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Hickenlooper: Let the public vote on transportation funding solution

By Ernest Luning 04/25/2017 | updated 8 years ago

Gov. John Hickenlooper is calling on lawmakers to make good on pledges by legislative leadership on both sides of the aisle to find solutions to Colorado’s transportation funding needs by sending a ballot measure to voters.

Bipartisan legislation that would ask voters to approve a sales-tax hike — originally it was 0.62 percent, but a Republican-controlled Senate committee cut the proposal to 0.5 percent — appears headed to defeat on Tuesday in the Senate Finance Committee, where all three of the panel’s GOP members have said they’ll oppose a ballot referendum that includes a tax increase.

“Each month, traffic and congestion along I-25 and I-70 — not to mention the rest of the state — grows worse,” Hickenlooper said in a statement. “The public wants action and we owe them the opportunity to vote on a solution.”

House Bill 1242, introduced last month, is sponsored by House Speaker Crisanta Duran, D-Denver, and Senate President Kevin Grantham, R-Cañon City, along with the chairs of both chambers’ transportation committees, state Rep. Diane Mitsch Bush, D-Steamboat Springs, and state Sen. Randy Baumgardner, R-Hot Sulphur Springs.

In a statement Tuesday morning Duran called on senators to approve sending the measure to the ballot, although other key players in the transportation-funding puzzle have suggested that an alternative proposal might emerge.

Describing the legislation, Duran said in a statement, “The plan fits well into the state’s constitutional framework – asking the voters to decide whether to accept a new revenue stream. It’s a choice the voters deserve to make. It’s a choice the legislature should provide.”

Sandra Hagen Solin of Capitol Solutions, spokeswoman for Fix Colorado Roads, a coalition of transportation advocacy groups and business organizations, however, left open the possibility that lawmakers still have time to come up with a different referendum to send to voters this fall.

The fate of House Bill 1242, she said in a statement, “should not signal the end, but rather the continuation of a robust, serious discussion on how to adequately fund Colorado’s roads. This is a complex issue that requires a lot of give and take on both ends of the political spectrum. Difficult decisions are inherent in negotiating any ballot measure and must balance the degree to which voters will approve a tax increase with the increasing demand for costly infrastructure improvements. Just because a bill this complicated does not proceed in its first try does not mean it should be shelved.”

— ernest@coloradostatesman.com

Ernest Luning

Reporter

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