DENVER – It’s petition-gathering season, when proponents and the firms they hire to collect signatures gather outside grocery stores, churches and on pedestrian malls, asking Colorado voters to support their issues.
For the November ballot, several topics could face voters, including powers of local government, hydraulic fracturing, amending the state constitution, primary elections, medical aid in dying, minimum wage, retaining state revenue and curbing marijuana and tobacco use.
Proponents for any issue must collect 98,492 valid signatures by Aug. 8 to make the ballot. Most groups will aim to collect at least 120,000 signatures, so that they have a cushion.
Only one issue, would create a single-payer health care system in Colorado, is already on the ballot. For every other issue, a sense of urgency has taken over.
Fracking
Fracking is hardly a new subject in Colorado. The Centennial State in many ways is ground zero for the conversation, with industrial operations moving into neighborhoods in rural areas and along the Front Range.
Ballot questions were proposed for 2014, but Gov. John Hickenlooper struck a deal, postponing the efforts in favor of a task force. The task force, however, fell short on addressing the local control issue.
Proponents – led largely by environmental groups and community activists – are back this year with two initiatives, one that would allow local governments to pass rules and regulations that overstep the state’s authority, including banning fracking, and another that would require a minimum 2,500-foot setback of wells from homes, schools and hospitals. The current requirement is 500 feet.
A separate group of proponents is collecting signatures for a question that would establish that the people have an “inherent right to local self-government in counties and municipalities, including the power to enact laws to establish, protect, and secure rights of natural persons, communities, and nature, as well as the power to define or eliminate the rights and powers of corporations or business entities to prevent them from interfering with those rights.”
Amending the state constitution
Given the array of issues possibly facing voters this November, it’s appropriate that one effort aims to curb the number of ballot questions that would amend the state constitution.
All it takes in Colorado to amend the constitution is the 98,492 valid signatures to make the ballot, and then a simple majority vote of the people.
Under the Raise the Bar campaign proposal, signatures would need to be collected from at least 2 percent of the registered voters in each of the 35 state Senate districts before an issue can qualify for the ballot. Provisions would need 55 percent of the vote to pass.
Existing provisions in the constitution could be repealed by the same simple majority. The ballot question would not alter the proposition process for state statutes.
Primary elections
Following the March 1 caucus, a chaotic and confusing process that left many participants frustrated, voters called on the Legislature to switch to a presidential primary, in which unaffiliated voters could also participate. The Legislature failed.
Proponents – led by the Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce – are collecting signatures for two ballot questions. One effort would allow all voters to participate in state and local primary elections, including unaffiliated voters.
The second question would only address presidential elections, moving the state away from a caucus system to an open presidential primary.
Medical aid in dying
Another area in which the Legislature failed to act was with addressing allowing terminally ill patients to request access to life-ending medication.
Two years in a row, the Legislature fell short, so proponents decided to ask voters.
The ballot question would only apply to terminally ill adult patients with a prognosis of six months or less to live.
Two physicians would need to confirm the prognosis, patients would need to be mentally capable, the medication would need to be self-administered, two oral requests separated by 15 days and a third written request would be needed, and patients would have the right to rescind the request at any time.
Colorado would join five states with medical aid-in-dying laws.
Minimum wage
Yet another area in which the Legislature failed to act was with advancing legislation that would gradually raise the minimum wage in Colorado.
Proponents are asking voters to place an issue on the ballot that would raise the minimum wage to $12 an hour by 2020. The current minimum wage is $8.31 per hour.
Retaining excess state revenue
Facing state budget woes, lawmakers this year were asked by a bipartisan contingency to restructure a hospital provider fee to free money for state spending. Republicans, the controlling party in the Senate, let the bill die.
Without the additional resources to fix crumbling roads and highways and fully fund education and other critical state services, proponents are asking voters this November to weigh in on whether the state should be allowed to retain and spend all state revenues in excess of the limitation on state fiscal year spending.
Marijuana potency
In the face of proliferating legal marijuana, a group has formed to limit THC potency to 16 percent.
The effort also would set new packaging requirements, including labeling that strongly states perceived harms, such that marijuana carries a risk of “permanent loss of brain abilities,” a claim that opponents say has not been proven.
Proponents have been secretive about their ballot drive, which is being backed by former House Speaker Frank McNulty, R-Highlands Ranch.
The marijuana industry has established an opposition committee, suggesting that the ballot drive could dismantle large portions of their businesses.
It’s unclear whether proponents are actively collecting signatures. They have not registered a firm to collect signatures, and there have been no reports of volunteers petitioning voters.
Cigarette tax
In addition to limiting marijuana use, voters this November could be asked to raise the tax on a pack of cigarettes, with the goal of reducing smoking.
The tax would go up by $1.75 per pack, moving from 84 cents to $2.59 per pack.
The question also would increase the tax on other tobacco products, such as cigars and chewing tobacco, by 22 percent.
Funds would be directed to an array of services, including cancer, heart and lung disease research; programs for veterans; mental and behavioral health; rural health care, and tobacco education.
Not on ballot
While there are certainly a lot of questions before voters, the list of 11 ballot issues is greatly reduced from the dozens of proposals filed with the state.
High-profile liquor measures were pulled by sponsors, and a state Supreme Court ruling ended two redistricting proposals.
Another group had proposed requiring the state to divest from companies doing business with the Iran government. But that effort is no longer moving forward, according to a lead proponent.
pmarcus@durangoherald.com
