Constitutional reform meeting recap

Speaker Andrew Romanoff set the tone by reminding everyone this is a listening tour:

We want this to be a genuine exercise in representative democracy with an emphasis on the democracy part. That’s why we’ve invited so many of you here to day and so many to listen in online.

The Speaker then introduced Representative Al White who said, "I have been throwing rocks at this behemoth for a number of years now." Rep. White favors a Constitutional Convention, but acknowledges that many folks are afraid to open the doors to wholesale change. Nevertheless, Rep. White sees fixing the constitution as being the largest issue that faces state government and the citizens of Colorado today. And he looks forward to citizens and legislators coming together to find solutions.

Jennie Bowser from the bi-partisan National Conference of State Legislatures proceeded to compare and contrast Colorado’s initiative process with the 24 other states that allow citizens to float initiatives. She concluded:

Colorado’s constitution is the easiest in the nation to amend by initiative: we have a lower signature threshold, we have no geographic distribution requirement, we can pass it with a simple majority vote and the legislature can amend or repeal at any time. Given all that, there is no real incentive for an initiative proponent to choose the statutory route when they can. There’s just no reason to when you can do the same work and get it into the constitution.

The group then broke into small groups to tackle the question:

How should citizens be able to change the constitution?

I couldn’t listen in on these sessions, but the groups came back to report on their discussions.

They reported general agreement, but by no means was there unanimity. They touched on a wide range of ideas including:

fixing the constitution before making it harder to change the constitution

offering incentives to change statutes

cherry picking from what other states are doing

requiring geographic diversity in signatures

keeping the legislature from tinkering with initiative-passed laws

requiring a super majority to pass

raising the signature requirement to 10%

making it clear who was really behind initiatives

making it harder to get a constitutional amendment on the ballot

public input and review before the measure gets on the ballot

Clearly there’s a lot more discussing and listening to be done before it’s time to forge a solution. What do you think? Leave your comments here or send ‘em in an email.

--Louella