Well, if E.T. ever wants to phone the Governor’s office, this initiative will certainly help.

From the Rocky Mountain News,“Peckman is sponsoring an initiative that would require the city to create an ET Commission tasked with ‘dealing with issues related to the presence of extraterrestrial beings on Earth.”

How ridiculous does an E.T. Commission sound in light of tax hikes that aren’t considered tax hikes and diverting money for roads in order to increase medical costs?

H/T: Ari Armstrong @ FreeColorado.com

The final arguments are about to start, so I’ve gotta get in there. Check back later for a final report. Oh, and keep your fingers crossed.

© 2008, Benjamin Hummel. To see more cartoons like this go to www.politixcartoons.com.

We are all still buzzing about the remarkable day in court on Tuesday. Not only did Colorado State Treasurer Cary Kennedy under oath admit that the mill levy freeze was her idea, she admitted what we all already know - it is a change to tax policy that increases revenue. Why this is important is that the state constitution is very clear that voter approval is required for “a tax policy change directly causing a net tax revenue gain to any district.”

Other moving testimony came from the very sweet and rather maternal Marcia Neal, who as a Grand Junction school board member told her family, friends and community that voting for a de-brucing back in 1999 wouldn’t raise taxes. As the Rocky quotes her, “now that mill levy freeze is coming in, and people are saying, ‘I thought you said that wouldn’t happen.’” Folks in Grand Junction and Mesa County have seen their property assessment shoot up 32% so shoots up their property taxes, without the ability to go down. Nothing like state legislators and governor turning grandmothers into liars. Must be that Colorado promise we heard so much about.

Wednesday, the last day of testimony, was techno-babble day in the courtroom as the state brought in a capable technocrat from the Department of Education to explain the finer and mind-numbing points of the Colorado School Finance Act. She tried to explain that while taxpayers are paying $117 million more this year, it somehow isn’t a tax increase. If I were convinced, I wouldn’t have been pushing this lawsuit in the first place.

Maybe in your opinion a property tax increase is the best thing for Colorado. From our opinion it doesn’t matter it this brings in one dollar or one trillion dollars. Our constitution says the people of Colorado must be asked first. It’s not the cash, it’s the constitution.

I couldn’t be more proud of the way we have put forward this important battle. I am grateful to our attorneys Richard Westfall and Allan Hale who have gone above and beyond to make this case work for all taxpayers. Their professionalism, tenacity and focus suits this cause.

This is a complex and expensive lawsuit, and it highlights why Colorado needs the Independence Institute. If we don’t fight for taxpayers, if we don’t fight to protect the constitution, then who will?

If it stands, this property tax increase is expected to cost Coloradoans $4 billion over the next decade alone, and it grows forever. And who put their reputation and resources on the line to fight it? Who again stepped into the breech with no guarantee of success? Who did it when no one else would? The Independence Institute did. Win or lose, I couldn’t be more proud.

Closing arguments will be this Friday morning at 10:00 in Denver District Court in Courtroom 1. It is scheduled to take less than 2 hours. I plan on being there to watch a little history in the making.

Colorado has conflicting constitutional amendments regarding state revenue and spending. The Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights (TABOR) restricts state spending to population growth plus inflation, while amendment 23 forces the state to increase spending on K-12 education even during an economic downturn. Throw in the spending lobby’s desire to make the $6 billion “TABOR timeout,” commonly known as Referendum C, permanent and its obvious the state faces a constitutional conundrum. Some legislators would like to “fix” TABOR rather than address spending. So we ask the question, what has TABOR meant to Colorado and how should the state address the constitutional conflict? Join me tonight on Independent Thinking as I moderate a spirited dialogue between the University of Colorado Denver’s Dr. Paul Teske and former state Senate President John Andrews on KBDI Channel 12 on Thursday night at 8:30 p.m.; repeated Tuesday evening at 5 p.m.

Today’s one word court report: WOW!

First day in court report in one word - booooooooring. Nothing like watching a bunch of over-priced, over-educated rubes arguing for 20 minutes over whether a paper clip can be accepted as evidence.

The challenge over Ritter’s property tax hike finally hit the big top, Denver District Court, Courtroom 1 to be precise. The no-nonsense judge Christina Habas masterfully ran the show, asking witnesses to take out their chewing gum and even slapping down my attorneys to keep things moving. At the risk of insulting her, she’d make a great talk-show host, “Please just answer the question.”

On one side of the room were my lawyers representing the taxpayers of Colorado, Richard Westfall and Allan Hale and their one assistant Amber. Facing them were 7 litigating for the government, so many that they needed a extra folding table. 7 to 3, says a lot about how government works.

The first witness was Evan Gluckman, one of those ridiculous people who actually works for a living. He owns the Main Street Cafe, a 50’s style dinner in Grand Junction. He said simply what many of us know personally; his property tax on his home and business shot up in the last year, thanks in great part to the governor’s mill levy freeze.

A representative from the Colorado Dept. of Education, who didn’t seem too happy to be there, testified that yes, in fact the mill levy freeze meant the state didn’t have to spend so much money on local school districts, which meant the state is now free to spend that cash on new things. You see, the state argues that since most of our local school districts have de-bruced (voted to let their local district keep extra money) that it somehow magically means they gave the state government permission to keep and spend billions more.

Simply, the freeze means the state government doesn’t have to pay, or “backfill” local school districts as much as they were, and that gives the state a lot of new spending power. Here’s an analogy - let’s say your employer starts paying your personal home mortgage for you so you don’t have to, did he just give you a pay raise? The state lawyers in court today would argue no, because your boss didn’t give you a larger paycheck. The rest of us would recognize it as a raise because one of your big expenses is now being paid by someone else, giving you more cash to spend on other things. The mill levy freeze is helping pay the state’s bill to local school districts - money the state now doesn’t need to pay them.

And our state constitution is very clear. If the state gets more money to spend, it has to the voters for permission first. Our constitution simply says Ask First!

The last witness of day was the most compelling for me. He is on a small school board and helped campaign for his school district’s successful de-brucing. He held himself out to his small community and promised that if they voted to pass the de-brucing it would allow the district to keep an extra $120,000 or so in extra revenue. He promised his community it WOULDN’T RAISE TAXES. Bill Ritter’s mill levy freeze has made him into a liar.

Expect this trail to go on a few more days. I’ll keep you posted.

The Denver Daily News just ran an article about the dire situations the land owners standing in RTD’s way are facing. 16 property owners have already received letters, and RTD officials say another 150 to 200 will receive a letter shortly. Perhaps it’s time to learn from the past if you feel you stand in RTD’s way.

Property owners say they are getting the short end of the stick because the “market value” RTD is offering is market value in a recession-laden market. As RTD target Steve Fesch says, “I’m being forced to sell in a down market … I’m losing my long-term investment. I wasn’t looking for market value in today’s market. I’m looking for market value when the transit was setup — 20, 30 years down the road. This was supposed to be for my retirement.”  This buyers’ market is great for RTD but not for landowners forced to sell their homes and investments.

In addition, with the killing of HB1278, property owners like Kim Snyder and Galen Foster face condemnation for illegal development purposes. Here’s the latest from Jessica Corry and Kate Melvin regarding this matter.

Brian Schwartz over at Patient Power asks, “When is it OK for someone to confiscate $400 from you each year, and claim that it’s the moral thing to do, because it saves you $85?” I’ll tell you Brian. When you are a bureaucrat who is looking to rob Peter to pay Paul, that’s when. And even then you are essentially robbing Peter to pay Peter. Brian also plugs our YouTube video which shows the fallacy in the whole cost-shift talking point.

In Linda Gorman’s latest post for the SPN blog, she reveals a step in the right direction for fixing our health care issues, and it involves, believe it or not, giving people more control over how they spend their money on health care services. What a fascinating idea…

UPDATE: Ari Armstrong wrote this yesterday dismantling the bogus Families USA health claims.

Today I’m actually looking forward to being in Denver District Court because it’s not for a paternity suit or traffic ticket.  At long last our class-action lawsuit will get it’s day in court. For those who need a quick refresher - last year Governor Ritter pushed, and received from the Democratically controlled Colorado legislature, a freeze on mill levies. This sounds just peachy until you realize that in most cases those mill levies were set to fall. The end result of the freeze is $4 billion more in taxes from Colorado property owners going to the Colorado state general fund. Or to put it in a way even I can understand, a massive property tax increase WITHOUT A VOTE OF THE PEOPLE!  For a more detailed explanation, check out Ben DeGrow’s paper A Property Tax Increase by Any Name.

Unfortunately for the the Governor, the Colorado State Constitution requires any tax increase to be voted on by the people.  So clear is the Colorado constitution that the state’s Attorney General (who I just found out isn’t a real general, which explains the lack of a uniform) took time to inform the Governor and the legislature that this tax massive tax increase is unconstitutional.

The Independence Institute couldn’t let this stand, so we coordinated this class-action lawsuit on behalf of all Colorado taxpayers. Our point is not to argue the merits of funneling billions of more dollars into state government; some people, including the Governor, like taking more dollars from hard working taxpayers. Our point is that the constitution is more important than the cash. If Governor Ritter wants us to pay more in property taxes, he needs to be a gentleman and ASK FIRST.

This case will likely take several days to hear. Win or lose the case will be appealed to the Colorado Supreme Court. But I thought it important enough to let you know what is happening, hopefully daily. So keep checking the Cauldron, and I’ll try to bring you all the latest details.

On trial is our constitutional right to vote on tax increases.