Last week, Coloradans achieved a victory worth celebrating: the Taxpayers Bill of Rights (TABOR) was upheld in federal court.

As Colorado Politics reported Monday, last week the 10thU.S. Circuit Court of Appeals finally put the kibosh on a legal challenge to TABOR. The constitutional amendment – passed by voters in 1992 – in part requires a vote of the people to raise taxes.

TABOR also limits the ability of state and local governments to “spend revenues collected under existing tax rates if revenues grow faster than the rate of inflation and population growth, without voter approval.” Meaning, if revenues exceed TABOR limits and unless exempted by a vote of the people, taxpayers will receive a refund according to a formula.

Let’s be real: Coloradans love the Taxpayers Bill of Rights.

We love it so much that attempts to curtail or eliminate it, such as Prop CC in 2019, are consistently rejected by voters. Furthermore, while Coloradans often approve local tax increases for things like education, they generally oppose statewide tax hikes or new taxes – hinting at a widespread appreciation for TABOR’s restrictions on taxation.

This steadfast support for TABOR remains much to the chagrin of its opponents, who prefer unchecked government and keep failing at the ballot box to undo Colorado’s unique tax and spend protections.

So, they decided to do what they do best: take it to the courts, claiming that TABOR violates the U.S. Constitution, which is the “Supreme Law of the Land.”

In 2011, as CoPo reported, a lawsuit was filed which “argued TABOR took away the types of fiscal decisions that elected officials are required to make in a ‘republican’ form of government.” While the particular plaintiffs have changed over time, the main legal case remains the same.

It centers on the “Guarantee Clause” of the original U.S. Constitution of 1789, which mandates that “the United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government.”

The argument is silly and absurd – and would likely undo the entire concept of voter-approved ballot initiatives and constitutional amendments.

“(L)egislators must come on bended knee to ask the People of Colorado for our blessing on both raising taxes and overriding spending caps. TABOR is unique nationally because it asserts that, in Colorado’s republican form of government, We the People are a check and balance on the state legislature,” I wrote in 2019. “If the People don’t want to be taxed more, and/or don’t want the state to expend more than the outrageous spending growth we’ve already endured, then the People get to offer that check and balance.”

While elite politicians may not like the people to have a veto on their fiscal behavior, the premise of a “republican form of government” is expressly to promote accountable government. It intentionally restricts government expansion and protects the rights of the people.

“(W)hat is government itself, but the greatest of all reflections on human nature?” asked James Madison, “Father of the Constitution,” in his seminal Federalist No. 51. “If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary.”

Human beings are imperfect, Madison reasoned; therefore, we need government. By the same token, because government officials are also imperfect human beings, their authority must be subject to checks and balances – both within government and without. These checks “should be necessary to control the abuses of government.”

Madison explained how “the constant aim is to divide and arrange the several offices (of government) in such a manner as that each may be a check on the other that the private interest of every individual may be a sentinel over the public rights.”

In truth, the Taxpayers Bill of Rights is simply an additional check on state and local government – one dealing directly with taxpayer money that FIRST belongs to Coloradans.

The 10th Circuit didn’t definitively settle what “republican form of government” means. Instead, the court’s 7-2 decision dismissed the case “with an opportunity for the plaintiffs to refile their claims,” as CoPo reports. In the end, though, a decade of litigation against TABOR proved useless and frivolous – and will continue to do so if its opponents try again.

“TABOR clarifies power to the People of Colorado, fitting with the ‘deeply independent’ tradition of the Westerners who framed Colorado’s Constitution,” I wrote in 2019. “And it underscores why we have a state-based initiative and amendment process in the first place: because Coloradans want to have our say in the decisions of government.”

In truth, TABOR’s very existence restricts government’s ability to take our money and spend it without limit. It is another, crucial check and balance intended to promote fiscal responsibility. Any elected official who thinks this is an undue burden or anti-republican is unfit to serve the People of Colorado.

Jimmy Sengenberger is host of “The Jimmy Sengenberger Show” Saturdays from 6-9am on News/Talk 710 KNUS.  He also hosts “Jimmy at the Crossroads,” a webshow and podcast in partnership with The Washington Examiner.