State employees should not do campaign’s homework

If Douglas Bruce authored a ballot initiative that simply said, “Taxes shall be reduced by $300 million a year” but couldn’t explain which programs should be eliminated or scaled back, pundits would ridicule his half-baked scheme and scold him for wasting the public’s time.

That’s the treatment Gov. Bill Ritter should be receiving for his hastily proposed $300 million oil and gas tax increase — money to be showered on various programs with few specific instructions.

Perhaps because he’s the Governor, some editorialists have suggested that state bureaucrats should flesh out the details of his proposal, specifically his vainglorious “Colorado Promise” college scholarships.

There’s just one problem: state law frowns on commandeering government workers at taxpayer expense to do homework for a ballot campaign that hasn’t even qualified for the ballot, much less been approved by voters. (more…)

Rocky: State’s help to Ritter tax hike would be campaign contribution

Kudos to Vincent Carroll at the Rocky Mountain News who noted in today’s On Point column that it’s a little late for Gov. Bill Ritter and his tax-hiking buddies to be fleshing out the details of how their oil and gas tax increase will be showered upon lucky college students.

Unfortunately, the time to provide such details has passed. Government agencies are barred from spending public money to influence the fate of a ballot initiative. If the Colorado Commission on Higher Education, which Skaggs directs, draws up rules for the scholarships that help the measure pass, as they very likely would, then that work would amount to an “in-kind” campaign contribution.

Carroll also noted that higher ed chief David Skaggs is in a tough spot on this one:

I sympathize with Skaggs’ dilemma: He can set his agency to work now and risk violating the law or wait until November and, if the measure passes, risk running afoul of the new law’s 2009 timetable

I doubt Mr. Skaggs asked for this quandary. Despite my political disagreements with the former Boulder congressman, Mr. Skaggs has always struck me as a man of class and principle, and I thought it was quite a coup when Gov. Ritter convinced him to join his cabinet. I don’t envy the position in which he now finds himself, thanks to yet another not-ready-for-primetime policy proposal by our rookie governor.

An aside: You will remember how Ritter campaigned on his “Colorado Promise.” To propose that these scholarships paid by higher oil and gas taxes be named “Colorado Promise” scholarships is an unseemly exercise in legacy building for someone whose first year and a half on the job has been undistinguished.

Ritter’s higher ed chief deploys stall tactic

Former Boulder congressman David Skaggs, now Gov. Ritter’s higher education chief, replied to my June 18 open records request, seeking documents explaining the extent to which state employees were doing policy development work for the governor’s proposed ballot initiative campaign.

Mr. Skaggs noted that providing correspondence between his staff and the Governor’s staff on Initiative 113 — the Governor’s proposed $300 million oil and gas tax increase — could require as much as seven additional working days and might not be completed until July 1.

“[T]he staff of the department cannot reasonably gather or prepare such documents within a three-day period without substantially interfering with the staff’s obligation to perform other public service responsibilities,” he wrote.

Isn’t it curious that Department of Higher Education staff apparently can develop from scratch a $130 million scholarship program “without substantially interfering with (its) obligation to perform other public service responsibilities” but can’t simply provide copies of correspondence in which they have discussed the program?

Your tax dollars promoting Ritter’s scholarship plan

Although state law seems to forbid it, Gov. Bill Ritter’s administration is using your tax dollars to design and promote his ballot initiative to increase energy taxes and promote his “Colorado Promise Scholarships.”  Higher Education director David Skaggs confirmed my suspicions with his letter in the June 18 Rocky Mountain News:

Regarding the proposed Colorado Promise Scholarships, I’d like to correct an assertion in the June 14 Rocky editorial that it will be Labor Day before “even the broadest outlines of the program are proposed” (“Scholarship puzzles”).

In fact, at its June 5 meeting, as reported in the Rocky, the Colorado Commission on Higher Education instructed staff at the Colorado Department of Higher Education to prepare recommended policies to implement the provisions of the scholarship ballot measure and to have them ready for the commission to consider at its next meeting, July 10.

These policies should provide a reasonably complete understanding of how the scholarships will be administered if the ballot measure passes. The policies will also provide direction to department staff in working over the summer with the state’s colleges to develop more detailed draft guidelines for the commission to review in September.

We expect those draft guidelines will answer very specific questions about the proposed scholarships. The commission will then be able to adopt the actual guidelines promptly after the election.

David Skaggs

 

Although both Denver dailies have noted that Ritter’s ballot initiative is in trouble without more specific detail, it is not the proper responsibility of state employees to develop those details for a privately-funded ballot initiative that has not qualified for the ballot — much less been passed by the voters.

Colorado Revised Statues (CRS 1-45-117) says that government employees may “respond to questions” but may not spend “more than fifty dollars of public moneys in the form of letters, telephone calls, or other activities incidental to expressing his or her opinion on any such issue.”

No doubt, Gov. Ritter, Mr. Skaggs and the Department of Higher Education will argue that they are answering questions and not urging the voters to support or defeat the initiative.  The Governor has changed his tune a few times regarding the scope and purpose of these scholarships, so someone needs to put some meat on the bones of this proposal — but not at taxpayer expense.

More importantly, these rules are clearly designed to give voters more specific details in order to court their support.  However, the courts have ruled that the purpose of the aforementioned law “is to prohibit the state government and its officials from spending public funds to influence the outcome of campaigns for political office or ballot issues” and “this section must be strictly construed.”

Another court case said that a “brochure mailed by (a government entity) explaining proposed improvements violate(s) the law because it did not present arguments for and against.”

In an attempt to shine the light on this unethical practice, I have filed a request under the Colorado Open Records Act (CORA) for correspondence between the Department of Higher Education and the Governor’s staff.  We’ll see what that turns up!

Ritter’s supreme confidence

Is it typical political spin or something more tangible that makes Gov. Bill Ritter so incredibly confident that the Colorado Supreme Court will vindicate his strategy to raise your property taxes without your permission?

Taxpayers should reasonably ask that question after the Governor and his staff voiced no concern at all when Judge Christina Habas ruled that last year’s property tax hike “for the children” improperly short-circuited the state constitution.

If the state supreme court concurs with Habas, then egg on their faces will be only a minor problem facing Ritter and Democrat legislators — who unanimously backed the tax hike. Much more significant is the reality that both state budgets signed by Ritter were built around the $272 million produced by the tax increase.

Shortly after the district court ruling, Republican lawmakers asked Ritter to outline a contingency plan for balancing the budget without the tax increase. Incredibly, Ritter’s spokesman dismissed that request as “playing partisan politics.”

Cooler heads might call the request “prudent” or “fiscally responsible.” Still, Ritter’s budget staff would likely respond with a list of “hostages,” threatening draconian cuts, rather than simply tightening its belt and trimming back programs that were expanded due to the property tax hike.

Makes you wonder how a governor — and former district attorney, no less — who swore an oath to uphold the constitution can continue whistling through the graveyard after his day in court yielded a judicial smackdown that could crimp his budget by more than a quarter-billion dollars.

Either Ritter is bluffing or thinks he has inside assurances, which would be improper, that the supreme court will rule in his favor. A shrewd poker player — much less a wise statesman — wouldn’t be so audaciously confident.

Certainly, the odds are ultimately in Ritter’s favor — not because he’s right about the law (he isn’t), but because the court has a track record of ignoring the Taxpayers Bill of Rights (TABOR) when it doesn’t fit the court’s policy preferences.

By contrast, Habas provided a textbook example of the role of a judge. She clearly seemed sympathetic to what she described as the “well-intentioned and commendable … purpose” of Ritter’s legislation, but she courageously observed that “this Court must be concerned only with the enforcement of the Colorado Constitution.”

Habas’ ruling found certain facts that higher courts will be hard pressed to ignore, even if the justices want to overrule her:

• The legislation in question changed tax policy. Prior to Senate Bill 199, which implemented the tax hike, “all of Colorado’s local school districts followed the provisions of the School Finance Act requiring the mill levy to be adjusted downward in the event property values rose.”

• The change in policy resulted in an increase in revenue. “It was further undisputed … that the direct fiscal impact of SB 199 was the collection of $117,838,000.”

• Voters in local school districts never approved this change. Colorado Department of Education consistently advised school districts that were asking voters to override spending limits that these ballot questions “will have NO effect on your district’s school finance mill levy” and that the ballot measurers “were not asked in a way to allow a change in tax policy.”

Those findings are critical because TABOR requires voter approval of “a tax policy change directly causing a net tax revenue gain to any district.”

Ritter and his policy advisors argued that, because 174 of 178 school districts had received voter approval to retain “all revenues,” schools could also keep additional revenue if the state legislature amended the law to “recapture increases in property taxes due to increased property values.”

The only peculiarity in Habas’ ruling was her finding that SB 199 reflects a change to local school district tax policy but not to state tax policy. She arrives at this conclusion because the policy change did not apply to the four school districts that had not received voter approval to override spending limits.

That’s a puzzling conclusion given that the policy in question is a bill enacted by the state legislature to change state law.

Still, Habas’ decision is legally and factually grounded. If the Supreme Court overturns it, the public deserves to know what Gov. Ritter knew and when he knew it.

Mark Hillman elected to RNC

BROOMFIELD—Colorado Republicans elected former state senator Mark Hillman to a four-year term on the Republican National Committee at Saturday’s state GOP convention in Broomfield.

Hillman, a Burlington wheat farmer who also served as state treasurer, will succeed former Congressman Bob Schaffer as one of Colorado’s three voting members of the RNC.

"Principles are more important than politicians, personalities or incumbency," Hillman told delegates. "In 2006, voters lost confidence that they could count on Republicans to fight wasteful spending and balance the budget. We must work to regain their trust." (more…)