Coming on the heels of a district court ruling that condemned Gov. Bill Ritter's mill levy tax "freeze" as an unconstitutional tax increase, taxpayer crusader and Independence Institute President Jon Caldara is clinking champagne glasses once again this week after surpassing a major milestone in his latest effort.
CaldaraFTS Staff Photo
Caldara, the lead champion of an ethical standards ballot initiative, has announced that campaign supporters have delivered more than 120,000 voter signatures to Colorado Secretary of State Mike Coffman's office. The ball is now in Coffman's court, as he now has 30 days to certify the validity of at least 76,047 of the signatures. If the signatures pass muster, the initiative will be the fourth certified for this November's ballot.
As written, the initiative would prevent public payroll systems from collecting and bundling money to special interest groups that hire lobbyists and make campaign contributions. According to Caldara, a survey of 20 municipal governments and 20 school districts found more than $19 million was funneled to such groups in 2007.
"We are confident that the proposal will go forward, and we can continue to educate the citizens of this state about the need to clean up government," Caldara said in a statement. "This is a simple approach to ensure government can't act as the bag man for unions and other special interest groups."
Let's not get ahead of
On July 18th, 2008 Kdog says:
Let's not get ahead of ourselves. The tax victory is not a victory until the Supreme Court agrees.
The ethical government reform is not a victory until the voter agrees. So up to this point nothing has changed.