While it seeks a laudable goal, the Raise the Bar effort to make it more difficult to amend Colorado’s constitution goes too far, and citizens liberal, moderate and conservative would soon come to hate its provisions.

We wanted to support a reasonable reform effort. For years we have believed the initiative process makes it too easy to lock problematic laws into the state’s constitution where, unlike with statutory changes, our elected officials are prevented from making alterations.

But the proposed Amendment 71 would cement in place troublesome provisions — as within TABOR — that we would like to see modified at the ballot box.

Amendment 71 would require 55 percent of voters to approve a proposed amendment, instead of the 50 percent needed now to pass either an amendment or a new statute. That would be the case whether citizens advance the measure, or lawmakers refer it to the ballot. Had its crafters stopped there, we likely would have looked more favorably on the measure.

The problem that the Raise the Bar language presents is in its second major requirement: To place a citizens’ initiative on the ballot, organizers would have to collect valid signatures from 2 percent of registered voters in each of the 35 state Senate districts. Presently, the number of signatures organizers must collect is to equal 5 percent of the votes cast for the secretary of state in the last election.

Meeting that 35-district test would be a Herculean effort.

To better understand why, consider the status quo. While critics argue it is too easy to place amendments on the ballot, the fact is that most efforts fail to clear the current bar. The reason is that the system is costly, as signature gathering can easily cost $1 million or more. Next come the pricey legal battles that pop up when signatures are contested. All that before a campaign spends a dime on getting out the message.

Paying for a signature gathering effort in 35 districts across the state, and defending signature challenges in all of those districts, would easily render the cost of presenting a ballot unaffordable to all but the wealthiest of campaigns. (And yes, citizens in many states aren’t able to amend their constitutions. But it’s a valuable right in Colorado that helps keep the elite in check.)

Another problem with the 35-district requirement is that a single district would be able to block a desired measure. Imagine if the original backers of the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights had had to collect valid signatures in every Boulder district. Or if backers of Amendment 23’s education spending requirements went shopping for signatures in Colorado Springs.

Amendment 71’s backers maintain these thresholds even for efforts that seek to make changes to existing amendments. While the measure doesn’t require 55 percent of the vote to repeal an amendment — whether in whole or in part — they would be required to meet that threshold to alter it. So, as in the example above, efforts to tweak TABOR or 23 would be futile.

Raise the Bar enjoys enormous support in Colorado, but even its supporters weren’t able to verify that they were able to gather valid signatures from the 35 districts.

And while it’s reasonable and responsible for 71’s backers to seek to expand signature gathering beyond the populous Front Range, there are less restrictive ways to require support from the state’s regions.

We agree that amending the Colorado constitution should be more difficult than adding a statute, but Raise the Bar got it wrong.

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