True to form, the man who was instrumental in passing a radical anti-tax amendment to Colorado’s constitution got picked up by police on charges of tax evasion and fraud. The tea party will probably hail Douglas Bruce of Colorado Springs as an American hero fighting big government tyranny. But Colorado voters didn’t think so in 2005, when they voted to overturn his tax-cutting amendment, 12 years after it was enacted. The law so devastated Colorado’s education and medical systems that even the business community campaigned to get rid of it. –YL

The Denver Post:

A state grand jury indicted Bruce, best known as the author of the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights, or TABOR, on four counts of evading taxes, filing a false return, failing to file a return and attempting to influence a public servant. Three of the four counts are felonies, and the most serious of the charges could bring up to six years in prison and a $500,000 fine.

“State law requires that citizens who live in Colorado and enjoy all of the benefits of being a resident pay the appropriate taxes,” Attorney General John Suthers said in a statement accompanying the indictment’s announcement. “No one is exempt from that obligation.”

Colorado Springs police officers arrested Bruce, 61, on Friday at a post office in the city. He was booked into the El Paso County Jail on $10,000 bond, which he later posted. Phone calls to his house went unreturned.

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