Don’t expect the Colorado Union of Taxpayers to sugar-coat its contempt for Senate Bill 267, the omnibus, revenue-raising sleeper of a bill that passed in the final hours of the 2017 legislature last spring – and drew an outcry from many conservatives.

Sure, it may have shored up rural hospitals and schools and boosted highway funding, among other things, but to the folks at CUT  (and others, including many dissenting GOP lawmakers), the legislation amounted to an unconstitutional tax hike. They contend it should have been put to a vote of the people in accordance with Colorado’s constitutional taxing and spending limits.

So, when Democratic Gov. John Hickenlooper announced earlier this month he would call a special session of the legislature Oct. 2 to fix an error discovered belatedly in the bill – it came as insult to injury for the decades-old advocacy group. And CUT’s Marty Neilson made clear in a press release Tuesday that she and her comrades have no interest in helping the governor clean up what they see as his mess:

If SB 267 wasn’t already enough of an affront to Colorado taxpayers, paying for a special legislative session to fix what our esteemed legislators and Governor failed to notice in the unconstitutional SB267 makes me “mad as hell” and “I don’t want to take it anymore!” Special sessions are expensive!   SB 267 starts off as unconstitutional (multiple subjects) piece of legislation; and, is an egregious violation of Taxpayers Bill of Rights (no vote by the people) for the tax and debt increases.   Mess ups like this do not constitute an immediate problem which must be addressed by immediate corrective legislation….

The press release concludes by, “Calling on all Colorado taxpayers to go to the Capitol and demand ‘Let Us Vote!'”

The error in 267 – it evidently went unnoticed until after Hickenlooper signed it into law in May – inadvertently cut the state’s many special taxation districts out of their share of tax revenue from recreational marijuana.

The governor insists the special session’s mission will be narrowly drawn to address that concern and nothing else. Yet, as Colorado Politics reported the other day, at least one lawmaker already is saying he wants to expand the session’s mandate to address transportation – or else he’ll vote against the fix. We’ll stay tuned.