Reportedly, mailing of the ballots for Colorado’s 2021 “off-year” election began on Friday, October 8. As is customary, every active voter in Colorado is invited to vote by mail; counties also began opening their 24-hour drop boxes, and voters who don’t trust the US Postal Service can drop off their ballots in those drop boxes. (I personally like using the drop box.)
Later in the month, voters will be able to drop off their ballots at the Archuleta Courthouse Elections Office. (Except maybe it’s not the “Courthouse” any longer, because we have a new one being built? Anyway, the office is in the rear of that big tan-colored building downtown.)
The last day for mailing ballots (for anyone who trusts the Postal Service) will be October 25. Ballots can be handed in at the County Elections Office until 7pm on Election Day, November 2. You can also vote there in person on Election Day, until 7pm. (If you are trying to vote in person and you’re in line by 7pm, you will still be allowed to vote, even after the polls have officially closed.)
There aren’t any big-name political contests on the ballot, and ballot measures are limited in what can be addressed during an off-year election.
One mildly controversial item on the ballot is Amendment 78.
Amendment 78 would require the Colorado General Assembly to appropriate Colorado’s “custodial money” — the funding the state receives from outside sources for specific purposes, like federal grant money and private donations — as part of its budgeting process.
Supporters say the measure would bring greater accountability and transparency to state spending. Opponents see it as little more than a partisan ploy meant to make life more difficult for the Democrats who currently run the state government.
Currently, the General Assembly appropriates state tax revenue through an annual budget process. The dollars that come in from outside of the state government are not typically subject to that same legislative appropriation process. For example: Colorado received nearly $1.7 billion last year through the CARES Act, and the Polis administration spent the funds according to the governor’s executive orders… without specific legislative approval.
Amendment 78 would change the Colorado Constitution and state law, to require lawmakers to determine how the state spends custodial funding, using a process similar to the rest of its budgeting decisions — a process that requires public hearings and opportunities for the public to comment. Custodial funds would go into a centralized account, with interest from that account flowing into the state’s general fund.
The new requirements would apply not only to federal funds, but also money from legal settlements, funding for transportation projects (currently allocated by an independent commission) and private gifts and donations, like those made to public universities.
From an article by Daniel Ducassi in the Colorado Sun on October 4, 2021:
According to nonpartisan legislative staff, the legislature and state agencies would be forced to bring on new employees to deal with the new requirements to submit proposed spending of custodial money, amounting to at least $1 million in predicted costs for new staff…
Michael Fields, who brought the measure, heads up a conservative organization called Colorado Rising Action, considered a dark money group because it doesn’t reveal its donors…
… Fields predicted that, should the measure pass, state agencies that have control over these types of custodial funds are “not going to be happy that, what we call the slush funds, are no longer going to be slush funds, they’re going to be a part of the normal process of budgeting.”
According to reporter Ducassi, the Governor’s Office and the Colorado Attorney General declined to comment on Amendment 78. But he obtained an opinion from Scott Wasserman, who leads the liberal-leaning Bell Policy Center.
“If it passes, I think it’s going to be a serious disruption to the way the state currently operates,” he said.
He predicted the measure would drastically increase lawmakers’ workload by forcing them to appropriate a large assortment of different types of federal funding as well as funding from other sources that currently don’t require legislative approval…
…“This essentially allows one legislative chamber to veto federal dollars that have already come here from the federal government,” he said.
One of the possible problems with the amendment — besides the complaint that the Secretary of State may have made a mistake allowing it onto an off-year election ballot — is that “custodial funds” sometimes arrive in the middle of the fiscal year, and that would require legislators to reconvene in order to approve the appropriate spending measures.
Some opponents of the amendment, such as Scott Wasserman, characterize Amendment 78 as an attempt to tie the hands of the Polis administration, and to slow or stop spending on programs unpopular with conservatives.
Mr. Wasserman and Summit County Commissioner Tamara Pogue are suing to block the measure from appearing on the ballot, and to ensure that — if it does appear on the ballot — any votes cast on the question are invalidated. (It appears that the measure will indeed appear on the Archuleta County ballots.)
The plaintiffs allege that the amendment is not substantially related to Colorado’s Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights (TABOR) and therefore should not appear on the 2021 ballot. Measures that can go on the ballot during odd years in Colorado are limited to topics that concern taxes or state fiscal matters arising under TABOR — a requirement added to state law in 1994. TABOR requires voter approval for all new taxes, tax rate increases, extensions of expiring taxes, mill levy increases, valuation for property assessment increases, or tax policy changes resulting in increased tax revenue.
“There’s no dollars that this measure exempts from the TABOR spending limits that are not already currently exempted from the TABOR spending limits,” Wasserman told The Sun. “And so this is, unfortunately, I think, a real abuse of the off-year TABOR election.”
As of this morning, the courts have not yet weighed in on the legality of Amendment 78 appearing on the ballot during an odd-year election.
Bill Hudson began sharing his opinions in the Pagosa Daily Post in 2004 and can’t seem to break the habit. He claims that, in Pagosa Springs, opinions are like pickup trucks: everybody has one.