Court Opinion

ID: 9796424
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 03:57:17.41983+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:50:13.835486
License: Public Domain

Justice EID,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent from the majority's decision to strike down proposed Initiative # 91 on the ground that it contains multiple subjects. In my view, the proposed initiative's component parts relate to a single subject: a new tax to support water conservation programs.
As the majority sets forth, the proposed initiative 1) defines the scope of the new tax; 2) states that the revenue would be deposited in a special fund; 3) provides that the bulk of the fund would be made available to basin roundtables and the interbasin compact committee for various water conservation programs; and 4) places a four-year moratorium on the General Assembly's ability to amend the statute governing basin roundtables and the interbasin compact committee. Maj. op. at 1074-75. In sum, the initiative proposes a new tax and specifies how the new revenue is to be spent (on water conservation programs) and who is going to spend it (basin roundtables and the interbasin compact committee). In my view, the proposed initiative's components thus all relate to the single subject of a new tax to support water conservation programs.
The majority finds that the initiative's proposed four-year moratorium on the General Assembly's ability to amend the statute governing basin roundtables and the interbasin compact committee creates a second subject. Maj. op. at 1080. Yet it is difficult to see how the moratorium is not "dependent upon or connected with" the new tax. In re Proposed Initiative "Pub. Rights in Waters II", 898 P.2d 1076, 1078-79 (Colo.1995) (defining the standard for finding components of a proposed initiative sufficiently related as to state a single subject). As explained by the text of the proposed initiative itself, the moratorium is designed to promote "the stability" of the special fund, to protect the "express uses of moneys in the fund," and "to complete the tasks" that have been assigned the roundtables and committee. Maj. op. at 1075 (citing section (10) of the initiative). The proponents thus are shielding from legislative change the very heart of the initiative-that is, the new tax and the provisions governing the expenditure of revenue it raises. While the majority finds the moratorium "especially troubling considering the oversight and authority the General Assembly traditionally has over agencies it has established," maj. op. at 1080, the merits of the proposed initiative are not before us.
*1089For these reasons, I dissent from the majority's conclusion that Proposed Initiative # 91 contains multiple subjects.
I am authorized to state that Justice RICE joins in this dissent.