A May 9 Rocky Mountain News article reported that the Independence Institute said it “intends to sue to halt Gov. Bill Ritter's tax plan,” which would freeze property tax, or mill levy, rates as a means of redistributing sources of public education funding. The article noted that the institute “has a long record of bringing legal actions or running issue campaigns at the ballot box,” but it did not mention that the conservative think tank lost in one of the two efforts cited.
The article by Berny Morson reported that “Republicans contend” Ritter's funding plan “must go to a referendum under the Taxpayer's Bill of Rights, a state constitutional amendment requiring a referendum on any measure that raises revenue for a unit of government.” It also gave two examples of campaigns that the organization, led by Jon Caldara, has undertaken.
From Berny Morson's article, “Caldara getting ducks in row to challenge Ritter tax plan,” in the May 9 edition of the Rocky Mountain News:
The Golden-based Independence Institute said Tuesday it intends to sue to halt Gov. Bill Ritter's tax plan.
“This insult to the taxpayers will be challenged,” Independence Institute President Jon Caldara said.
Caldara said the institute is lining up plaintiffs and attorneys and discussing ways to fund a lawsuit. However, Caldara said, the Institute might step aside if someone has a better strategy to oppose Ritter's plan.
The institute, a free-market think-tank, has a long record of bringing legal actions or running issue campaigns at the ballot box.
The institute sued to halt campaign finance limits proposed by Colorado Common Cause. It also ran court challenges to a ballot item that would have authorized state funds to build a monorail through the mountains.
Of the two examples of political advocacy by Caldara or the Independence Institute that the News cited, one was successful. On August 10, 1999, responding to a lawsuit backed by the Independence Institute, U.S. District Court Judge Daniel Sparr ruled portions of the Colorado campaign finance reform ballot measure Amendment 15 to be unconstitutional.
In the newspaper's other example -- the Independence Institute's legal challenge to the 2001 Colorado ballot item Amendment 26 -- the think tank failed. According to November 6, 2001, News article (accessed through the Nexis database), a Denver district judge ruled that supporters of a proposed measure to provide state funding for building a monorail along the I-70 corridor from Denver International Airport to mountain ski resorts had enough valid petition signatures to get the issue on the ballot. The Independence Institute had sued to block the petition, saying the inclusion of thousands of disputed signatures was invalid.
The think tank also was a leader in the electoral opposition to that measure, which voters rejected.
The May 9 article failed to mention three other recent and highly publicized campaigns -- all of them unsuccessful -- that Caldara and/or the Independence Institute undertook.
The Independence Institute unsuccessfully opposed the FasTracks public transportation referendum that Denver metro-area voters approved in 2004. In 2005 it opposed the successful Colorado ballot item Referendum C, which authorized the state “to retain and spend all state revenues” through 2010, suspending the spending restrictions imposed by the Taxpayer's Bill of Rights (TABOR) on state coffers. And in 2006 Caldara conducted a petition drive but declined to file a petition to put Initiative 88 -- a measure that would have refunded some of the revenues retained under Referendum C -- on the Colorado ballot. Caldara said he did not submit the signatures needed to put Initiative 88 on the ballot because its backers did not have sufficient funds to promote it successfully.
