Supporters of animals, the climate, and democracy itself are urging Colorado voters to reject an upcoming ballot measure backed by special interest groups that would stiffen requirements for amending the state’s constitution—or, put another way, a ballot measure to end (some) ballot measures.
As the Denver Post‘s former editorial page editor Vincent Carroll explains, Amendment 71 would raise the percentage of votes required to pass a constitutional change from a majority to 55 percent and require a percentage of those signatures to be gathered in each of the state’s 35 senate districts.
Together, those provisions have the potential to “throttle one of the seminal reforms of the progressive era that empowered individual citizens,” and would have “doomed a number of the best-known initiatives of the past half-century and deterred who knows how many other campaigns from even gearing up,” he writes.
The measure would also allow the ridding of existing constitutional amendments through a simple majority, creating a double-standard for the requirements to pass new rules and those to repeal them.
Carroll’s warning was echoed by the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS), which came out against the ballot measure on Tuesday, stating that it “aims to transfer power away from voters, making the state more vulnerable to powerful interests, including agribusiness, at the expense of Colorado citizens.”
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