And now, on to the “transcript”:
Moderated by Toni Larson, League of Women Voters.
Elected officials attending included: Representatives Judd, Soper, Cerbo, Borodkin, White, McNulty, Levy, Senator Gordon and Speaker Romanoff.
Speaker Andrew Romanoff:
I want to give credit to Representative Al White who, for the last several years, has been trying to get the legislature to focus on the problems that are created by our constitution-- how to reconcile some of the existing conflicts and how to make it a little harder to amend the constitution on the first place—or at least how to give citizens more of an incentive to go the statutory route.Representative Al White:
I brought a couple of props. This is the US constitution. It’s a thing of beauty. It’s clear, it’s simple, it’s short. It lays out the purpose, the structure of government and it fits in your pocket. This is the Colorado constitution and it’s none of those things. It’s ten times as long and it’s not just an operating manual for government, it’s more like a cookbook. It tells you when and how you can trap mammals, when you can smoke marijuana for medicinal purposes, what the minimum wage ought to be.
The Colorado constitution’s been amended more times in the last twenty-five years than the US constitution has ever been amended: forty-seven amendments to the Colorado constitution since Ronald Reagan was elected President and twenty-seven amendments to the US constitution since George Washington was elected President. It’s hard to argue that the Colorado constitution is superior as a result.
So I start with the premise that we might find some room for improvement in the way in which we go about this. But we want this to be a listening session—one of the reasons we convened these sessions yesterday in the Springs, today in Denver, tomorrow in JeffCo is because if the legislature is to come up with some means to make it harder to amend the constitution or to make it harder for ourselves to amend statutory initiatives, that proposal will fail if the conversation is confined to the Capitol.
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 today and so many to listen in online.
I’d like to ask Representative White to make some remarks as well.
Thank you Mr. Speaker and ladies and gentlemen, I appreciate you coming here today.Jennie Bowser, National Conference of State Legislatures: [ed note: Jennie had a PowerPoint presentation to complement her remarks.]
I have been throwing rocks at this behemoth for a number of years now. When our financial crisis was looming several years back I attended a program put on by the Bighorn Group and I happened to sit next to Tom Clark of the Denver Chamber of Commerce. In our conversations that day, Tom told me about the constitutional convention that Illinois convened to overhaul their 1818 constitution. Their constitutional convention took place in 1969, but they started working on the process in 1959.
If I had my druthers, that’s exactly what we would do in Colorado today, but the thought of a constitutional convention seems to frighten people out of their wits. People on the left are afraid the people on the right will rule, and the people on the right are afraid that the people on the left will rule. They were afraid of the same thing in Illinois, but in fact the fringes on either side fell away and the good work was done by the people in the middle. And that’s what I hope we will accomplish in some form or fashion here today. If not to get all the cockleburs out of the fur of this dog of a constitution we have, then at least to clean its coat to some degree. (The Speaker always loves it when I make animal analogies.) And I think referring to our Constitution as a dog is not out of place at this time. Perhaps as a cur or a mongrel mutt might be better because of the irrelevancies and contradictory articles we have in our constitution. It is truly unworkable and we truly need to do something about it. I see it as being the largest issue that faces state government and the citizens of Colorado today. And I’m hopeful that through this process that the Speaker’s been kind enough to begin, we the citizens and we legislators can come together on some solution that will find its way to completion.
NCSL is a bi-partisan organization. We collect information about how different state legislatures do things, share the information, and let the legislatures and citizens decide what to do.*break for small group breakouts to discuss: “How should citizens be able to change the Colorado constitution?”*
First of all, it may surprise you to hear that only 24 states have the initiative process and of those only about ¼-1/3 have a process as active as Colorado’s.
In Colorado, to qualify a constitutional amendment to the ballot you have to gather signatures equal in number to 5% of the votes cast for the Secretary of State in the last election. Same thing to qualify a statutory amendment—there is no difference. (In 2006, that number was about 68,000 signatures, it will be different for 2008.)
In all but two of the states that allow citizens to place both constitutional amendments and changes to statute on the ballot, more signatures are required to qualify a constitutional amendment to the ballot. The two that don’t require more are Colorado and Nevada. But Nevada’s signature requirements are much more difficult to achieve than in Colorado—Nevada requires signatures from 10% of total votes cast in the previous election.
In addition, Colorado has no geographic distribution requirements. Geographic distribution requirements say you can’t gather all your signatures in the most populous part of the state. In Missouri, for example, they have to gather signatures equal to 8% of the votes cast for governor in six out of nine congressional districts. This forces proponents to demonstrate that they have state-wide support of an idea before it gets on the ballot. In Colorado, you can collect signatures on one busy street corner in Denver and get your initiative on the ballot. The downside of a geographic distribution system is that it’s much more difficult and expensive to administer both to election officials and to proponents; it requires management to make sure you’re reaching these different thresholds.
In CO it takes a simple majority to pass a constitutional amendment. Three states have a higher threshold. Florida requires 60% to pass a constitutional amendment. In WY 50% +1 of the people voting in the election (not just on the measure) have to vote yes for it to pass. In NV, any amendment on the ballot has to be approved in two consecutive general elections.
Once an initiative has been passed into law, some states restrict how the legislature can amend it. In Colorado, the General Assembly can amend, repeal, do anything they want to a law passed by initiative—just like they can for any other law. But that’s not true in a lot of states. Some states require a super majority to amend or repeal a law that was passed by initiative, some can’t change the law in any way for five years.
The states that put the strictest restrictions on the legislature’s ability to amend initiated statutes end up with fewer constitutional amendments on their ballots.
Changing the process is not the only way to go. Other states are focusing on civic education and voter education. Our blue book is great, but compared to what some other states do, it’s a little basic. More complex information such as placing proposals in the context of state policy as a whole and placing fiscal notes in the context of the state budget as a whole gives voters more information on which to base their decisions. In Oregon they’re talking about creating a citizen review commission of people from different walks of life to review proposed initiatives, take testimony, talk and analyze, and come up with a recommendation paragraph that would go on the ballot.
In summary, 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.
Small group reports:
Group #1
We chose to not discuss only the one question. We looked at both how do we change the constitution and whether or not it was better to change the problematic parts before we made it harder to change the constitution. We looked at a whole slew of things and, true to politics, we came up with pretty much nothing.
We felt geographic representation was important, we talked about changing how we would convene a constitutional convention, we considered allowing more incentive to change statutes to constitutional amendments, and we talked about cherry picking from other states—especially looking at the two-election cycle system in Nevada.
Group #2
There was broad consensus to protect the constitution, to ensure geographic diversity on the front end and to a require a higher percentage of votes necessary to change the constitution. The general consensus was that we need to consider the two-year waiting period and the way we collect signatures. And there was concern that we needed to make sure the legislature couldn’t tinker with successful initiatives. We had a good, comprehensive discussion but it was not unanimous. One person was concerned that making it harder to change constitution was a bad thing—that barriers to change the constitution put constitutional changes into the hands of the very few instead of the general population.
Group #3
We agreed with much has been already said, but we also thought education was really important—most people in Colorado don’t understand the conflicts in the constitution or some of the fiscal binds that the constitution includes. The state legislature must communicate these problems clearly so people understand there’s something that needs fixing.
We need to fix the constitution before we limit how people can amend it. We had similar conversations about the need to change the number of signatures required to get on the ballot and the problems inherent with administrating these changes; should we just go for a super majority? We definitely recommend a two-tiered process for amending the constitution and changing statutes.
Group #4
We also had no unanimity.
Addressing the question directly, we suggest raising the signature requirement to 10%, having a citizen review committee, and requiring a super majority vote by the people. A couple of people were concerned about the affects of making it more difficult to get measures on the ballot. We had one request for increased awareness of the individuals or organizations that are behind these measures—listing them in blue book, perhaps. We want more factual information about ballot measures and less advertising. Also, people tend to think most initiatives rise from the grassroots, but in fact, big money special interests are increasingly behind initiatives; voters should know who’s behind a measure.
Group #5
Much of what we discussed has already been covered. Most of us felt it should be harder to qualify a constitutional amendment to the ballot than an initiative. Signatures should be spread throughout the state. There should be some tamper-proof period, but we didn’t come up with a time period. Before a measure gets on the ballot there should be public input and review. We definitely need more voter education: The blue book is really good but lots of people don’t read it. The League of Women’s Voters booklet is also very good, but perhaps it needs broader distribution. That’s about all that’s new.
Responses/additions to small group reports:
A few years ago, the voters brought an initiative to change the signature requirements and voters voted to keep the limit low. The initiative process is very popular in Colorado.
*
Maybe there should be a minimum threshold for allowing a measure to pass. For example, we could require that unless 40% of the populace voted on a measure it couldn’t become law. That would motivate the proponents to get their message out to everyone and to get people to vote.
*
In the US congress there’s the understanding that they will not pass a perfect bill; they expect to have to revise it. They also bend over backwards to help groups that are being hurt by the bill. I think we have to recognize in Colorado that the legislature’s not going to pass a perfect bill.
*
The five year time out for tampering is designed to assure people who are putting something in statute that it will remain unmolested for at least five years.
*
I was a little surprised that no groups said anything about the possibility of waiting two years and having second vote.
*
I would like to take exception to the characterization of the population as unthinking and uninformed on these issues. The voters reject 2/3 or more of the measures put on the ballot—they’re not automatically passing initiatives; we should be hesitant in restricting the ability of people to put measures on the ballot. In fact, I think we should lower the number of signatures required to get it on the ballot. This would undermine the influence of well-funded special interest groups. The voters can always say no.
*
When initiative proponents file an initiative, the non-partisan Legal Services group reviews it for clarity and to make sure it adheres to the single-subject rule. We then prepare memoranda asking questions about ambiguous language, possible constitutional conflicts, etc. We cannot require or even forcefully suggest changes.
It’s up to the proponents to address or ignore the questions. Title board meetings are streamed and archived.
*
It seems just as important to address changing and cleaning up the constitution as it is to protecting it. People of Colorado like the initiative process. There should be some incentive to make it more appealing/feasible to do a statutory change rather than constitutional one.
Speaker Romanoff:
Thanks for your time and your ideas. And I appreciate the point made about how informed Coloradans generally are. Perhaps the question should be: is it too easy for the legislature to change an initiative?Rep. White (?):
The next step is to continue this conversation and I hope a proposal will emerge in time for the next session.
Our society changes and this process was put into effect around 1910. It strikes me that our population is very oriented to the sound byte—that which is in front of them right away and they want it right away. We the legislature do the best job that we can but the impatience of the public has grown to such a degree that we are no longer given the time to do our jobs. So they quickly put something on the ballot.And that, my friends, is all I captured. I’m sure the session ended with mutual appreciation and requests to stay tuned.
It’s not that the population is uninformed, but that the process that puts measures on the ballot is not as rigorous as the process the General Assembly uses to discuss and amend a bill before it becomes law.
If you made it this far, you’re really committed; I sure hope you share your thoughts and opinions!
--Louella
[ed note: yep, I backdated this because it wasn't ready before the recap and I didn't want to scare the faint-of-heart by putting this tome at the top of the page.]
1 comment(s):
I'm glad to see someone is discussing this important issue. I thought you might like to see my proposed amendment to the U.S. Constitution entitled Representative Democracy for the Modern Era.
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