Reapportionment

Reapportionment

Special session will allow lawmakers to focus

Jan. 4, 2001

Gov. Bill Owens and legislative leaders are correct in saying that a special session of the Legislature will be necessary for the task of redrawing congressional boundaries. This has become necessary because Colorado has gained a new, seventh member of Congress.

The regular session already has a full agenda. The dynamics will also be different, given a narrowly Democratic state Senate and new individuals in leadership positions.

Voters have made it clear they want their legislators to approve a measure of some sort opposing sprawl and uncontrolled growth. That will be a time-consuming task.

Individuals representing the various special interests that were opposed in the past to any sort of growth legislation have been meeting this fall. Those who asked us not to support Amendment 24 have felt a responsibility to come back to voters with something they all can unify behind.

The governor has said he would like to see what sort of proposals this group can put together. Maybe this will become his plan too.

A lot of time will go into this effort, for sure.

The unexpectedly sharp growth in the state’s population, uncovered by the census, means that more money than necessary has been refunded to taxpayers under terms of the Taxpayers’ Bill of Rights Amendment.

TABOR specifically invokes "population growth" as a basis for increased tax revenues.

How this will be factored in so that we may have both better schools and better highways remains to be seen. But fear not: It will be on many a legislator’s mind.

In 1999, the Legislature passed 16 bills that permanently cut tax and fee revenues. There were other cuts in 2000 that we will be aware of on our tax returns this coming April 15.

There is a new Colorado Commission on Taxation, with members appointed both by the legislative leadership and by the governor. It is to report back no later than next December.

Colorado’s state and local tax policies have not been reviewed for nearly 40 years, so clearly there’s need for a solid, thorough analysis. While there’s no representation from Southwest Colorado on the commission, we would agree that the findings of this investigation will be important. In fact, they’re overdue.

What takes place at the coming session in terms of taxation will be designed against the backdrop of the commission’s work.

Adding the politics of reapportionment to this already steaming mix of controversial growth planning and taxation won’t work. All these important topics would suffer.

Dealing with where to put a new member of Congress can and should wait until later in the year. Then legislators can single-mindedly study their maps.