Romanoff says he'll spike TABOR referendum

DENVER - House Speaker Andrew Romanoff today will kill his own plan to remove some constitutional spending limits because he lacks enough support in the General Assembly to place it before voters.

   Romanoff, D-Denver, said Sunday that he will turn his focus to collecting signatures for a citizen-driven initiative that would do essentially the same thing as his proposed constitutional amendment. He is confident that measure will make the November ballot and succeed, he said.

   The state constitution is laced with several provisions that directly control the way the state collects and spends money.

   The most sweeping is the Taxpayer's Bill of Rights, or TABOR, which limits the growth of government spending and taxation. The most recent is Amendment 23, which mandates annual spending increases for primary education. Other sections of the constitution control such things as the way residential and commercial property owners share the burden of property taxes, which are a primary source of K-12 funding.

   Romanoff introduced a proposal on April 23 to eliminate TABOR's spending limits and end the mandated increases in Amendment 23, while also creating an educational reserve fund to hold new revenue the state government would receive.

   Republicans complained the new rules amounted to a never-ending growth of government. Romanoff admitted Sunday that he can't find enough GOP support to assemble the two-thirds of the General Assembly required to put a constitutional amendment on the ballot.

   But, pointing to support for the plan from prominent nonlegislative Republicans such as Attorney General John Suthers and former House Speaker Doug Dean, he said he thinks he can make his case more effectively to voters at large.

   "It's not my first choice. I'd rather build a coalition inside the Capitol," Romanoff said. "There's two routes to the ballot, and we're going to take the second."

   Romanoff said several legislators told him they did not want the plan on the ballot for fear of giving Rep. Douglas Bruce, a Colorado Springs Republican who wrote TABOR and fights changes to it, a soapbox from which he might draw support while seeking re-election.

   The proposed amendment is scheduled to come up for a vote in a House committee today, and Romanoff said he would make the motion to kill it.

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