The Title Board rejected challenges to seven ballot initiatives on Wednesday – whose subjects were as varied as natural gas installation, tobacco taxes and government-owned businesses – and affirmed the ballot titles board members had previously set.

Lengthy discussion ensued over Initiative 293, which would divert over $100 million annually in tobacco and cigarette taxes into a preschool program, and also redirect money stemming from the tobacco master settlement away from a variety of health- and youth-oriented programs. Mark Grueskin, the attorney representing objector Anna Jo Haynes, believed that the ballot title should inform voters which initiatives would experience funding cuts, as well as mention a provision that would deny tobacco tax money to localities that ban nicotine and tobacco products.

“We are literally in the midst of a pandemic where … the city of Denver, it was reported, will have to furlough hundreds of employees because tax revenues are being cut,” Grueskin said. “So any source of local revenue that produces a trade-off and a limit on municipalities, it’s particularly timely for notice to voters.”

The objection also argued that the deprivation of tax revenue to local jurisdictions constituted a second subject, and that the board should reject the initiative entirely. Benjamin Larson, the attorney for the measure’s designated representatives, countered that the ban was directly related to the subject of reallocating tax revenue to preschool programming.

“What we’re doing here is saying, if you want to enact a ban, then you don’t get to share in the revenues that are derived from sales,” he said.

Larson also disputed the importance of listing the programs being defunded, saying that the General Assembly is free to restore money to the visiting nurse, youth violence prevention, and cancer research programs, among others.

“I think I am persuaded by the proponents that perhaps we don’t know what the General Assembly is going to do,” said board Chair Theresa Conley, “so we don’t want to put in something that could be inaccurate.”

Board member Jason Gelender, representing the Office of Legislative Legal Services, added that the title did not need to mention the forfeiture of local jurisdictions’ revenues because “when a government bans something that previously was not banned and was taxed, there is an expectation that tax revenue will be lost.”

The other contentious proposals were Initiatives 284 and 297, which would add just two sentences to the Colorado Revised Statutes or the constitution prohibiting laws that “inhibit consumer choice” to install natural gas in homes and businesses for cooking, hot water and heating systems.

“I don’t fully understand what this measure does,” said Conley, the representative of Secretary of State Jena Griswold.

Martha Tierney, the attorney for objector Janette Susan Rose, alleged that the vagueness of the measure would potentially affect other policy areas, including energy efficiency, compliance with greenhouse gas emission targets, and even compliance with antitrust laws – though she did not elaborate on the potential conflicts therein.

“It will impact the choices of not consumers, but builders and apartment building owners and state and local governments who will make choices based on this measure to use natural gas instead of making other choices because they will be incentivized to use natural gas,” Tierney said.

Suzanne Staiert, the lawyer for the designated representatives, said that Tierney was speculating about the measure’s effects, which the Title Board does not consider when hearing initiatives. The board voted 2-1, with Conley dissenting, to affirm that the proposal adhered to a single subject.

Thomas M. “Trey” Rogers III, presenting an objection on behalf of Kelly Brough, argued that Initiative 299, which would drastically alter ballot initiative procedures at most divisions of state and local government, was “unintelligible.” He singled out the measure’s treatment of the single subject requirement, saying it was unclear whether the proposal would repeal that constitutional provision.

“If you ignore the repeal of the single subject measure today, if this measure goes forward to the ballot and passes and a court then determines that in fact the measure does repeal the single subject rule,” Rogers said, “then you have grossly misled the voters.”

One of the designated representatives, Mike Spaulding, responded that the initiative states the single subject rule will remain in effect, despite another section repealing the constitutional provision establishing the rule. The board upheld the title, although Rogers and Brough are challenging a virtually identical measure in the state Supreme Court.

Finally, board members denied motions to rehear three initiatives that would require voter approval for enterprises, which are government-owned businesses that are exempt from spending limitations. Voters would decide enterprise status only if entities met certain revenue thresholds in specified time periods.

The board’s action mirrored its decision on March 25 to uphold the titles of three virtually identical measures. Tierney argued on behalf of objector William Hunter Railey that the measures would cause a reduction in state spending, which Staiert responded was a concern about the effects of the initiatives, and not a second subject.