Update, 3/17: Law student Constructively Reasonable says the decision is a cause for "outrage". A watcher says Colorado may not as well even have a constitution. The Colorado Supreme Court has done it again, showing its disdain for taxpayer protections in the state constitution. From the majority opinion:When it issued its declaratory judgment order, the district court did not have the benefit of our recent decision in Barber v. Ritter, 196 P.3d 238 (Colo. 2008), in which we held that a statute challenged under article X, section 20 must be proven to be unconstitutional beyond a reasonable doubt. The trial court erroneously held that the relevant test of SB 07-199s constitutionality came from the interpretive guideline included in the … [Read more...]
Democrat Shell Game: Raise Your Car Fees to Grow State Government
John Ingold at the Denver Post reports, not surprisingly, that Governor Bill Ritter plans to sign SB 108 (aka FASTER) the Democrat bill in the state legislature to raise car fees by an average of $41 a year per vehicle. A reminder for Colorado: You put Democrats in charge, you pay more taxes for bigger government entitlement programs. What, you say? The state has legitimate transportation needs that SB 108 is designed to fund. Those aren't entitlement programs. Except that the so-called "FASTER" bill is merely half of a liberal shell game. The other half is SB 228 - which would rip away limits on state appropriation increases and enable the Democrats to divert hundreds of millions of dollars dedicated to the highway fund (PDF) … [Read more...]