Court Opinion

ID: 9792747
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 02:35:43.612124+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:37:44.953197
License: Public Domain

Justice LOHR
dissenting:
The majority reverses the action of the Title Board and remands the matter with instructions to amend the title and submission clause to reflect that the proposed amendment would prevent “Colorado courts from interpreting the right of free expression more broadly under the Colorado Constitution than under the First Amendment to the United States Constitution in the area of obscenity.” Maj. op. at 851. Although the proposed amendment, if passed, may have this effect, the title and submission clause fairly and accurately reflect this feature of the initiative. Therefore, the addition of further language to clarify this feature is unnecessary. Accordingly, I respectfully dissent.
The proposed amendment would add the following language to Article II, Section 10, of the Colorado Constitution:
To the full extent permitted by the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America, the promotion of obscenity may be controlled by the state and any city, town, city and county, or county within the unincorporated area of the county.
*852The proposed amendment, therefore, involves the controls that the enumerated governmental entities (collectively, the state) may place upon the promotion of obscenity. Understood in this straightforward manner, the language unambiguously conveys that under the proposed amendment such controls may be adopted to the full extent permitted by the United States Constitution. Because the amendment would permit such controls, it is obvious that, under the Colorado Constitution, courts will not be able to prevent such controls. This latter result is immediately implied from the language of the proposed amendment and needs no further explanation in the title and submission clause, which nearly duplicate the terms of the proposed amendment.
Although no such further explanation is required, the petitioners raise arguments that make it appear that such an explanation is necessary by couching the issue not in terms of controls but, conversely, in terms of free expression. If a court interprets the state constitution to prevent particular controls on obscenity, it would thereby increase protection of free expression. If the state constitution cannot be interpreted to prevent such controls, protection of free expression is correspondingly limited. The petitioners argue that the title and submission clause do not reveal the essential feature that under the proposed amendment, courts will not be able to construe the Colorado Constitution to increase protections of free expression beyond those provided by the United States Constitution. However, this feature merely restates the obvious result that under the proposed amendment, courts will not be able to construe the state constitution to prevent controls of free expression that are permitted by the United States Constitution.
This rather difficult analysis results merely from the petitioners’ reframing of the issue in terms of free expression rather than of controls. The majority itself is drawn into this approach when it states that the electorate would probably not understand that “in permitting the promotion of obscenity to the full extent allowed by the First Amendment, the Initiative is intended to foreclose the Colorado courts from permitting any broader protection of obscenity under the Colorado constitution.” Maj. op. at 850 (emphasis added). However, under the amendment, it is not the “promotion” of obscenity that is permitted to the full extent allowed by the United States Constitution.1 Rather, it is the control of obscenity that is so permitted.
Based on the foregoing, I conclude that the title and submission clause fairly and accurately reflect the feature that under the proposed amendment, courts could not construe the Colorado Constitution to prevent the state from imposing controls on the promotion of obscenity that are allowed by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. This feature is readily understandable by the electorate from the plain language of the title and submission clause. It is therefore unnecessary to reframe this feature in terms of free expression. Furthermore, the reframed version of this feature that the majority requires the Title Board to add to the title and submission clause is contained nearly verbatim in the summary prepared by the Title Board. In preparing a title and submission clause, the Title Board “must navigate the straits between brevity and unambiguously stating the central features of the provision sought to be added.” In re Proposed Initiative Concerning Automobile Insurance Coverage, 877 P.2d 853, 857 (Colo.1994). I am persuaded that the Title Board adequately met this navigational challenge.
Accordingly, I respectfully dissent.
Justice SCOTT joins in this dissent.

. Even apart from the amendment, the state cannot restrict speech that is protected by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.