Colorado
In this state, more than most others, voters make big policy decisions through the ballot, like the legalization of marijuana and the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights.
But ballot measures can be difficult to understand, and so a nonprofit organization from Oregon, called Healthy Democracy, launched a pilot project to help Colorado voters better educate themselves. A small group of Coloradans, representing the state’s voter demographics, got together to study up on one initiative, and to share findings with other voters.
Read More: Here
On Monday, six additional initiative petitions were submitted to the Colorado Secretary of State for signature validation.
However, four of those petitions are already being withdrawn after Governor John Hickenlooper and US Congressman Jared Polis, supporting of two measures “to restrict oil and gas operations,” reached an agreement with supporters of two industry-backed measures. The agreement means that all four initiatives concerning regulation of the oil and natural gas industries will not go on the ballot.
Proponents for six ballot initiatives submitted petitions to the Colorado secretary of state Monday — the final day petitioners could submit them — though four of the measures could be retracted following announcements by Gov. John Hickenlooper and U.S. Rep. Jared Polis.
Hickenlooper and Polis on Monday morning dropped their support of two initiatives meant to restrict oil and gas operations and asked that two initiatives supporting the industry be rescinded as well. The Democrats proposed that instead, a panel of experts develop ideas for the state legislature in hopes of creating future legislation.
The signatures for all six initiatives were submitted by organizers who hope to have their proposals added as ballot measures for the November election.
Colorado campaigners have secured enough signatures to get two initiatives that would place restrictions on hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, in the state on the November ballot.
The measures need 86,105 signatures by Aug. 4, and Coloradans for Safe and Clean Energy said it has well surpassed that mark. The effort, bankrolled in part by Rep. Jared Polis, D-Colo., has roiled Colorado politics, where sitting Democratic Gov. John Hickenlooper and Democratic Sen. Mark Udall are both trying to win re-election.
It’s already very clear that Colorado’s 2014 election is going to be epic. What’s unknown at this point though is just how epic it will be.
We know about the race for the U.S. Senate bringing in millions of dollars of campaign funds. And we know the races for Governor and for Congress in the 6th CD will be among the most competitive races in the country, bringing in their own millions.
But while it is expected that the battle over fracking bans and regulations will only add to this mess, we truly do not know to what extent.
A ballot initiative that would have given communities sweeping powers over oil drilling and other industrial activity was pulled Monday for a lack of supporting signatures, sponsors said.
Initiative 75 would have added the so-called Community Rights Amendment to the state constitution, but to get it on the ballot required 86,105 valid signatures — a rule of thumb is that 125,000 signatures need to be gathered to meet the requirement.
“With just nine weeks to get 125,000 signatures and lacking hundreds of thousands in funding, we knew we faced an uphill battle for 2014,” the sponsors said in a statement. “We took a tally this week and now know that we’re going to be well short of where we need to be.”
Signature gatherers for a series of oil-and-gas ballot initiatives failed to receive state licensing before they began circulating petitions Wednesday.
Although gatherers hit the streets Wednesday morning, their required license from the Colorado Secretary of State was not issued until Thursday morning.
As a result, organizers said they discarded the handful of signatures gathered Wednesday and started fresh Thursday with a valid license in hand.
Read more: here
Coming to a grocery store or other public area near you: an army of people seeking your signatures on petitions for initiatives that could appear on the November ballot. The army isn’t just for one ballot measure. Petition holders could be seeking signatures for as many as 22 separate measures.
The race is now on to get voters to sign those petitions and to get interested in the issues, which range from realigning the state House of Representatives, to cut off severance tax revenue to communities that ban fracking, to overturn the 2013 law that limited large-capacity ammunition magazines to 15 rounds, and to require labeling of genetically-modified food.
Coming to a grocery store or other public area near you: an army of people seeking your signatures on petitions for initiatives that could appear on the November ballot. The army isn’t just for one ballot measure. Petition holders could be seeking signatures for as many as 22 separate measures.
The race is now on to get voters to sign those petitions and to get interested in the issues, which range from realigning the state House of Representatives, to cut off severance tax revenue to communities that ban fracking, to overturn the 2013 law that limited large-capacity ammunition magazines to 15 rounds, and to require labeling of genetically-modified food.
The first of almost a dozen ballot proposals to allow greater local control of oil and gas development cleared an important hurdle Friday, winning clearance from the Colorado Supreme Court.
Known as Initiative 75, for now, the proposed constitutional amendment would give local governments more control over businesses and corporations that impact the health and safety of a community. That would include oil and gas drilling and hydrolic fracturing operations, which are regulated at the state level with some input from local governments.
The Colorado Community Rights Network, which successfully backed voter-approved fracking regulations in Lafayette, is heading up the initiative.
We noted back in December the creation of a new issue committee seeking to ban conceal carry on Colorado college campuses. But compared to how much attention the high profile fracking bans are receiving, this damaging ballot measure appears to be largely flying under the radar.
The Daily Camera reports that anti-gun organizers have “collected half the signatures needed for a November ballot measure asking voters to ban concealed weapons on public college and university campuses in Colorado.” Petitioners must turn in 86,105 valid signatures by June 30 to qualify for the ballot. To be safe, they should collect closer to 120,000 signatures to accommodate for those that are disqualified.
Late Wednesday, the hard work of Colorado’s broad, diverse, left-right, pro-initiative & referendum coalition paid off. With an awakened public communicating with legislators, the Senate State, Veterans, and Military Affairs Committee unanimously defeated Rep. Lois Court’s House Concurrent Resolution 2 on a bipartisan 5-0 vote.
HCR 2 sought to double the number of signatures citizens would be required to collect on petitions and to additionally mandate that petitions qualify in all seven congressional districts. The constitutional amendment is now effectively dead for this session, after having just passed the House by a large margin.
Coloradans’ constitutional right to initiative and referendum have greatly improved this state’s political process. That right is under attack, again, in the Colorado Legislature and must be defended.
These critical tools have enabled we, the people, to debate and adopt policy — even controversial policy — that has allowed us to check the excesses of public officials and provide governmental balance. Though democratic processes are never flawless, after 100 years of experience, from reforming campaign finance rules to imposing term limits, there are good reasons the public favors initiative and referendum by a three-to-one margin.
Colorado’s leading opponent of citizen control of government, Rep. Lois Court (D-Denver), is at it again. Court is seeking to amend the state’s constitution to ratchet-up the requirements for citizen-initiated petitions — something she has attempted repeatedly during her tenure in the legislature.
Rep. Court’s House Concurrent Resolution 2 would fully double the minimum signature threshold for initiative constitutional amendments, from the current 86,104 to a whopping 172,208. The amendment would also impose a new distribution requirement, mandating that a minimum number of valid signatures be gathered from each of the state’s seven congressional districts to qualify a petition.
State lawmakers will try once again to place a measure onto the ballot to change the way ballot measures get onto the ballot.
Rep. Lois Court said she’s hopeful this time Colorado voters will agree that something needs to be done to protect the state’s Constitution from contradictory proposals that oftentimes aren’t written well, or have far-reaching unintended consequences.
The Denver Democrat, who is one of a long line of lawmakers regardless of political ilk to attempt such changes, hopes this effort will be more successful than previous attempts.
Unlike those efforts, including Referendum O in 2008 that lost by less than 3 percentage points, Court’s new idea would make only a few changes, and focuses only on proposed constitutional amendments.