberg insists ballot measures force Democrats to the table when they represent the opinion of the majority of Coloradans.
But the Democratic majority in the legislature has had enough. They argue the ballot measures are so potent because of money, not because of the appeal of the ideas behind them.
“I am a firm supporter of every citizen’s desire to bring forward an initiative,” House Speaker Julie McCluskie, D-Dillon, said last week as the special session got underway. “I think we want to protect that right. But we have now seen, several times, where wealthy interest groups have been able to put something on the ballot for consideration that is then weaponized against the legislature. That has to end. We need to find a different approach.”
Some Democrats at the Capitol tried to turn the tables during the special session by referring a measure to the November ballot asking voters to approve a constitutional amendment strengthening local control over property taxes.
House Concurrent Resolution 1001, which passed the House 44-19, could have de-fanged future statewide ballot measures to limit or reduce property taxes by giving local voters a chance to veto them in their own jurisdictions. But Democrats abandoned the effort when it became clear it wouldn’t meet the two-thirds majority threshold needed to pass in the state Senate.
The move frustrated local government advocates, who said the legislature’s ceasefire agreement on property taxes wasn’t binding. And — even if the supporters of Initiatives 108 and 50 keep their word — other groups could bring ballot measures to cut taxes in defiance of the deal.
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“Without constitutional reform, there is no assurance that whatever happens during this very special session, that it’s in any way permanent,” Kevin Bommer, executive director of the Colorado Municipal League, said in the committee hearing Wednesday.
Sen. Chris Hansen, a Denver Democrat who sponsored the measure, said it was “very appropriate to ask ourselves the long-term question” of whether local voters should be in control of their own property taxes. Under the measure, if a statewide ballot measure on property taxes passed, local voters would have to approve it in their own jurisdictions for its provisions to take effect.
“I believe that’s the right question to put in front of the voters,” Hansen said before asking the Senate Finance Committee to postpone the measure indefinitely. “However, it’s fairly clear that we don’t have a path forward in the Senate.”
Are lawmakers incentivizing the ballot measure mania?
Some Democrats at the Capitol argued that the wealthy groups and people influencing policy at the Capitol only have power because lawmakers have given it to them.
“We’re here doing this special session because a decision was made to negotiate with oligarchs,” Rep. Stephanie Vigil, a Colorado Springs Democrat, said in a speech on the House floor. “This is a very, very small number of unelected, unaccountable individuals with extremely deep pockets.”
Vigil said she works for the people. “I sure as heck don’t work for Michael Fields,” she said, invoking the name of the president of Advance Colorado, one of the two conservative nonprofits behind Initiatives 50 and 108.
State Rep. Jennifer Bacon, D-Denver, argued that the governor’s office was forcing the deal on the legislature after negotiating with Advance Colorado and Colorado Concern. Neither report their donors.
“This floor needs to be respected,” she said, referring to the second level of the Capitol where the House and Senate chambers are located. The governor’s office is on the first floor. “We only work for the people. We may work with others, but we only work for the people. I don’t work for somebody who’s not on this floor — or even dare I say (in the lobby). It is our job to make law.”
Polis rejected the idea that the legislature was incentivizing groups to use ballot measures as a tool of influence.
“They don’t need encouragement,” he told The Sun in an interview. “We have a robust citizen initiative process in our state.”
He said it’s a good thing when the legislature can avoid ballot measure fights and provide policy stability. Polis also rejected the idea that he was forcing a deal on the legislature.
“This effort was led by really strong legislative leaders,” he said.
Mark Ferrandino, a former state lawmaker who is now the governor’s budget chief, called ballot measures a “tried and true method” of influencing the legislature. In 2006, when he was a state representative, that’s what happened during a debate over immigration.
Then-Gov. Bill Owens, a Republican, called a special session after the Colorado Supreme Court rejected a citizen ballot initiative seeking to amend the state constitution to bar people in the country illegally from accessing government assistance programs. Owens wanted the legislature to refer the measure to the ballot and demanded that lawmakers either do that, or pass a bill of their own. The legislature went with the latter.
“This is not the first and it probably won’t be the last,” Ferrandino told lawmakers last week.
Senate President Steve Fenberg, D-Boulder, defended the special session and said Democrats only agreed to it because the deal to get Initiatives 50 and 108 off the ballot was palatable.
“We would not be here if we felt that what we were given in return was irresponsible,” he said. “The citizen initiative process is there for a reason. It’s there to be a check and balance on the legislature. It’s there to bring up issues that may be popular but not politically expedient for us to be taking on and for people to tell us what they want to do in state law.”
But he said the process is “being exploited by special interests,” and that ballot measures are the worst way to make public policy because there is no negotiation or wiggle room for change.
“It is a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ on a set policy,” Fenberg said.
Conservatives aren’t the only ones who have used the citizen’s initiative process to their advantage. Liberals passed paid family leave in 2020 through a ballot measure, Proposition 118, and this year they are aiming to enshrine abortion access in the state constitution through a ballot question.
“The citizen’s initiative process is a vital check on the power of the governing class, and it has never been more important than it is now,” Josh Penry, a Republican campaign strategist who is a veteran of Colorado’s ballot measure battles, said in a statement. “Our initiatives were the lever that forced elected officials back to the bargaining table to responsibly finish their job. The system worked exactly like it is supposed to.”
And there are signs voters like weighing in.
A poll conducted by New Bridge Strategy, a Republican firm, and Aspect Strategic, a Democratic firm, among registered voters in March on behalf of the nonpartisan Colorado Polling Institute showed that 88% like having the ability to vote on a range of policy issues through initiatives.
Republicans don’t think the initiative process should change at all
Republicans spent the special session pushing against any attempt to change the initiative process. Some even tried to block the compromise bill because they felt voters should have a chance to weigh in on Initiatives 50 and 108.
House Concurrent Resolution 1001, the measure requiring local approval of certain statewide property tax initiatives, received no GOP support in the House before being shelved in the Senate, where it would have needed at least one Republican vote to pass.
“We were called to this very super-duper special session to talk about property tax relief,” said Rep. Lisa Frizell, a Castle Rock Republican. “That is not what this is.”
Most Republicans in the legislature were OK with the property tax compromise because they reasoned it would help Coloradans and prevent budgetary disaster.
“I think that it’s fair to say that the process in which we got here runs afoul of our Republican system of government,” said state Rep. Matt Soper, a Delta Republican. “We should be able to have a much more thorough debate, much earlier on as the people’s elected representatives. That being said, our system of government does allow for the initiative process.”
Others, however, were fundamentally opposed to a legislative deal preventing Colorado voters from having a say at the ballot.
“I’m doing everything I can to convince Fields not to cave to the big bully machine and to stand strong,” Rep. Scott Bottoms, a Colorado Springs Republican, said during a committee hearing last week. “I think it’s horrible that we cannot let the people vote in their own property tax decrease.”
Rep. Brandi Bradley, a Littleton Republican, said the deal nullified the voice of the hundreds of thousands of voters who signed petitions to get Initiatives 50 and 108 on the ballot in the first place.
Election Day is Nov. 5.