Project Overview:

Building a Better Colorado

Mid-term Report  

“Doing the right thing is more important than doing the easy thing.”

Building a Better Colorado Chair Dan Ritchie

Prepared by: IVC Media and OnSight Public Affairs

November 23, 2015   

  

Nov. 23, 2015 Fellow Coloradans: Earlier this year, a nonpartisan group of concerned Coloradans — ranging from current and former statewide office holders to mayors of many of our biggest cities, from former cabinet secretaries and state lawmakers to a former Colorado Supreme Court Justice — came together with a shared concern about the direction our state is heading in three important areas: the ease with which Colorado’s constitution is amended; the decreased participation and confidence in our election systems; and the imbalance between citizens’ expectations of services that government provides, and the ability of our state government to meet those expectations. The intent of Building a Better Colorado is not to dictate solutions, but instead to engage people across the state in conversations about the challenges we face and in exploration of potential solutions. Since early September, we’ve met with nearly 1,500 civic leaders and concerned citizens in nearly 20 meetings held throughout Colorado. By mid-January, we will reach our goal of holding more than 30 meetings across the state. We also know that we must leverage digital and social media to extend the conversation. In October, we unveiled BetterCO.org, which allows anyone who is interested to study the issues we’ve identified, learn about the pros and cons of different policy options, and to offer their views or weigh in on potential solutions. Social media also plays a large role in our outreach, as we work to educate and engage Coloradans via facebook and twitter. Our goal is to listen to people from all corners of Colorado in hopes of coming up with consensus solutions that could be placed on the ballot for voters to make a final determination next fall. Colorado is a remarkable state with people who have done remarkable things. As we continue our work to engage Coloradans in discussions on the challenges our governance structures face, we believe that the Building a Better Colorado project will be seen as just the latest example. Sincerely, Reeves Brown Project Director     

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OUR APPROACH Building a Better Colorado wants to address this fundamental question: What kind of government do voters want? How we create laws and amend our constitution, how we elect our representatives, and how we manage the state budget are critical factors to Colorado’s future. We think a better Colorado can happen when we engage Coloradans in an honest, constructive conversation about what they want their state to be.

    

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 Project director Reeves Brown addresses attendees at our Colorado Springs community summit. 

MEETINGS ACROSS COLORADO “This effort is intended to allow Coloradans with vastly different views and very different agendas to come together and decide what is best for our state.”

Kelly Brough, President and CEO, Metro Denver Chamber of Commerce

Since launching this fall, events hosted by Building a Better Colorado have been attended by nearly 1,500 civic leaders and interested Coloradans.   From Sept. 21 to Nov. 23, Building a Better Colorado convened 17 Community Summits. Those events were held in:   

● Thornton  ● Durango  ● Montrose 

● Alamosa  ● Fort Collins  ● Silverthorne 

● Aurora  ● Glenwood Springs  ● Steamboat Springs 

● Colorado Springs  ● Grand Junction  ● Trinidad  

● Craig  ● Greeley  ● Westminster 

● Denver  ● Lakewood   

 

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Attendees reviewed challenges facing the state’s initiative process, election systems and financial future and shared their opinions on potential policy solutions to address the problems.    We understood from the outset that the summits would draw community leaders and citizens with an interest in public policy, meaning that results would not necessarily be reflective of what a “likely voter” would support or oppose at the ballot box. Nonetheless, they have helped us narrow our focus by gauging the relative popularity of ideas among “grasstops” leaders — Coloradans whose support will be critical to passage of any future policy ideas that spring from our efforts.   In addition to the community summits, we met with members of Colorado Cooperation and Club 20 in early September and hosted an event for nearly 300 young professionals in Denver earlier this month.  

Highlights of our meetings to date:  Current policies on initiatives and state budgeting can be improved. Maintaining the status quo is unacceptable for participants who reviewed our Initiative Process and Financial Future. Thus far, the option of maintaining the status quo has been broadly rejected by attendees in both of those topic areas.  Four ideas* are universally popular. In looking at data from our community summits, these 4 ideas consistently find strongest support: 

● Asking the Legislature to move the Hospital Provider Fee out of General Fund ● Requiring petition signatures from different geographic areas for proposed initiated 

constitutional amendments  ● Requiring a supermajority (⅔ vote) to adopt future constitutional amendments but continue to 

allow a simple majority for fixes to amendments that were previously adopted with our current threshold 

● Requiring more signatures for initiated amendments vs. initiated statutes   *A fifth is included below  There is strong support for asking voters to let the state keep and use money above current limits. Meeting attendees have shown strong support for asking voters to let the state keep and use money above current limits, but exactly how remains up in the air. At present, we are testing whether attendees support leaving to the legislature the decision on spending any additional revenue vs. language that specifically directs funding to certain General Fund Programs. Participants at two meetings forwarded the idea of completely eliminating the Taxpayers Bill of Rights (TABOR), however, this is at odds with Building a Better Colorado’s decision that, to ensure we develop policy recommendations with the best opportunity to find support at the ballot box, we won’t carry forward in 2016 any ideas that would remove voters' sole authority to approve tax increases.  

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We can do better on election participation. The idea of maintaining the status quo in our election systems found limited support in the first half of our effort. The vast majority (nearly 90%) of participants at our meetings identified as belonging to the Democratic or Republican parties, though together those two parities make up about 61 percent of active voters in the state. And though there hasn’t been consensus around a single policy idea to involve Colorado’s 1 million unaffiliated voters in primary elections, options that would do so — a semi­open primary or a Top 2 primary — have found support from a majority of participants.   Coloradans are thinking up their own solutions. Attendees have forwarded 18 options that were not in materials prepared by our subject­matter experts. Many of those are variants on the policies Building a Better Colorado has put forward to address Colorado’s financial future, ranging from removing all financial formulas from our state constitution to holding a constitutional convention. While there hasn’t been a strong consensus, we have been made aware of the difficulty the state’s Gallagher Amendment poses in more rural counties with limited property tax base ­­ both on the business community and on the ability for school districts to raise money. That is an idea that may warrant review down the road.   

We are learning as we go along: Building a Better Colorado started with a study of the challenges Colorado faces in five areas: election systems, the initiative process, Colorado’s financial future, term limits, and campaign finances.   In researching potentials solutions, our bipartisan team of subject­matter experts determined that one issue ­­ campaign­finance reform ­­ was one that really required action at the federal level, as opposed to being one that could be addressed by Colorado voters. Challenges posed by the state’s term limits process were folded into our discussions on election systems, but the idea was later eliminated from our discussion materials altogether due to a lack of consensus on the challenges and potential solutions.   Early meetings were scheduled for three hours, and attendees were asked to weigh in on 35 different policy options across our three topic areas. As a result of feedback and results from engagement to date, we have reduced by half the number of policy options participants review, and meetings are now conducted over two hours.  The intent moving forward is to involve more people, and to encourage deeper discussion of ideas and alternatives that continually rise to the surface in our summits.    

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DIGITAL OUTREACH “We want any interested Coloradan to be able to explore the issues and share their thoughts, and we now have the digital tools that allow us to do that in a remarkable way,” said project director Reeves Brown. “Ten — or even five — years ago, an engagement effort like this was simply not possible.”

Holyoke Enterprise, Nov. 18, 2015

  1. Since the launch of the BBCO Facebook page, we have achieved the following:   

Page Likes: 7,738 The number of Facebook users who are fans of Building a Better Colorado 

 Online Impressions: 1,296,164 The number of times content associated with our FB ads was seen by target audiences on Facebook. Impressions = total number of views.  Engagement: 33,773 The number of unique Facebook users who have interacted with the BBCO Page by liking, commenting, or sharing a post 

  Reach: 1,082,317 The number of targeted Colorado residents who saw content associated with BBCO on Facebook. (Reach = number of unique viewers).   Email sign­ups: 3,269 The number of individuals who have provided an opt­in email through the website or survey platform. 

  2. On Thursday, Oct. 22, we launched BetterCO.org, which features details on the project and an engagement tool that allows visitors to review policy options and weigh in with their comments and opinions on proposed policy options.       

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EARNED MEDIA  Thus far, support for the effort has been voiced by editorial boards from the state’s two largest daily newspapers, and our summits have drawn considerable interest from local media. As we move closer to considering policies that could be put before voters, we expect media interest to increase. 

A sampling of the coverage:

“A new organization led by prominent civic and business leaders is preparing to launch a campaign to tackle Colorado's

thorniest political problems as part of a project that may give rise to ballot measures in 2016. Dubbed "Building a Better

Colorado," the bipartisan push will debut in September and feature a 40-stop statewide tour this fall to discuss topics

ranging from term limits for lawmakers and the election system to the constitutional amendment process and the

Taxpayer's Bill of Rights.”

Denver Post, Aug. 23, 2015 

“A civic organization that dubs itself "Building a Better Colorado" has made promising first steps toward grappling with

fiscal and electoral problems often related to provisions in the state constitution. It's strongly bipartisan, for example. …

Moreover, it is focused on important issues like the financial health of the state, our electoral system.”

Denver Post editorial, Aug. 24, 2015 

“Business leaders who say they’ve footed a large portion of the cost of keeping bad amendments from being added to

Colorado’s constitution now are asking company owners and executives to get involved. They want to have a bigger

conversation about what changes can be made to make the state’s government a more effective engine to help grow the

private sector and the economy.”

Denver Business Journal, Sept. 17, 2015

“… As things stand, Colorado doesn't fully benefit from the natural growth in revenue that occurs in good times.

Meanwhile, in bad times, lawmakers are barred from ensuring that all sectors of the budget share in the cutbacks. The next

recession will absolutely devastate unprotected programs. Any civic group that intends to tackle this problem will need to

gather a bipartisan coalition willing to ask both sides of the political spectrum to compromise when preparing ballot

measures to take before voters. That appears to be what Building a Better Colorado is trying to do. At least we hope so.”

Denver Post editorial, Sept. 21, 2015

“ Led by political heavy-hitters from both parties, Building a Better Colorado is hosting 40 meetings around the state,

gauging public opinion on a variety of solutions and soliciting inventive ideas on the three topics.”

Colorado Springs Business Journal, Oct. 20, 2015

“A new organization called Building a Better Colorado is meeting with civic leaders throughout the state in a quest to fix ‘a

growing disconnect between citizens and their government.’ Organizers cite constitutional chaos, declining voter

participation and decreasing ability of state government ‘to meet the expectation of its citizens’ as areas of concern. … In a

meeting with The Gazette's editorial board, it seemed clear the organizers had no hard or hidden agendas.”

Colorado Springs Gazette editorial, Oct. 21, 2015

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“The Colorado State Constitution is one of the longest constitutions in the country, a group of Coloradans are putting

together a campaign to tackle Colorado’s political problems with the hope of placing more ballot measures in 2016, in what

is seen as “the most concerted effort in recent memory to address what organizers see as inherent conflicts in how the state

is governed.’”

World­Journal, Oct. 8, 2015 

“An effort to address touchy political issues in Colorado law is getting support from San Luis Valley officials. Dubbed

Building a Better Colorado, the organization is in the early stages of developing a slate of ballot initiatives designed to fix

what organizers call problematic elements of the state’s financial structure, election system and the ballot initiative

process.”

Valley Courier, Oct. 8, 2015 

“The Building a Better Colorado Coalition made a stop in Summit County on Monday. The nonpartisan coalition, created by

former University of Colorado professor Dan Ritchie, has hosted several summits this fall to poll leaders on which issues

strike a nerve, and what solutions might be possible.”

Summit Daily News, Oct. 27, 2015

“A group of Weld County officials, business owners and community leaders gathered Wednesday in Greeley to chime in on

possible solutions to issues with Colorado’s election systems, ballot initiative process and financial future. Building a Better

Colorado, a nonpartisan coalition of state leaders, gathered at the 11th of 30 community summits around the state in an

attempt to find consensus on the best, and most acceptable, solutions to those three key issues.”

Greeley Tribune, Oct. 29, 2015 

NEXT STEPS While much has been accomplished to date, the next two months will be even busier for Building a Better Colorado.  We will hold at least 12 more community summits and we are conducting additional research as we try to determine voters’ understanding of the issues and policies or ideas they might support in future elections.   In mid­January, representatives selected at each of the community summits held across the state convening in Denver for a citizen’s assembly to review additional findings and developments.  Afterward, the Building a Better Colorado leadership will make a determination as to which consensus policy ideas could be put before Colorado voters in November.   

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