The Colorado Supreme Court has unanimously rejected the governor’s executive order that sought to make it less difficult to get citizen initiatives on the ballot during the coronavirus pandemic.
The court reversed a district court ruling in favor of the governor, ruling Wednesday that petitions for ballot measures have to be signed in person. That will make it harder for issue campaigns to collect 124,632 valid signatures in person by Aug. 3 during a time of social distancing.
Initiatives with more financial backing and broader coalition support, such as a measure to fund a paid medical and family leave program, still expect to qualify for the November ballot. However, others — including one seeking to extend oil and gas setbacks — anticipate a struggle to get on the ballot.
Four citizen-measures have already made it onto the ballot, with another expected to be referred by the legislature once Gov. Jared Polis signs on the bill.
The governor issued his order May 16, tasking the Secretary of State’s Office with creating new temporary rules for ballot initiatives, including suspending the requirement that campaigns had to collect signatures in person to get on the ballot. Although voters still had to physically sign petitions to get a measure on the ballot, the petitions could be submitted by mail or email. Dan Ritchie and Colorado Concern, a coalition of business leaders, sued the governor and secretary of state over the change.
The Colorado Constitution requires signatures to be made in person in front of the petition circulator, the state’s highest court ruled.
“One hundred ten years of settled practice support this conclusion. We have long recognized that ‘circulators of petitions assume personal responsibility to prevent irregularities in the initiative process,’” the ruling stated.
The governor can’t suspend that requirement by executive order — even in an emergency, the justices said. He can suspend some rules in a declared disaster but not constitutional provisions.
Variations on the issue are playing out nationally, with legal battles across the country over whether courts should suspend rules during a global health pandemic.
Polis denounced the Colorado court’s ruling in a strongly worded statement Wednesday.
“While today’s decision is a blow to the power of the people of our state to petition, it is certainly convenient for certain groups or elected leaders that they have to deal with fewer ballot initiatives,” he said. “It makes my life easier as Governor that there will be fewer curveballs coming our way, but sadly it’s at the cost of making it much harder and even dangerous from a public health perspective for activists on all sides to get their issues on the ballot for voters to decide.”
Mike Kopp of Colorado Concern, however, welcomed the decision as protecting the integrity of the ballot process.
“Launching this litigation was a difficult choice, because there are so many important issues we are working closely with the Governor on, literally in real time,” Kopp, president and CEO of the group, said in a statement. “But the underlying principle was too important – protecting the integrity of the initiative process is just as important in a pandemic as it is during a time of calm.”
Signatures collected by mail or email will now be considered void.
But groups such as Colorado Families First, the coalition for paid medical and family leave, still believe they can make the ballot. Some campaigns have been providing disposable pens, gloves and hand sanitizer for in-person collection efforts.
“Right now we’re well on our way to collecting the necessary number of signatures before the Aug. 3 deadline,” said Olga Robak, a spokesperson for the group. “It is unfortunate that the people who already signed the single-line petition won’t have their voice heard when it comes to putting this on the ballot, but their voices will be heard in November when we pass a comprehensive paid family and medical leave plan.”
Similarly, Colorado Rising State Action isn’t worried the Supreme Court’s decision will hamper its efforts to get Initiative 295, which would require voter approval for new state programs, on the ballot.
Neither is Protect Colorado, which is supporting initiatives to prohibit restrictions on natural gas use and to require fiscal impact statements to appear on ballots with each measure. The group has collected more than 100,000 signatures but didn’t collect any by mail or email, knowing the validity was being challenged, said spokesperson Laurie Cipriano.
“You don’t have to change the system and violate the Constitution when you have good issues that the public supports,” she wrote.
Not every group expects to fare as well, and some stopped their efforts awhile ago.
Safe & Healthy Colorado launched a campaign last week for an initiative to require 2,500-foot setbacks for fracking, saying the governor’s order gave organizers hope of getting on the ballot. They now face a task they’d previously described as “daunting.”
