Initiative 87 Would Obliterate TABOR, Gallagher, Amendment 23
The TABOR fight is reaching new heights, or depths. As to Colorado Sun reports, Carol Hedges’s liberal “think tank” the Colorado Fiscal Institute “has offered a whopping 18 different proposals for the 2020 ballot regarding the state’s tax system, all designed to test how many constitutional changes they can legally pack into a single ballot initiative.”
The article goes on:
Some proposals would completely repeal the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights…which has become a defining feature of Colorado tax policy. Others would just delete certain parts, like requiring voter approval for tax hikes. Some delete sentences not just from TABOR, but also other constitutional amendments governing property taxes and school finance, eliminating a restriction here and a restriction there to give state lawmakers more flexibility to govern.
One, Initiative 87, would repeal TABOR, the Gallagher Amendment and Amendment 23 — a nuclear option of sorts that gives up on untangling the state’s fiscal knot, and blows it to kingdom come instead.
Luckily, this issue has fired up both sides of the TABOR battle. As Michael Fields, director of Colorado Rising Action, says “With Democrats taking complete control (of the legislature and governor’s office), TABOR is our backstop…nothing fires up our side like TABOR does.”