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As a rural resident who often feels shoved around by the population and political power of the Front Strange, I suppose I should be thrilled by a proposal from state Sen. Ben Alexander, a Republican from Montrose.
He wants an amendment to the state constitution that would change the way we amend the state constitution. As it is, a simple majority vote can change the constitution.
Alexander wants to change that, so that not only a majority of the population must approve an amendment, but a majority of Colorado's 63 counties, as well. An amendment would fail even though a majority of Colorado voters supported it, if it did not pass in at least 32 counties.
Let's make it clear that this differs substantially from a similar-sounding proposal by Sen. Dave Wattenberg, which would require a state-wide petition to get a specified number of signatures from each congressional district.
Alexander's proposal, which is in the trial-baloon press-conference stage, would use counties, which vary widely in population, rather than congression districts, which have equal populations.
Alexander cited Amendment 14, the trapping ban passed
last year. It was approved by 52 percent of voters, but
failed in 47 counties. The urban counties can control
anything,
he said, and his proposal would definitely
give rural counties more say.
That's an understatement. According to the 1996 estimates from the U.S. Bureau of the Census, a bare majority (50.2 percent) of Colorado lives in just four counties: Denver, Jefferson, El Paso and Arapahoe. Together, they hold 1,918,327 of the 3,822,676 people in Colorado.
The 32 least-populated counties in Colorado range from San Juan (county seat Silverton, population 564) through Bent (Las Animas, 5,478) to Moffat (Craig, 12,086).
Altogether, the bottom 32 have 169,414 people -- 4.43 percent of the state's population. This 4.43 percent (I'm not one of them -- Chaffee ranks 26th of the 63, and neither is Alexander, since Montrose is 16th) would have a veto power over any changes to the state constitution.
On the face of it, this looks wonderful. Less than 5 percent of the population could control the state constitution.
(And, mind you, this isn't the usual 5 percent that controls things in Colorado. That 5 percent -- lobbyists for major companies, campaign contributors, etc. -- has to buy its way into our system. They're not automatically empowered just because they claim voting residence in the boondocks.)
Suppose, though, that the Alexander Rural Empowerment Amendment did pass, and that by some miracle, the federal courts approved the idea that one voter in San Juan County should count 880 times more than one voter in Denver or Jefferson County. Think of the benefits.
It would be gold mine for some of my favorite people, small-town newspaper publishers. Granted, they already get some of the pro and con advertising money spent on constitutional amendments, but the bulk of that spending now goes to Denver outlets.
With the Alexander Amendment in place, the money would go not only to the statewide media in Denver, in hopes of attracting a numeric majority, but to the Wet Mountain Tribune, the Saguache Crescent, the Meeker Herald, the Clear Creek Courant, etc., in the hopes of attracting a county majority.
Further, the promoters and opponents of various amendments would face an exhaustive fall schedule when they went out to stump before the locals: Craig one night, a 446-mile trip to Springfield for the next stop, then 276 miles to Julesberg, then 593 miles to Dove Creek.
Thus would the movers and shakers be exposed directly to rural Colorado, and presumably would gain an understanding of rural issues.
However, they'd probably fly from one forum to the next,
and their understanding of the heartland
would
approximate that of presidential candidates who zip from
one airport tarmac photo-op to another.
Further, the real problems faced by rural Colorado -- invasion by a new economy and culture, telecommunication access, health-care delivery, transportation, urban water raids, commuter-population growth, school quality -- aren't the sorts of things that can be fixed by passing or rejecting a constitutional amendment.
And even if the Alexander Rural Empowerment Amendment could successfully adjust our state constitution in favor of hinterland interests, what difference would that make? The state constitution is already full of high-minded language about requiring equitable educational opportunities and forbidding railroad mergers, and none of that has made the slightest difference in how Colorado operates.
So, even though I should like a proposal that makes my enlightened vote worth 33 right-thinking El Paso or Jefferson votes, there's no point in supporting it. It would just add to the divisiveness that already plagues our state, and the state constitution, no matter how amended, doesn't mean anything, anyway.
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