Buried in the middle of this year’s general election ballot, several minutes of perusal past the big names like John McCain and Barack Obama, is a measure that, if approved by Colorado voters, promises relief from tablecloth-sized ballots in the future.It’s called Referendum O, and it would make voting easier. Some say it would also make state government less democratic.Referendum O would increase the number of signatures required to place a proposed constitutional amendment on the state ballot, while decreasing the signatures required to put a proposed change to state statute on the ballot. It would also require quotas for petition signatures from each of the state’s seven congressional districts.Supporters of Referendum O say it will make it easier for citizens to create statutes but harder to amend the state constitution, which can only be changed by popular vote but gets tweaked and fiddled with every time there’s a statewide vote.This year’s ballot takes the prize – 14 proposed amendments, plus four more that are on the ballot but have been officially withdrawn and for which votes won’t be counted.”This is the most cluttered ballot we’ve seen,” said state Rep. Al White, the Hayden Republican who sponsored Referendum O in the House of Representatives. “I hope that Referendum O, if it passes, will do away with some of this ballot clutter in the future.”But state Rep. Douglas Bruce, the Colorado Springs Republican and anti-tax crusader, described Referendum O as “the worst issue on the ballot.” That’s noteworthy coming from Bruce, since voters are also considering a measure that would hamstring his claim to legislative fame: the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights, the landmark legislation that created a formula to cap state spending.”The government wants to trick us into voting to give up our right to vote,” Bruce said of Referendum O. “That’s all any petition ever does, is lets us vote on ballot issues. The petition doesn’t change anything, it just provides ballot access.”Bruce argued that because statutes can be repealed by the Legislature while constitutional amendments cannot, Referendum O would make it easy for the Legislature to defy the will of the people.White said Referendum O protects petition-based statutes by requiring a two-thirds vote of the Legislature to repeal them.”That should give comfort to the people who are looking for some protection from legislative mischief,” White said. “The intent is, if something is poorly written or ill-considered, we will be able to get two-thirds of the Legislature to address it.”He mentioned Amendment 41, an ethics-in-government issue that turned out to be so inflexible that it called into question the eligibility of the children of state employees to receive scholarships to state colleges.”Had that been statutorily enacted as opposed to constitutionally, I believe that the Legislature would have taken that in hand and corrected it with a two-thirds vote,” White said. “We don’t want to mess with the will of the people.”Proponents say that by requiring supporters of ballot initiatives to collect petition signatures in all seven of the state’s congressional districts, Referendum O would prevent one part of the state from forcing its will on the rest. “If an idea’s a good idea in Denver, it should also be a good idea in Burlington, it should also be a good idea in Grand Junction,” White said.Bruce argued the opposite: that Referendum O “would allow one part of the state to block a petition it dislikes by not signing it.”That’s OK with White. “If the idea is not acceptable enough to collect adequate signatures in all seven congressional districts,” he said, “then it likely should not be amending the constitution, because the constitution affects all the citizens of the state.”

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