One outcome from the just-completed Supreme Court session is that Colorado's 10th US District federal court has been told to review a decision from 2014 about the Colorado legislature's standing to challenge Colorado's Taxpayer Bill of Rights (TABOR). This part of the state constitution, passed in a citizen initiative in 1992, basically says that the legislature and cities cannot raise tax rates without a vote of the people, that budgets can't be increased above a formula that allows for increased value (inflation plus population growth) but not an increase in tax rate, that revenues, if they exceed projections in the budget must be returned to the taxpayers or else the jurisdiction must ask to keep the extra by having an election, and also, if revenues fall (like in a recession), they cannot be just increased back to where they would have been pre-recession once the economy recovers. This last point was designed to ratchet down spending by the government and it came into play during the "Great Recession" caused by Bush. The state budget fell but it couldn't be increased once the economy came roaring back, which caused problems because many maintenance projects were put on hold when the money was short and then they couldn't be paid for once the money should have been available.
Please come over the curlicue for a little more.
From the Denver Post newspaper:
Opponents of the law, which requires tax hikes in Colorado first get the approval of state voters, have tried for years to dismantle the Taxpayer's Bill of Rights on the grounds that TABOR unfairly takes away taxing authority from the legislature and local governments.
They filed suit in 2011 and since then Colorado officials and Gov. John Hickenlooper have tried to get it dismissed by arguing — among other things — that the opponents in the state legislature do not have the right to take their fight to court.
Last year, the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals sided with the TABOR opponents and in response Colorado officials asked the Supreme Court to consider whether the case had standing.
The Circuit Court ruled in 2014 that the legislators had standing to pursue the case to undo the TABOR restrictions against being able to raise taxes; the legislators had wanted to get the federal courts to rule that requiring a statewide ballot to allow for raising taxes instead of allowing the legislature to do it on its own would be against the way all state legislatures have the power to tax and spend -
more information can be found in an earlier article. That 2014 ruling said that the legislators did have standing to file the case.
The USSC, in their term wrap-up, ordered the 10th Circuit to now go back and see if this needs to be amended in light of the decision about Arizona's redistricting. In essence, the legislators now may or may not have standing to file the lawsuit - that portion of the decision was vacated. What the 10th Circuit now has to determine is whether the decision about the citizen-passed TABOR amendment could take that state-held taxing power away from the legislature and reserve it to the people by requiring a statewide vote. In Arizona, the people took away the power to determine voting boundaries and gave it to a non-partisan commission. In Colorado, the people took away the power to raise taxes, instead requiring a vote by the state's people. So far, Colorado generally votes down any/all tax increases.
The 10th Circuit could affirm that the legislators could continue to pursue this case (they have standing), the legislators could lose standing because the Supreme Court ruling said that citizen initiatives can function like legislation when they amend the state constitution (in essence, the legislators wouldn't be a separate party able to sue the people who count as legislators themselves). This would mean the only thing that could overturn Tabor would be another initiative or for the lawmakers to submit changes and have those passed by voter approval. Perhaps the 10th Circuit might come up with some other ruling. IANAL, but it seems to me the citizens may bear the full responsibility.
I really don't know how I feel about this - I dislike Tabor, and would like to give the legislature the ability to tax and spend as needed to make Colorado the best state in the Union. I do not like giving the government a blank check, however, since I see projects like the one to replace the current I-70 corridor through Denver with a multi-billion dollar sunken corridor to speed traffic through town and head things like trucks up the hills and into the mountains. We have some sunken freeways already and they're places where floodwater collects, where ice and snow collect, the project will displace a couple of thousand homes and put a freeway within feet of a school, and all this while they have a perfectly usable alternative to divert traffic north and around the downtown using the I-270 and I-76 highways which have plenty of space for extra lanes, would require only about a tenth of the expense while preserving neighborhoods. Sadly, this is one of those projects that require people to follow the money and see who's making out big and who's powerless to avoid getting screwed by the banksters. Giving the state the power to tax to support this ginormous project is not a good thing. I'd support the state being able to raise taxes to support issues I like; I don't support the state being able to raise taxes to support issues I don't.