Prop*50

Colorado: Lawsuit filed against TABOR

A bipartisan group of 34 people, many of them former state and local elected officials, is expected to file a challenge in federal court to Colorado's Taxpayers Bill of Rights (TABOR) today. Colorado's TABOR law was passed via the citizen initiative process in 1992. It requires voter approval of tax increases, caps how much revenue the state may collect and spend each year, and requires that any excess beyond the revenue cap be returned to taxpayers. In 2005, Colorado voters approved a temporary suspension of TABOR. The suspension expired in July 2010.

The lawsuit alleges that Colorado's initiative process violates Article 4, Section 4 of the U.S. Constitution, which guarantees the states a "Republican Form of Government," because it prevents the legislature from raising taxes without a popular vote. Attorneys in the case argue that "events have demonstrated that a legislature unable to raise and appropriate funds cannot meet its primary constitutional obligations or provide services that are essential for a state."

The outcome of the case could affect the many laws and constitutional provisions in Colorado that were passed via the citizen initiative process.

Read more in the Denver Post.

Digital signatures coming to California?

A case making its way through California state courts could end up legalizing digital signatures on initiative petitions.  A high-tech company called Verafirma has developed technology that would allow voters to sign petitions on smart phones.  At issue is a California law saying that signatures must be "personally affixed" to initiative petitions, and whether a digital signature meets that standard.   The secretary of state's office opposes the idea, saying such a policy change must come from the legislature, not the courts.  A lower court ruled against Verafirma, and the state court of appeals heard the case last week. 

Initiative proponents tend to like the idea of digital signatures, saying that it reduces the cost of gathering signatures and therefore increases the chances that a petition circulated by volunteers can make the ballot.  Most petitions these days are circulated by paid signature-gatherers, which makes ballot access cost-prohibitive for most volunteer efforts.  Critics of e-signatures worry about the security of an electronic signature process, and that the relative ease of gathering electronic signatures might turn the current flood of initiatives on ballots into a tsunami. A 2001 paper prepared for the Speaker's Commission on the California Initiative Process provides a nice summary of the issues surrounding this topic.

Read more about it in the San Jose Mercury News.