Would you elect a politician who could only read at a middle school level? If voters expect their representatives to demonstrate at least high school level literacy, shouldn’t they expect the same of themselves? Yet, this November, Colorado voters will consider amending the Colorado constitution to require ballot questions be written “at no more than an eighth-grade reading level.”
Initiative 234 may seem simple but the intent of this measure isn’t so plain. Colorado law already requires ballot measures be written in understandable language accessible to the “widest possible audience.” Could this ballot initiative be about power rather than accessibility?
This isn’t the first time since the state adopted its initiative process in 1910 that voters have been asked to revise how initiatives and referenda appear on the ballot or in the state voter guide known as the Blue Book. For example, in 1992, Coloradans voted to require the state to mail voters information about each ballot measure including arguments for and against the proposal. This provision was part of Amendment 1, the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights (TABOR), which is better known for its impact on taxes and revenue.
Two years later, voters mandated ballot measures cover only a single subject. The Title Board, appointed by the Colorado secretary of state, attorney general, and the Office of Legislative Legal Services, determines whether the text of a ballot proposal meets the single subject rule and other draft requirements. Opponents, more often proponents, appeal the Title Board’s decisions as a means to keep proposed initiatives off the ballot.
Legislators have also mandated changes to the ballot language. In 2021, the General Assembly passed a law requiring initiatives that reduce taxation to include information about the impact on funding of state government programs. Measures that would increase taxation, however, had to state their purpose was to “increase or improve levels of public services.” The following year, lawmakers referred Proposition GG to the ballot to require fiscal impact summaries showing how tax initiatives will affect income taxes for taxpayers at various levels of income.
If empowering voters with information about public policy tradeoffs was the goal, lawmakers would have made all ballot proposals disclose counterargument data within their text. Rather, this was self-serving. Democrats, who have tried unsuccessfully for years to rid themselves of TABOR limits, thought that by manipulating the language of ballot measures they could lobby Coloradans to vote for higher taxes and ditch their TABOR refunds.
This year, Advance Colorado is striking back by putting Initiative 234 on the ballot. If the constitutional amendment passes, it will be more difficult to render fiscal and taxation impact information into middle school reading material. That’s not all.
Because there are multiple tests to determine the grade level of text, notes Ari Armstrong from Complete Colorado, “by failing to define what constitutes an eighth-grade reading level, the measure invites inane and costly legal battles.” Of the four states that have adopted an eighth-grade reading level mandate, two have faced law suits. Looks like Initiative 234 may be less about equipping voters and more about equipping lawyers to gum up the process before a measure can reach the ballot.
That’s just as well. We pay state lawmakers $50,000 a year to hear arguments and counterarguments, consider tradeoffs, make compromises, and work together to legislate on our behalf. Thanks to Open Meetings Laws, Colorado Open Records Act, lobbyist registration rules, and investigative work by the press, the public can see into this deliberative process and hold lawmakers accountable.
It’s not perfect by a long shot but it beats lawyers funded by anonymous donors quibbling before the Title Board over whether a verb tense or semicolon renders the text too complex for the average eighth grader.
Krista Kafer is a Sunday Denver Post columnist.
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