Amendment 71 sparks lawsuit
Group says measure discriminates against urban Coloradans in the petition process.
A coalition of advocacy groups and citizen activists on Monday filed a lawsuit in federal court claiming that Amendment 71 — the ballot measure approved by Colorado voters in November making it dramatically more difficult to amend the state constitution — violates the U.S. Constitution.
At the core of the claim is the argument that it violates the legal principle of “one man, one vote.” And, it attempts to turn one of the arguments made by supporters on its head.
Backers of Amendment 71 argued that it was needed in part to give rural voters more of a voice in petitions to change to the state constitution, because under prior rules, signature gatherers mostly focused on urban population centers along the Front Range. But the lawsuit claims it effectively discriminates against urban voters by making them less important in the petition process.
Amendment 71, dubbed “Raise the Bar” by supporters, lifted the threshold for passage of constitutional amendments to 55 percent of the vote from a simple majority. And to get on the ballot, measures now need signatures from 2 percent of registered voters in all 35 state Senate districts. Previously, getting on the ballot required signatures totaling 5 percent of the number of people who voted for the secretary of state in the last general election, with no geographic requirements.
Supporters say change was needed, arguing that it should be harder to revise the state constitution. Voters agreed, approving it by a wide margin. But a broad coalition of advocacy groups argue that the new signature threshold is so difficult, it would shut out all but the wealthiest causes from accessing the ballot.
Opponents announced the lawsuit at a news conference Monday morning. The plaintiffs include the Coalition for Colorado Universal Health Care and ColoradoCareYes — two groups that supported Amendment 69, the failed 2016 ballot measure that would have created a single-payer health care system in Colorado.
“This measure violates our most basic right for ordinary citizens to petition their government,” said Jeanne Nicholson, a former state lawmaker and a board member for the Colorado Foundation for Universal Health Care.
The Independence Institute and 350Colorado.org, two advocacy groups from opposite ends of the political spectrum, also spoke in support of the lawsuit, saying it gives a single state Senate district with as few as 3 percent of the state’s voters veto power over the other 34 districts.
The suit also claims it violates the First Amendment by limiting political speech.
Kate Roberts, the campaign manager for Raise the Bar, dismissed the lawsuit as meritless.
“It should be more difficult to amend the state constitution than a simple statute, and special interest groups should have to collect signatures in every Senate district, not just on the 16th Street Mall,” Roberts said in a statement. “This lawsuit shares many similarities to this group’s last constitutional misadventure, Amendment 69 — it is without merit, and it will be rejected.”
Half the 24 states that allow initiatives have geographic rules requiring that signatures be collected from various parts of the state, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
Still, there is precedent for states going too far in imposing restrictions on ballot initiatives. Geographic requirements in Idaho and Nevada were ruled unconstitutional, according to the NCSL, because they were county-based, and populations can vary dramatically from one county to another.
The lawsuit argues that Colorado’s Senate district populations vary wildly as well. District 23 in northern Colorado, for instance, has 132,222 voters. That’s 51,723 more than District 21 in the Denver suburbs, which has just 80,499 voters — a 60 percent difference.
A variety of districtlevel requirements in other states have been upheld in court. And at least one other state, Utah, uses state Senate districts, though the requirements differ slightly from Colorado’s. Citizen’s initiatives there need a certain number of signatures from 26 of the state’s 29 Senate districts.