As I hope you know, we have been working to bring to this Fall’s Colorado ballot a citizens’ amendment, the Right to Health Care Choice. Well, we just cleared a massive hurdle.  A federal court judge has placed an emergency injunction on a new state law that made it near impossible to get an initiative on the ballot.

In 2009 the state legislature, with heavy bipartisan support, passed a law outlawing paying petition gatherers by the signature they collect.  This may sound like a small change to the process, but as I have found out, it doubles or triples the cost of getting a citizens’ initiative on the ballot.  That’s not a problem if you are Tim Gill or Jared Polis.  But it is an insurmountable problem if you are a little free-market activist like me.  The oppressive law made it impossible for us to be able to petition our government.  And I remember some old document saying we have a right to do just that.  So off to court we went.  Again.

Side note: I ran into Governor Ritter last week at the Mizel Museum event at Wings over the Rockies.  We were chatting when someone walked up to us and the Guv tried to introduce me, and finally just said while gesturing to me, “this is, um, well we just call him the Plaintiff, since he sues us so much.”  Score one for the Governor.

Here’s how ridiculous this law was.  The legislature passed it because they believed paying by the signature caused “ramped fraud.”  However, during the trial the state couldn’t find even one itty-bitty single conviction of fraud in the process.  But here’s the best part – the legislature didn’t stop the practice of paying by the signature for themselves, only citizens!  The law still allowed politicians to pay per signature to get their name on primary ballots!  Only we citizens should pay double when petitioning.

Last Friday the ruling came down, and the worst part of the law has been enjoined.  We can now pay petition circulators by the signature, meaning we can now afford to petition the government.  Now we are off and running!

We still are counting on a large volunteer effort.  If you are interested in helping gather signatures contact Mike Krause at mike@i2i.org, or give us a ring at 303.279.6536 and ask for Mike.

Amazing though. Occasionally the court system works. Of course it was heard in the Federal Court, not the State Supreme Court.