$2.3 billion transportation ballot measure on ice

Colorado voters won’t face a $2.3 billion transportation bonding measure in November, a change that Democrats hope will smooth the road for another ballot question asking to nix certain tax refunds.

The state House voted 49-14 on Thursday to approve Senate Bill 263, delaying the bonding question — which had been teed up a year ago as part of a bipartisan transportation compromise — until the November 2020 election. The Senate approved the delay 32-3 on Wednesday.

This year the majority Democrats shifted their priority for this fall’s ballot to House Speaker KC Becker’s plan, approved in April by both chambers, to ask voters to “de-Bruce” state government. That would mean lifting spending caps under the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights that require excess revenue to be refunded to taxpayers — with the resulting money split in thirds among transportation, public schools and higher education.

“If we were to move forward this year (with the bonding measure), the same thing we saw last fall — with two competing ballot measures on transportation — would sink them both,” predicted Sen. Rachel Zenzinger, an Arvada Democrat, during a floor debate this week.

Democrats are drawing that lesson from November’s defeat of both an outside sales tax initiative and a different borrowing measure that proposed alternate ways to raise big dollars for transportation.

Most Republicans oppose the Democrats’ TABOR plan. But some GOP lawmakers agreed with delaying the upcoming bonding measure by a year, in part because the change allows for $500 million in spending on transportation projects sooner from previously approved borrowing.

That money is needed to complete new express lanes on Interstate 25 south of Castle Rock and south of Fort Collins, among other projects.

The bigger picture for transportation funding

The Colorado Department of Transportation has said it faces a $9 billion project backlog, and Democrats and Republicans have found agreement on other ways to chip away at it — including a recent budget deal that devotes $300 million more to transportation in the next fiscal year. It’s less clear how much Becker’s TABOR plan would free up if approved by voters; projections range from $65 million to nearly $1 billion in the next couple years.

The delayed bonding measure originally was part of a transportation package approved a year ago by the split-control legislature, as a backup in 2019 in case voters rejected both of the 2018 ballot measures. That came to pass.

Expect lawmakers to revisit the question of transportation funding yet again next year.

“Clearly, next year we hope to have a vigorous debate on a longterm strategy for transportation funding,” said Sen. Bob Rankin, a Carbondale Republican, who joined Zenzinger in sponsoring the delay bill.