Paying more at the store for someone else's values, and Gov Polis' property tax plan and the associated TABOR refund scheme is extortion (and now the subject of a lawsuit).
Paying more at the grocery for someone else's values.
The first link below is Mrs. Gabel's op ed on Polis' recent veto of the bill delaying wolf reintroduction. It's definitely worth a read, but I won't go into talk about the veto again. It's been covered.
The reason I post it is because of an interesting quote from the op ed. That is in the screenshot.
The SCOTUS decision that Polis references is a recent ruling by the Supreme Court that upheld California's Prop 12 which does for pork producers that want to sell to California what this state's cage free egg law did for Colorado. Given that California doesn't really produce much pork but is a decent sized consumer of it, the thinking is that it will drive up costs for us all as pork producers must update their facilities and reduce production to meet California's standard.
I found a good article on the issue and linked it second below the op ed if you want to go in depth.
Here's the thing. When Polis references "our communities", "our values" and "keeping our farmers competitive", I question who it is he's talking about.
Cage free eggs don't reflect my values. $7 dollar per dozen for eggs and shortages don't either. Now, to be fair, a goodly amount of this was avian influenza and needing to cull entire flocks of chickens, but the law in Colorado that required cage free eggs and etc. meant we couldn't bring into Colorado the still-plentiful eggs that other states enjoyed. I.e. the eggs were there, but we foreswore them by insisting on only selling cage free here.
In that sense, Polis, who or what is more competitive?
It's funny, but I have a vague memory of how there was a way for someone's values to reflect their choices. It was almost as if there were this thing called a "free market" whereby people along the Front Range and up Boulder could buy cage free if they wanted to (along with the premium price) while those of us who weren't as concerned could buy the eggs we saw fit.
They didn't even need a law. Imagine that.
https://www.coloradopolitics.com/opinion/polis-bites-the-hand-that-feeds-colorado-gabel/article_dbf978ee-f691-11ed-978c-dbb89d0e4602.html
https://www.agweek.com/news/policy/supreme-court-decision-puts-pig-policy-under-california-control-but-the-fight-isnt-over
Another video in the excellent property tax series by Mr. Murrey.
As Mr. Murrey says, "extortion" is indeed a strong word, but it is an apt one.
Tying together the referred measure HH with one that says that lower income earners can get a higher than normal refund ONLY if they vote yes on it is a clear case of "if you don't do as I like, there will be an economic consequence"; the quintessence of extortion.
More in the video and worth a watch (and a share).
And on a related note to the extortion below, Polis property tax plan is the subject of a lawsuit.
He hasn't even signed it yet!
The lawsuit alleges that the property tax plan violates the single-subject rule (the Colorado Constitution requires that any law or initiative only involve a single subject), and that the language in the measure is misleading.
The extended quote from the article linked below, by the group that is suing is in the screenshot attached.
Think what you want about the plan to reduce the property taxes, the measure's sloppiness is a clear indicator of its rushed nature, which leads naturally to questions about what other kinds of mistakes/unintended consequences may be hiding in it.
I'm reminded of when I was a high school teacher. If a student would've handed me something like this, I would have told him or her "if you don't make time to do it right the first time, you'd better make time to do it again".
https://pagetwo.completecolorado.com/2023/05/19/gov-polis-property-tax-plan-faces-legal-challenge/