Amendment K to the Constitution would give election officials an additional week to process issue signature petitions and require publicizing ballot measures 30 days before the election rather than the current 15 days.
Judges, retained by voters after their initial term, would also have one week added to the three months before the election to say whether they desired another term.
The Journal’s editorial board favors Amendment K.
The additional week does reduce the time that signatures can be gathered for initiatives, but not significantly. What is more important is publicizing election issues 30 days before the election, giving additional time for research and discussion. With Colorado’s popular mail-in voting, ballots are currently being received by voters a little more than 15 days before Election Day. Those who vote quickly aren’t benefiting from the publication of the ballot issues. Doubling that to 30 days will be helpful.
“Yes” on Amendment K.
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Amendment G to the state’s Constitution will provide an estimated 3,700 veterans who are deemed unable to hold a job with a reduction in their property taxes. It adds them to the homestead exemption category, which excuses 50% of the first $200,000 in home value from taxation.
Veterans with 100% service connected disability currently qualify for the exemption, as do Gold Star spouses whose spouses died in the line of duty, and those 65 and older who are living in the same residence for 10 years or more.
The reduced tax revenue, estimated at $1.8 million for the tax year 2025 (from the Legislature’s Blue Book) will be backfilled by the state. Thus, no local taxing district will lose funding for an exemption valued at about $600 to the homeowner.
The determination as to employability will be made by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.
The Journal’s editorial board suggests a “yes” vote, for veterans.
This is a question better suited as a statute in the board’s estimation, however, but to expand the homestead exemption, in the constitution, requires a similar location.
Advocates for proposing and approving a constitutional amendment should remember that a favorable vote of 55% plus one is needed; Approval of a statute is 50% plus one. That 5% difference, seemingly small, can result in an amendment being turned down.
Vote “yes.”
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Amendment H creates a board of lawyers, judges and citizens (four each) to evaluate charges of judicial misconduct with some transparency than exists now. Currently, accusations are handled by a panel of judges and considered secret until the end of the process.
Now, charges are screened by a panel of judges appointed by the state’s Supreme Court and the governor. That will be eliminated in favor of an Independent Judicial Discipline Adjudicative Board.
Recent missteps by the state’s Supreme Court in a personnel matter have likely caused the creation of a board that includes attorneys and citizens rather than only judges to be proposed.
The Journal’s board has no reason to believe that ethical lapses by judges in the state’s several court levels are many, but Coloradans have to feel that the judicial system is performing ethically and if it’s not that there is a group of some disinterested individuals that will set it right.
The Journal’s editorial board suggests a “yes” vote to add Amendment H to the state’s constitution.
