Federal judge allows legal challenge to TABOR to go forward
In another defeat for the state, a federal judge Monday allowed a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of Colorado’s Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights to move forward, rejecting arguments from Attorney General John Suthers that plaintiffs in the lawsuit did not have the right to sue.
U.S. District Judge William J. Martínez’s ruling was the most recent blow to the state’s effort to derail a lawsuit challenging TABOR, with the judge already having rejected a central pillar of the state’s defense of TABOR during a court hearing in February. The TABOR amendment, passed by voters in 1992, limits state spending and bars lawmakers from raising taxes without a vote of the people.
The suit, filed by 33 plaintiffs who are mostly Democrats, argues that by taking away lawmakers’ ability to tax, TABOR violates the U.S. Constitution’s guarantee that every state have a republican form of government, or one where people elect officials to govern rather than in a direct democracy, where the citizens themselves govern.