(The Center Square) – Colorado Democrats are looking to challenge the constitutionality of the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights in court again.
A joint resolution introduced this week, if passed, would require the Committee on Legal Services to hire legal counsel and file a lawsuit over TABOR on behalf of the General Assembly.TABOR, which was added to the state constitution after voters passed it in 1992, requires voter approval for all proposed tax increases. It also reins in state spending by limiting revenue growth to inflation plus the rate of population growth. Any revenue surplus must be refunded to taxpayers under the constitutional amendment.Democrats have long pointed to TABOR for the state’s budget woes. Joint Budget Committee Chair Jeff Bridges, D-Greenwood Village, on Thursday pointed to TABOR after the Senate passed the state’s $43.9 billion budget bill and dealt with a $1.2 billion deficit.“This is a budget that no one is happy with but that everyone can be proud of,” he said in a statement. “Thanks to the rationing equation in TABOR, the Joint Budget Committee faced difficult decisions that resulted in painful tradeoffs. But unlike Washington, we made these cuts thoughtfully, strategically and with bipartisan support. We eliminated dozens of programs and invested those savings in public education and public safety and public lands.”“It’s not a perfect budget, but it’s responsible and responsive to our TABOR constraints while keeping our commitment to the people of Colorado,” Bridges added.Conservative advocacy groups and defenders of TABOR point to the majority Democrats’ bloated spending as the issue.“The problem isn’t that people are taxed too little. The problem is that state government is spending too much,” Sen. Barbara Kirkmeyer, a Republican on the JBC, said on the Senate floor Thursday. “It is our moral duty to justify every dollar that we spend. So the first step needs to define our priorities because if you think everything should be funded, if you think everything is a priority, you essentially have no priority.”Americans for Prosperity Colorado, a major defender of the constitutional amendment, pledged to use its grassroots “to help ensure TABOR remains the law of the land in the Centennial State.”“After years of desperate attempts to end TABOR and the generous tax refunds that come with it, it’s clear Democrats don’t trust Coloradans’ ability to decide tax increases facing our communities. So they’re resurrecting a decade-old legal challenge to end TABOR and TABOR tax refunds,” AFP-Colorado Deputy State Director Brittany Trujillo said in a statement.A lawsuit from 2011 that also challenged TABOR was dismissed in 2021, The Center Square reported at the time. In recent years Colorado voters have rejected measures to cripple TABOR. In 2023, voters opposed Proposition HH, which would have lowered property tax assessment rates but backfilled lost revenue with excess TABOR funds. In 2019, voters rejected Proposition CC, which also proposed allowing the state to retain excess revenue and spend it on transportation and education.An analysis of TABOR ballot measures by Ballotpedia found that voters have rejected 68% of statewide ballot measures related to the constitutional amendment.The joint resolution, HJR25-1023, is scheduled to be heard Monday by the House Finance Committee.
