Does your state lean blue or lean red? Check out our new report, highlighting partisan control of state government from 1992-2013.
Citizen rights group examines the consequences of a Colorado initiative bill passed in 2009
January 26, 2011
By Kyle Maichle
DENVER, Colorado: Two Colorado initiative proponents who fought to get an amendment on the 2010 ballot are facing a bigger fight over provisions in the state's initiative laws. [1]
Jon Caldara and Linda Gorman were both proponents of Amendment 63. [1] The amendment would have established the right to privately contract for health care in Colorado. [1] The proponents of the amendment are facing lawsuits over allegations that 50 circulators could have committed fraud while gathering signatures to qualify the amendment. [1] The fraud allegations were based on the circulator's affidavit not properly filled out on the petitions. [1]
Currently, a provision exists in House Bill 1326 that allows initiative proponents to be sued and held liable over any wrongdoing committed by others during a campaign[1]. A federal court is expected to decide if the provision would be overturned. [1] In 2010, a federal judge barred Colorado from enforcing two provisions in HB 1326. Those provisions included paying circulators per the signature along with a ban out-of-state petition circulators. [1] The bill was approved in 2009 with bi-partisan support in the General Assembly. [1]
The Citizens in Charge Foundation argued that House Bill 1326 is "the biggest single legislative attack on statewide petition rights in modern history." [1] The argument is based on other states reversing bans on out-of-state circulators and pay-per-signature. [1] [2] The citizen's rights group said that the risk of violating constitutional rights "didn’t stop this bi-partisan legislative attack."[1]
See also
| ||
| Propositions • | Recall | • Law |
References
| ||||||||||
