In today’s (Wednesday) Denver Post, editor/columnist Vincent Carroll, while taking Scott McInnis to task for “budgetary vagueness” in the ‘Platform for Prosperity’ and other campaign statements to date, lauded the platform (aka ‘Contract for Colorado’) for adherence to constitutional principles:

The best thing about Scott McInnis’ new “Platform for Prosperity” is that it shows a respect for voters and the Colorado Constitution. That alone is cause for celebration, given the serial disregard for voters’ rights and constitutional language during the past three years.

The voters of Colorado certainly have a right to expect that their officials - elected OR appointed - demonstrate respect for their rights and for the Colorado Constitution.  As Carroll points out, those rights - such as the right to vote on tax increases, guaranteed under TABOR - have been increasingly undermined (if not downright ignored) by all branches of Colorado government over the last several years.

In other words, no more end runs around the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights to hike property taxes by the trick of freezing mill levies rather than allowing them to decline. No more plans to raise $130 million by lifting long-established tax exemptions while ignoring the TABOR requirement that any “tax policy change directly causing a net tax revenue gain” must go to a popular vote.

And no more repealing spending caps for the general fund without asking voters for permission, as TABOR demands.

What Carroll does not mention - at least, not explicitly - is the fact that these “end runs around the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights” were ONLY able to occur with the active involvement of the ruling majority on the Colorado Supreme Court.  Lower courts had held - properly - that the “Mill Levy Tax Freeze” was clearly unconstitutional.   That would have stopped the “end run” around TABOR in its tracks - but for the complicit (and politically motivated) action of the Mullarkey Majority to overturn the lower court, in clear and blatant disregard of the Colorado Constitution.

The Mullarkey Court also added insult to injury by inventing a rationale to eliminate constitutional protections for “long-established tax exemptions” in that same case - an insult all the more egregious because those tax exemptions were not even at issue in the case, and were only added to the ruling - a major breach of judicial practice by an appellate court - because an activist majority wanted to push its own agenda in further undermining TABOR.

The repeal of the Arveschoug-Bird 6% limit on growth of government spending - previously held to have been incorporated under TABOR - by the legislature with Senate Bill 228 was also “aided and abetted” by the Mullarkey Court.  Since the unconstitutional nature of the repeal (and thus SB228) was clearly established by years of legal commentary and precedent, in a rational universe, the bill would have been challenged and overturned.  However, a legislature emboldened by the Mullarkey Majority’s clear bias against TABOR - no mere statute, but part of the Colorado Constitution - felt no qualms in ramming through a clearly unconstitutional bill, and the opposition (in the legislature and otherwise) saw no prospects for a successful legal challenge.  The fix was in - it was clear that the ruling majority on the Colorado Supreme Court would NOT uphold the Constitution, and the rule of law, despite their sworn duty to do so.  Like the dog that did not bark in the night, the “case that never was” sealed the doom of this legal limit on the growth of general fund spending.

Carroll continues:

If TABOR can be defied any time an attorney offers an inventive rationale, what’s to prevent public officials from ignoring other inconvenient amendments?

What, indeed?  If the Colorado Constitution means whatever a majority on the Colorado Supreme Court says it means on any given day, why bother to have a Constitution at all?  For that matter, why bother to have any rules; just let decisions be made by rulers.  Oh wait; 200-odd years ago, we had just that; but we called them “Kings” and “Queens,” instead of “Supreme Court Justices.”

Our founding fathers established something unique, something very special, when they replaced the divine right of kings - rule unchallenged by constitutional constraints - with constitutional, limited government: the rule of law, not the arbitrary and capricious rule of men (or in this case, women).  “What kind of government have you given us?”, Benjamin Franklin was famously asked on exiting the Constitutional Convention.  “A Republic, if you can keep it”, he replied.

We The People must again stand up in defense of our Constitution - in defense of our rights as citizens - in order to keep our Republic.  We must throw off those who would re-institute a rule of our “betters” - be they termed Kings, Queens, or Supreme Court “Justices.”

Freedom isn’t Free - Defend YOUR Constitution, and exercise YOUR right to vote “NO” on retaining the four unjust justices of the Mullarkey Majority (Justices Michael Bender, Alex Martinez, Nancy Rice, and Chief Justice Mary Mullarkey).  They need YOUR approval to continue taking away your constitutional rights: your right to vote on tax increases, your right to defend your homes and business from seizure by rapacious governments, and your right to enjoy the benefits of the rule of law, not rule by activist, agenda-driven “justices.” DON’T GIVE IT TO THEM!  Support Clear The Bench Colorado with your comments (Sound Off!), your contributions, and your “NO” vote on these unjust justices in Nov. 2010!

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