Court Opinion

ID: 9631507
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 10:40:40.937132+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:07:55.550376
License: Public Domain

Justice SCOTT,
concurring in part and concurring in the judgment:
I join the sound judgment and opinion of the majority, except to the extent that it resorts to legislative history. I find such reliance unnecessary in the face of the plain language of the statutory protest provision, section 1-40-118(1), 1 C.R.S. (1998):
A protest ... may be filed ... within thirty days after the secretary of state issues a statement as to whether the petition has a sufficient number of valid signatures, which statement shall be issued no later than thirty calendar days after the petition has been filed. If the secretary of state fails to issue a statement within thirty calendar days, the petition shall he deemed sufficient.
(Emphasis added.) Thus, as long as the secretary of state issues “a statement as to ... sufficien[ey],” her duty is fulfilled. There is no language even suggesting that the statement is not issued if it is inaccurate.
Such straight-forward language, as held by the majority, does not permit the result argued for by the petitioners, without support elsewhere in the statutes (which we have not been provided). Where the plain statutory language will not accommodate a reading inconsistent with its terms, I see no reason to turn from the plain words of the statute. See Anderson v. Watson, 953 P.2d 1284, 1290 (Colo.1998) (a court’s primary task is to give effect to the General Assembly’s purpose, which “is best done by giving ‘the statutory terms their plain and ordinary meaning’ ... [when we do so] [w]e need not resort to legislative history”); Walker v. People, 932 P.2d 303, 309 (Colo.1997) (“Where the language is clear and unambiguous, we need not resort to rules of statutory construction.”). Hence, I do not rely upon the legislative history of the right of initiative, created out of the maw of the political process, when the words chosen by the General Assembly are up to the task.