Our Legislature fears and loathes the right of Colorado voters to weigh in on policy directly through the ballot box. Lawmakers have done their level best over the years to monkey-wrench that right, seeing it as an intolerable end run on their own power.

Just last week, we applauded a lawsuit by the advocacy group Advance Colorado against one such devious attempt, enacted by the Legislature in 2021. It hobbled voters’ right to petition tax-cut proposals onto the statewide ballot.

A day after that suit was filed in federal court, a state District Court judge on Wednesday refused to dismiss another lawsuit by Advance Colorado, Americans for Prosperity and others, also defending the right of rank-and-file voters to have a direct say in policymaking.

This time, it involved a massive transportation-funding measure that was passed into law two years ago – but that the plaintiffs say should have gone to voters, first.

The measure, which Gov. Jared Polis signed into law, was a $5.4 billion, 10-year plan to build roads and bridges, create electric vehicle charging stations, boost mass transit and mitigate air pollution. Its funding came primarily from the assessment of an array of complicated and controversial new fees that came across a lot like taxes.

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As reported by Colorado Politics, the lawsuit takes issue with the omnibus transportation plan in part because it established four state enterprises and modified a fifth – through which it channels the revenue from the new fees to assorted transportation projects. The plaintiffs say that provision not only violates the state constitution’s single-subject requirement but also was an attempt to bypass Proposition 117, a 2020 ballot measure that requires voter approval for any new fees for enterprises that generate more than $100 million in revenue in the first five years.

By dividing the revenue into multiple pots and calling each a separate government enterprise, the bill effectively sidestepped Prop. 117’s requirement for a popular vote. The betting around the Capitol at the time the transportation plan passed was that a popular vote would sink it.

We supported the transportation plan as it made its way through the 2021 legislature, but as we noted then, our support was reluctant in part because of the plan’s dubious funding mechanism. We concluded that the state’s backlog of transportation projects was too critical to wait for a better approach, which probably never would come given the legislature’s overall political alignment.

Nevertheless, we now also welcome the court challenge to the plan. If nothing else, the courts will clarify the role of the novel policy that was implemented by Prop. 117.

More significantly, the mere fact of the lawsuit – and the court’s willingness last week to let it move forward – signals the legislature to stop playing fast and loose with voters’ right to set policy at the ballot box.

Arguably, from the plaintiffs’ perspective in this case, lawmakers not only prevented a public vote on the transportation plan, but in so doing, they also defied a policy, Prop. 117, that itself was enacted by voters through the citizens-initiative process.

A finding for the plaintiffs in this case would have significant implications, serving to rein in perennial attempts by the legislature to undermine voters’ powers at the ballot box. Transportation policy aside, that’s worth fighting for.

Denver Gazette Editorial Board