House wants amending constitution to be tougher
DENVER - A proposal to make it harder to amend the Colorado Constitution got the backing of the state House on Monday.
Forty-six members of the House voted to support House Concurrent Resolution 1001 — two more than the two-thirds needed for passage. If 24 of the 35 state senators back it, voters will weigh in on the question in November 2008.
The resolution requires 60 percent of voters to back future proposed constitutional changes, rather than a majority. It allows for constitutional amendments passed before 2009, such as the Taxpayer Bill of Rights, to be changed or repealed by a majority.
Its sponsor, Rep. Al White, R-Winter Park, argued that it is too easy to change the constitution and that, because of that, the state’s guiding law includes provisions dealing with subjects — such as bear trapping — that should be limited to state statute. Using a petition initiative to create a new state law also requires just a simple majority, and White said this resolution would serve as incentive for people to go that route.
Although he has co-sponsored or supported the measure the past three years when it failed to get out of the Senate, White thinks the furor over the confusingly worded Amendment 41 ethics measure has pushed support for his resolution to a new level this year. Had Amendment 41 been passed as a statute rather than constitutional amendment in November, lawmakers could go in now and change sections that include unintended consequences, such as preventing public officials from accepting Nobel Prize money or college scholarships for their children, he said.
House Majority Leader Alice Madden, D-Boulder, was the only person to speak against the plan Monday, and she admitted that recent amendments have been both confusing and conflicting. But she would like a new plan that would allow changes to be made to initiatives before they get to the polls rather than one that just makes it harder to change the constitution, she said.
White said his plan probably isn’t perfect, but that it has been tested and changed over the past three years to the point where it now has consensus.
“We can sit here forever, and because there are 100 of us between the two bodies, we can say ‘It’s his responsibility’ or ‘It’s her responsibility’ to fix this,” he said. “The truth is there are a lot of solutions, but we will not get a single consensus on what is best if we do that.”
Twenty-four Democrats and twenty-two Republicans supported the change, while 12 Democrats and four Republicans opposed it. GOP Reps. Bill Cadman and Kent Lambert of Colorado Springs were the only Pikes Peak-area representatives to vote ‘no,’ while Democratic Rep. Mike Merrifield of Colorado Springs missed the vote because of cancer treatment.
Because the proposed amendment is in the form of a resolution, Gov. Bill Ritter does not have to sign it for it to make it onto the ballot.
CONTACT THE WRITER: (303) 837-0613 or ed.sealover@gazette.com
