AMENDMENTS 47 AND 49 — LABOR UNIONS
Amendment 47 would prohibit an employer from requiring that an employee be a member of a labor union or pay union dues.

Amendment 49 would bar governments from deducting union dues, or other payments to special interest groups, from civil servants' paychecks.

John Caldara is president of the Independence Institute, which has been spearheading Amendment 49.

"Governmental payroll systems shouldn't be used as a conduit for money being given to groups that turn around and lobby government," he said. "Employees can still give as much money as they want."

"Federal law already protects workers who don't want to join a union," said Jess Knox, executive director of Protect Colorado's Future, a group backed by organized labor. "You cannot be forced to join a union."

Knox said 49 unfairly targets public employees. "It discriminates against them for choosing their line of work," he said. "Everybody else in the state has the freedom to choose how their paycheck is spent."

AMENDMENT 48 — PERSONHOOD
This measure, easily the hot-button issue on this ballot, would define human life as beginning at "the moment of fertilization."

Kristi Burton of Peyton, sponsor of the amendment, said it would not necessarily turn abortion into homicide, saying the amendment merely defines human life - "a new human being begins at the moment of conception."

She said the courts would have to decide, for example, whether it was criminal act if a pregnant woman underwent chemotherapy to save her own life even though the chemotherapy caused a miscarriage.

"Amendment 48 does not take away a woman's right to life," Burton said. "This does not elevate the rights of the unborn over the rights of the woman."

Crystal Clinkenbeard, spokeswoman for the No on 48 Campaign, said Amendment 48 "would ban all abortion, even for victims of rape and incest or when a woman's life is at risk."

She also said that "when you give full legal rights to fertilized eggs, then birth control options like the pill and IUDs could be banned because those methods of birth control can prevent fertilized eggs from implanting in the uterus."

AMENDMENT 50 — GAMBLING
This measure would allow Cripple Creek, Central City and Black Hawk to raise the betting limit at casinos by $95, to $100, and allow 24/7 gambling, with most of the additional revenues dedicated to the state's community colleges.

"It will allow us to provide additional funding for the community college system without raising taxes," said Katy Atkinson, spokeswoman for Coloradans for Community Colleges, a coalition of gaming industry representatives and community college educators.

She said passage of the measure would bolster the gambling towns, which have suffered from the weak economy and the imposition in January of a state smoking ban in casinos.

Scott Yates of Denver is a spokesman for Vote No on Amendment 50, a grass-roots group. "Colorado voters approved limited-stakes gambling and have been basically pretty happy with the balance of having gambling but having it be limited stakes," he said. "This upsets that balance."

AMENDMENT 51 — PROGRAMS FOR THE DISABLED
This measure would increase the 2.9-percent state sales tax by a tenth of 1 percent in 2009 and again in 2010, with the proceeds used to provide services for people with developmental disabilities.

It would "essentially eliminate Colorado's waiting list" for 12,000 people with disabilities who are not getting services, said David Ervin of Colorado Springs, executive director of the Resource Exchange, which coordinates developmental disability services in the Pikes Peak region. "If this doesn't pass, it's not as if folks have to settle for what they have, because they don't have anything."

There is no organized opposition.

AMENDMENTS 52 AND 58 — OIL AND GAS TAXES
Amendment 52 would reallocate a portion of the state's oil and gas severance tax to a highway fund, "giving first priority to reducing congestion on the Interstate 70 corridor." Amendment 58 would increase the oil and gas severance tax to 5 percent and reduce or eliminate tax credits or exemptions for oil and gas producers. Nearly half of the proceeds would stay in existing oil and gas severance tax trust funds, a third would be allocated to state college scholarships and the rest would be divided among wildlife habitat preservation, renewable energy development, transportation projects in areas affected by oil and gas exploration and clean-water programs.

The Greater Colorado Springs Chamber of Commerce endorsed 52, but Stephannie Finley, president of governmental affairs and public policy at the Chamber, said 58 was a concern. "When you go after our major economic drivers, especially in such an economic downturn, that defies common sense," she said.

In an appearance in Colorado Springs on  Sept. 22, Gov. Bill Ritter said that by ending a major tax break for oil and gas producers in Colorado, 58 would bring the state in line with other Western energy-producing states.

Club 20, a Western Slope lobbying group, opposes 52 in part because of the focus on I-70, which may also be an issue for Colorado Springs voters.

AMENDMENT 53 — MANAGEMENT LIABILITY
This measure would allow a company's executives to be held criminally liable for illegal acts committed by the company.

Knox said the measure fills a loophole in state law that allows a company to be held liable but spares the executive who ordered the illegal act.

"I have yet to see an economic-development campaign in the state of Colorado that says, ‘Come to Colorado, we welcome corporate fraud,'" Knox said. "We think that the more we increase confidence in our corporate leaders, the stronger the Colorado economy is going to be."

Finley of the Springs Chamber said the measure would "put a chill on productivity. It's a trial lawyer's dream."

AMENDMENT 54 — CAMPAIGN CONTRIBUTIONS
This measure would prohibit holders of state or local governments' no-bid contracts of $100,000 or more from making political contributions until two years after the contract has expired, and bars contributors to ballot initiative elections from accepting no-bid government contracts.

Tom Lucero of Loveland, chairman of Clean Government Colorado, a group formed to support the measure, said its definition of no-bid government contracts includes those with unions representing government employees. "We believe all government contracts should be put out to competitive bid," he said.

That has the unionists up in arms. Knox said the measure would take away the right of teachers, police officers, firefighters, nurses and other union members, and any of their family members, to participate in the public policy process.

"This would totally freeze them out," Knox said. "In addition it does not protect against those corporations that are part of a competitive bid process who go out and hire 75 lobbyists to cover Capitol Hill."

AMENDMENTS 55, 56 AND 57 — WORKPLACE GROUND RULES
Amendment 55 would require companies with 20 or more employees to show "just cause" for dismissing a full-time employee.

Amendment 56 would require companies with 20 or more employees to provide them with health care coverage, with each employee paying no more than 20 percent of the premium for the employee and 30 percent for dependents. Amendment 57 would require companies with 10 or more employees to provide "safe and healthy workplaces."

"We totally agree with the fact that employers should be allowed to fire bad employees," Knox said of 55. "We just think they should be given a reason."

Manolo Gonzalez-Estay is a political consultant for Coloradans for Middle Class Relief, which supports 56 and 57. "The health care system nationally isn't getting fixed anytime soon," he said. "We need to do something here in Colorado. And this isn't going to hurt the small businesses, because we're specifically looking at businesses of 20 or more."

Finley said jobs were at stake. "An employee could lose their job just because the employer can't provide health care for all people in their business," she said.

Finley said she wished all the workplace measures on the ballot, the pro-business 47 and 49 as well as the pro-worker 53 through 57, could vanish from the ballot.

 "We see this as upsetting the apple cart as far as it goes with healthy labor-business relationships in our state," she said. "We are now faced with some very, very harmful possible outcomes in November."