The proponents of Initiative No. 55 are asking that citizen-initiated changes in property tax assessment rates or mill levies should be decided at the local level without understanding that under the current law that is not possible for more than 90% of local situations.

At the heart of this matter is their desire to eliminate the ability of citizens to petition at the state level.

I oppose this attack on our right to petition, and that is why I suggested the following change at a recent meeting with the Colorado Title Board as they were drafting the ballot question.

My suggestion for Initiative 55’s ballot question wording:

“Shall there be an amendment to the Colorado Constitution Prohibiting Citizen-Initiated Statewide Ballot Issues affecting local government property tax revenue by assessment adjustment or mill levies?”

Predictably, the petition proponents’ lawyer objected and the Title Board didn’t revise it.

Instead, the ballot question approved by the Title Board reads:

“Shall there be an amendment to the Colorado constitution requiring any voter initiative or voter referendum that affects the property tax revenue of a local government by modifying the property tax assessment rate or mill levy rate to be decided only in a local election?”

The proposed wording gives the impression that if we give up the ability to petition at the statewide level there is a similar mechanism available to us for the local level.

The reality is that we can’t petition the more than 3,000 local government bodies comprised of all our school districts, counties and the special districts that include the ever-growing amount of metropolitan districts.

When I mentioned that under public testimony, the proponents’ lawyer responded, “I’m not even sure if that is necessarily true about what local jurisdictions do or do not allow.”

If the proponents’ lawyer appears not to know at which government levels the citizens can access the ballot by petition then how is the regular non-lawyer, non-politico voter supposed to understand what they’re giving up with a yes vote?

Though there’s a long list of reasons to oppose this measure, the most troublesome is that this measure will prohibit us from putting another property tax relief issue on the statewide ballot.

Last year’s legislative attack using Senate Bill 21-293 against citizen initiative Proposition No. 120 was described by media as a “slap in the face to all Colorado taxpayers”. Proposition 120 was a citizen initiative written to provide uniform statewide property tax relief to everyone and it polled at well over 65% approval. Then the majority of the Democrats and a few Republicans under the Colorado gold dome sabotaged the ballot issue. Former Gov. Bill Owens called out their behavior as “unconstitutional and an example of legislative arrogance“.

We should all be offended by what the legislature did to willfully and purposefully undermine our citizen process last year. What is worse is so far we’ve let them get away with it.

Now we have the Initiative 55 proponents, Bernie Buescher and Ann Terry, attempting to eliminate our citizen access to the statewide ballot completely if the issue concerns property taxes.

Here are two examples of what we could no longer have the ability to petition onto the ballot.

In the shenanigans of last year’s SB 21-293, it gave special favors to multi-family housing and apartment properties, so single-family residential owners are charged a higher assessment rate. The bill sponsor, Senator Chris Hansen (D-Denver/Arapahoe), said in testimony that high-density property owners deserved it because those properties reduce service costs for government more than single-family residential. If Initiative 55 were to pass, we wouldn’t be able to run a statewide initiative to correct this unfair tax treatment.

Agricultural land has a far higher tax assessment rate (plus-300%) than single-family homes. With Initiative 55, we’d be prohibited from initiating a statewide ballot issue to reduce the burden on our agricultural land owners.

I’m submitting a request to the Title Board for a rehearing on March 2.

These petition proponents want to leave us at the mercy of politicians. That’s not a position that I want to be in. When this petition hits the street, don’t let the petition sponsors get past the starting gate and decline to sign Initiative 55 Local Control of Property Taxes.

To be alerted to proposed initiatives, sign up for Title Board Hearing notices at the Colorado Secretary of State Initiatives & Title Board page. Virtual testimony is offered at this time.

Natalie Menten is a local government activist, a board director for the Taxpayer‘s Bill of Rights (TABOR) Foundation, and served as an elected member of the Regional Transportation District board from 2013-2021.