Citizens in Charge

Colorado state house Republicans and Democrats teamed up with big labor, big business, and other special interests against Colorado citizens to pass SCR-1 by a vote of 55-12 early this morning. The constitutional amendment, if approved by voters, would turn the current deep freeze that has overtaken the state’s petition process into an ice age.

With a constitutional amendment that would make it far more difficult to enact future constitutional amendments – especially through Colorado’s citizen initiative process – already passed by the State Senate and now pending on the floor of the House of Representatives, Citizens in Charge Foundation, a national voter rights group (and a partner organization to Citizens in Charge), today issued a report entitled, “Five Facts about Amending Colorado’s Constitution.”

National group U.S. Term Limits has joined the broad coalition of voices denouncing the Colorado General Assembly’s special interest-fueled attack on citizen initiative rights. From a statement released yesterday:

Former University of Colorado, Boulder Senior Instructor Emeritus professor of in political science and initiative rights activist Thaddeus Tecza writes in a letter to the Denver Post:

Shortly after the lunch break and without a TV crew in sight, the [Colorado] Senate State, Veterans & Military Affairs Committee first passed a proposal that would largely gut the ability of ordinary citizens to propose amendments to the state constitution.

Growing up outside of Wheeling, WV, I spent much of my life getting weather reports from channel 7’s John Domenick. Mr. Domenick has since retired from television and moved on to the Ohio House of Representatives, where he is looking to bring what may be the storm of the century to bear against the voting rights of Ohioans.