Posted on 11/02/2005 6:05:50 AM PST by RockyMtnMan
DENVER - Referendum C won in the court of public opinion Tuesday as Colorado voters approved the measure to allow the state to keep $3.7 billion that otherwise would have been returned to taxpayers.
The election was marked by a healthy turnout and marred by ballot shortages at many El Paso County precincts. After precincts ran out of ballots, the countys results were delayed before being added to state totals, adding to the suspense early in the night.
The measure appeared to be winning by about a 53-47 percent margin statewide. El Paso County voters were rejecting Referendum C by about the same margin.
The outcome of a companion measure, Referendum D, remained too close to call. The measure would allow the state to issue $2 billion in bonds for highway projects, school building repairs and pensions funds.
Republican Gov. Bill Owens, who bucked many in his own party by backing Referendum C, said, I think this is a victory for fiscal responsibility. Once again, Colorado voters have shown they are the ones in charge, and they voted for the future of Colorado.
Referendum C mandates a five-year timeout from constitutional spending limits imposed by the Taxpayers Bill of Rights, a 1992 measure authored by El Paso County Commissioner Douglas Bruce.
State economists estimate that the measure will let government keep $3.7 billion in surplus tax money that would otherwise have been refunded to taxpayers. The money is earmarked for education, transportation and health care.
Referendum C also changes the way TABORs spending and revenue caps are calculated to ease the impact of economic downturns on the state budget.
Owens has called TABORs ratchet effect meaning TABOR ratchets down spending limits during recessions a flaw in the amendment that needed to be fixed.
Bruce, who campaigned against Referendum C, said he was surprised that voters believed lies from people such as Owens that failure to pass Referendum C would result in severe cuts to state services.
Thats what this election is about, Bruce said. Do you want to be free, or do you want Big Brother to take care of you?
Bruce has vowed to file a lawsuit if Referendum C passed. In response to the threat, House Speaker Andrew Romanoff, D-Denver, quipped, There is an old Arabic saying: The dog barks, but the caravan moves on.
Jon Caldara, the Denver radio talk show host who is director of the Goldenbased Independence Institute, predicted Referendum D will fail and said, Ill take that half-loaf rather than no loaf at all.
Caldara praised political leaders who opposed the measure including U.S. Rep. Bob Beauprez, saying they did so at significant political risk. Beauprez is running for the GOP nomination for governor.
The entire political infrastructure was against the taxpayer tonight, Caldara said. We stood up to them, and we ought to be damn proud of that.
Another reason for the passage of Referendum C was strong support from Denver media, including the citys two daily newspapers, Caldara said. The Denver Post on Sunday published a rare frontpage editorial endorsing yes votes on the measures.
Bruces lawsuit threat has a familiar ring. He has frequently sued government over alleged violations of the constitution, but most of his lawsuits have failed.
The Referendum C & D campaign was expensive. Bruce Benson, co-chair of the Vote Yes on C and D, said supporters raised $7.5 million. Millions more were spent by the opponents.
But when the General Assembly convenes in January, there will be more room in the budget.
How much room depends on whether Referendum D also passes, but it was so close late Tuesday that some officials were predicting the outcome would result in an automatic recount.
As the evening wound down at the Referendum C victory party, Benson mused that the issue had created strange political bedfellows.
Republicans and Democrats who dont often cross paths on election nights mingled over cocktails awaiting the results.
Some of the folks here I dont spend a lot of time with, and I never thought I would, he said, pointing to a row of Democrats.
The major political rift is within the GOP ranks. Bruce and other El Paso County politicians had said that Republicans who supported Referendum C were RINOS Republicans in Name Only.
How long it will take for bruised egos to heal remains to be seen.
For Democrats, the outcome is plainly a victory because virtually every elected Democrat in the state supported the measure.
Sheesh! We have the "republicans" backing it, what can you do? The "take my money" folks outspent the other side 3 to 1. Hell, we lost the legislature last go around.
I love Clorado, but I need out of metropolis.
We're being sold out politically from every direction it seems these days....regardless of your location .
Stay safe ....try not to waste a vote !
More good news for California!!
The pro-tax minions were very successful in pushing elderly voters' fear buttons. Dire predictions of cuts in Medicare and so on were filling the airwaves. I called a lot of elderly GOP couples in the last week as part of my volunteer duties lobbying against C & D, and got a significant number of angry reactions. Typical example:
[ME]: "Hi, my name is xxxxx xxxxx and I'm a volunteer here in Ft. Collins calling on behalf of Vote No On C & D, and I would ..."
[Elderly GOP voter angrily interrupting me]: "You don't know anything! You're ignorant! You haven't read anything at all about this! ......"
Huh! Amazing how much they know about me based solely on my name and the name of the group I'm calling for.
It's been decades since I first saw this bumper sticker:
Unfortunately nobody heeded it.
Why didn't all those California RINO rats who were deserting their infested stinking sinking ship go and infect Idaho or Montana or somewhere else? Why, oh why did they have to bring their diseases to my beautiful state?
I'd go out and campaign for the tightening up of border security on Colorado's western edge to turn back Californian RINOs attempting to infiltrate us. But it's too late for that any more.
This says less about the politics of the average Denver resident than it says about the organizing power of the teacher's unions, and the fact that they no doubt turned out in droves along with relatives and close friends who they hounded into going to the polls. Maybe there should be a law that all tax-related issues must be decided only in presidential election years when you get the highest turnouts, and never in odd-numbered years when turnout is at rock bottom.
Well, they're your best buddies now, you sick scumbag.
It's a character problem, not a party problem.
"In response to the threat, House Speaker Andrew Romanoff, D-Denver, quipped, There is an old Arabic saying: The dog barks, but the caravan moves on. "
This remark is disgusting, and what more evidence doing we all need who's side the demonrats are on??? Why isn't them media berating him for this???
Pretty soon, if they all have their way, we will all only be allowed to quote "arabic sayings."
Take names, write them down, and make sure everybody in your whole extended family knows who these animals are, and that they need to be flushed down the toilet like foul, stinking turds in the next election. That's a start.
On the bright side, that scumbag Owens will be termed out, so you know he's going out to pasture with his public career over and dead, but there's still plenty of other pantloads who can be retired involuntarily as long as memories stay fresh and productive taxpayers outnumber the parasites at the polls.
Good luck, and FReegards,
LH
And now, I've seen reported on Fox that there is a movement to remove deductions such as mortgage interest and health insurance costs from our tax returns... what do retired Americans do, with fixed pensions, paying triple for full medical insurance til 65 yrs., and it finally wipes out the pension? I guess we all need to go back to work. We didn't need much, are happy and living well, on a BUDGET. I worry that it won't last long. Just hope I am not too old to get hired back.
It is happening everywhere, Mississippi included. (Out of state contractors bringing hundreds of illegals to clean up the Gulf Coast, paying them bogus checks, leaving them here and long gone. Now either prosecute these contrator coyetes, and deport the multitudes, or this poorest state in the Union will be lost as well. Economy is gone for the most part.)
But as for Colorado, businesses will move, jobs will be lost and there will be an economic crash. It has and is happening in Kalifornia. Most of us got out. Should be re-named, "the rape and pilage state."
The statehouse is where we want these fights to occur. You win a few and you lose a few.
"...Illegals don't vote anyway..."
Oh yes they do, and everywhere... no ID required, no voter info checks, and in case you missed it, even those already in their "after life" voted in both klintoon and Gore campaigns, of which the story never got anywhere, even after proven by investigators. Sorry.
PS.
Check for their business license, which should be posted, as well as their "health department approval." You won't find one! And they will leave imediately when approached.
Well stated, thanks!
True enough but the mindset is there, only a matter of time.
We are, hence my tagline. Increasingly I strive to employ your tagline.
Count on it!
You bring up an excellent point. I noticed that the total numbers were in the 500,000 range on state issues.
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