COLORADO
Voters thread through the
ballot
Voters faced a list of complex
initiatives and referenda in Colorado.
Amendment
13 asked them to amend the constitution to protect the burgeoning
hog industry on the state’s eastern plains from strict
environmental rules. Voters defeated it, 553,000 to 348,000, then
voted for Amendment 14, which revises state law so that large
commercial hog farms face a permit process, plus new clean air and
water standards.
Dave Carter of the Rocky
Mountain Farmer’s Union, which campaigned for Amendment 14 and
against the industry-sponsored Amendment 13, says the citizens’
initiative was their last resort: Two years of lobbying the
Legislature for tougher rules on corporate hog farms brought no
results, he says. Meanwhile, the hog industry was booming on the
eastern plains – rising from more than 1.1 million hogs in 1995 to
1.7 million just two years later – and following laws written for
an era that predated industrial
agriculture.
“It was a
gamble,” says Carter, because it left the decision-making to voters
who are not well-versed in the hog-farming debate. “We came to the
conclusion that voters actually read these issues and make serious
decisions.”
Both sides of the campaign poured
considerable sums of money into the campaign: One of the bigger
spenders was Denver railroad billionaire Phil Anschutz, a major
landowner in eastern Colorado, who put more than $400,000 into the
campaign.
“In this case,” says
Daniel Smith, a University of Denver political scientist,
“environmentalists found a sugar daddy.”
Two
controversial water initiatives backed by rancher Gary Boyce
failed, even though his Stockman’s Water Co. spent more than $1
million collecting signatures and promoting the measures across the
state (HCN, 10/26/98). Amendment 15 asked voters to approve the
installation of water flow meters on farmers’ irrigation water taps
in the San Luis Valley. The accompanying Amendment 16 would have
required water users in the valley to pay $40 per acre-foot for
water pumped from the local aquifer. Amendment 15 failed, with
690,000 to 214,000. Amendment 16 failed by a margin of 683,000 to
216,000.
*Dustin
Solberg
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Voters thread through the ballot.
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