March 24, 2009 08:21 PM UTC

Good Luck With That "Re-Brucing"

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• by: Colorado Pols

As the Grand Junction Sentinel reports:

Now that litigation has failed to stop Gov. Bill Ritter’s mill-levy freeze, the Mesa County Commission is considering ways to re-enact the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights revenue limitations for School District 51.

TABOR, an amendment to the state constitution, places limits on governments’ ability to spend and receive revenues. Those caps fluctuate from year to year based on the consumer price index and population. Voters removed TABOR caps (known as de-Brucing, a reference to TABOR author Douglas Bruce) for the Mesa County School District 51 in 1999.

There is a novelty factor here.

“No community, to my knowledge, has ever re-Bruced,” said Lyle Dechant, Mesa County attorney…

You’d like to say that nobody ever will, since the benefits of schools that aren’t crumbling and have working heat, etc. are plain to the average voter, but never underestimate the power of El Paso County-style nutdeology and hubris to carry the day in a Mesa County election. What better time to starve to death local resources than in a massive financial crisis? After all, “We Surround You.”