I'm a hard no on Prop 131. The state legislature’s and Legislative Council’s wordplay re. taxpayer funded abortions: the courts are sitting this one out.

I'm a hard no on Prop 131.  

I wanted to give you my thoughts on Prop 131 along with some counterpoint on it.  If you have some thoughts to share, please do.  Comments are open.

First, the policy itself.  As a convenience, I've linked to the Blue Book where you can find the summary on Prop 131.

If the ballot issue on veterinarians left me with some ambivalence, I can emphatically, definitely say I am a no on Prop 131.

I won't rehash everything I've said or shared on Ranked Choice Voting (RCV).  If you want some references on the problems associated with RCV, I link to the two most recent newsletters I put out there. 

I want instead to talk more about my impressions of this initiative.  

Pardon some coarseness,  but I am s**t sick of the state I love being the playground for monied people.  They come here, they pay gobs of money to try out all kinds of wacky policy:  pot, mushrooms, RCV because they think somehow it's going to fix things.  

And when they're trying to sell us on it, it's always couched as to our benefit.  Pot's harmless and it'll give money to schools.  Mushroom trip-outs will fix people's brains.  RCV will make it so elections won't be polarized and will get more voters involved.

Changing how votes are tabulated and counted does not change human hearts.  Polarization and choosing not to participate are things we should be concerned with, yes, but RCV is not the solution because those problems pertain to our current perspectives on each other and our world.

Many politicians are extreme, many of them run not on issues but notoriety and seek more of it.  This is not automatically related to how we do primaries.  It's also not automatically related to a two-party system which presents two choices to voters.  This speaks more about our incentive structure regarding media time, social media clicks, and attention-seeking more than anything.  

Switching elections will not rewire any of this.  In fact, I'd bet my lunch we'll still have nonparticipation and polarization if we vote this crap in.  We'll just have it overlaid on a ballot system that will (in the short term certainly) confuse the hell out of a lot of voters.

I am, as I say above, a no.  I am a hard no.  I am a hell no.

But others have differing takes on it.  In the interest of fairness, I present Mr. Sondermann's op-ed third below. 

Linked fourth below is an article where Gov Polis shares his thoughts on the upcoming ballot measures.  I excerpted his thoughts on Prop 131 and attached as screenshot 1.

It's interesting to note that both Mr. Sondermann and Polis share the same views.  They even use the same talking points!  

I was going to end with just sharing their thoughts, but I can't resist one more dig.  Noting that Polis supports this measure ought to be all the nudging you need to vote no.


https://leg.colorado.gov/sites/default/files/2024-blue-book-english-accessible.pdf

https://open.substack.com/pub/coloradoaccountabilityproject/p/i-called-about-logan-county-local?r=15ij6n&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web

https://open.substack.com/pub/coloradoaccountabilityproject/p/rtds-got-problems-but-its-got-one?r=15ij6n&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web

https://www.coloradopolitics.com/columnists/a-deeper-dive-on-prop-131-and-a-quick-take-on-some-municipal-ballot-issues/article_abd63d14-7b92-11ef-a67d-cfc487117d36.html

https://www.mineralcountyminer.com/stories/polis-offers-his-views-on-ballot-issues,60773

Related:

Want one more reason to vote no on Prop 131?

Alaska went down this path ahead of us, and not that long ago.

And they have a ballot measure this year to take their elections back to the way they were PRIOR to voting in ranked choice voting and combined primaries.

Maybe we should use our human birthright and exercise our capacity to learn from others.

https://reason.org/voters-guide/alaska-ballot-measure-2-would-repeal-top-four-ranked-choice-voting/

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The state legislature’s and Legislative Council’s wordplay re. taxpayer funded abortions.

There is no way that allowing state employees to have taxpayer-funded abortions will NOT result in some increase in costs to government.

The op ed below is about an important detail which will be missing from your Blue Book this year about Amendment 79.

Just as a reminder, Amendment 79 is the change to Colorado Constitution that will make elective abortions an unlimited right in this state.  

It will also require you (wherever you are on the spectrum about abortion) to help fund them because it removes a restriction against taxpayer-funded abortions.

I'm a definite NO vote on this one.  I am not as stridently opposed to abortion as some and I'm more than others, but I cannot square unlimited and unrestricted abortions.

Nor can I square the plain fact that government compulsion in violation of someone's conscience and/or religion by requiring them to pay taxes and using those taxes to fund abortion is wrong.  

But let's put aside any issues of conscience to focus in on the issue of fairness and honesty by the Legislative Council.

The Blue Book WILL include the language that Amendment 79 will have "no fiscal impact" on state and local governments.  The Book has already been written.  This is an update I got in speaking with the author of the op ed linked below.  More details on this in the post that follows this one.

I took a screenshot of the final language for the Blue Book and attached as screenshot 1.  I highlighted that specific phrase.

Reading further into the language in screenshot 1, you can see the clever word play here.  It will probably take you reading it twice (it did me), but in essence what you see is that "no fiscal impact" here means no need to write any new policy into a book somewhere.  That is, because this gets written into the Constitution, no one else needs to draft their own copies.

This neat semantic trick allows the authors to put at the very top a line that would seem to indicate that no costs will be incurred.  

If you read further, however, you see them acknowledge that costs due to redoing insurance policies and/or incurred due to increased premiums for covering more services are going to make government spending increase.

If one were skimming here and in a rush, how much of that subtle detail would be seen?  How well would a layperson with other things to think about be able to untangle exactly what this means, that it's not costing in one sense but it will in another?

I'm okay with there being a note of the fact that there is no cost due to writing laws, but this should have been written more clearly and not in a way that obscures the fact that the Legislative Staff here takes too narrow a definition of "no fiscal impact".

If nothing else, please understand, remember, and share with others that this bill will carry a cost and that your money will be used (whether you like it or not) to pay for abortions.

https://denvergazette.com/opinion/columns/guest-column-state-is-deceiving-voters-about-amendment-79/article_8a0da41f-0516-5904-bb2f-3b4ce0446e52.html#google_vignette

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Is there any recourse if the government's Blue Book plays semantic games?

Not really.  I mean you can take them to court, but it's almost a sure bet that any Colorado court will not get in the mix citing "separation of powers".

The post prior to this one was about some pretty little wordplay by the Legislative Council about how allowing public funding for abortions in Colorado will have "no fiscal impact" since no one has to write any laws to change this (although the Council later admits to the fact that requiring taxpayers to fund abortions will make government costs go up).

I included an op ed on this topic, the same from the previous post, first below for convenience sake.  In that op ed, you'll note that Colorado Right to Life is (was by this point) suing over the deceptive Blue Book language 

In doing some digging on this I called Colorado Right to Life to follow up on their lawsuit and was told the suit was dismissed.  I attached the judge's ruling second below.  I'll leave it to you to read the minutiae, but the ruling and rationale can be pretty well summarized by the bits I took in screenshots 1 and 2 attached.

Interesting to note the inclusion of the language that the courts cannot interfere in the legislative process UNTIL the law is completed.  I wonder how the judge would respond to the commonsense question of why that applies when the concern here happens to be about the very manner in which that law gets to become law.

I am reminded here of what happened when Mr. Caldara tried to pass an initiative with the very same language as the turd Prop HH.  If you don't remember the details, I put his op ed about it third below.  

A relevant quote is in screenshot 3 attached.

"...they [the legislature] get to lie and omit to tempt you to vote for what they want."

And "they", meaning the legislature, is apt here too because a legislative committee is the ultimate stop for Blue Book language, the final check on what makes it in.  The deceptive wording in the fiscal analysis would not be in the Blue Book if the committee didn't approve it.

See screenshot 4 from link 4 below along with the legislative committee itself in the fifth link.

What's the point?  The point I suppose is that you cannot depend on the courts to provide a check on the ballot analysis language and that you must read carefully and more than once (and probably it's wise to read widely) on ballot issues.


https://denvergazette.com/opinion/columns/guest-column-state-is-deceiving-voters-about-amendment-79/article_8a0da41f-0516-5904-bb2f-3b4ce0446e52.html


https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ct8uhxgG0Uh25jvW3_lK5WwEe6xNSKiW/view?usp=sharing


https://www.coloradopolitics.com/opinion/first-person-proof-prop-hh-ballot-language-lies-caldara/article_ad07883e-6f84-11ee-8502-175f67da2491.html

https://leg.colorado.gov/content/ballot-analysis-process

https://leg.colorado.gov/committees/legislative-council/2024-regular-session