Covering lawsuit over mill levy freeze, Colorado news media omitted key facts about freeze and Independence Institute's litigious history

Summary: Numerous Colorado news outlets omitted key facts in their December 14 articles about a lawsuit filed by the Independence Institute over the state's mill levy rate freeze, which was enacted in May as a means to redistribute education funding. In reporting that the lawsuit claimed the freeze violated the state constitution, many outlets did not mention that, as The Denver Post reported, "the freeze applies only to districts where voters have decided to shed certain Taxpayer's Bill of Rights" rules. Furthermore, the news media omitted the Independence Institute's history of bringing legal actions to advance its agenda.

In their December 14 articles about a lawsuit filed a day earlier by Independence Institute president Jon Caldara over Senate Bill 199 -- a law enacted in May with the support of Democratic Gov. Bill Ritter that freezes mill levy rates in order to redistribute sources of education funding between the state and individual school districts -- Colorado news media omitted key facts about the freeze and neglected to report on the "free-market" think tank's history of bringing legal actions or initiating ballot campaigns to advance its ideological agenda. Newspapers that published articles omitting such critical context included The Denver Post, the Rocky Mountain News, The Gazette of Colorado Springs, The Daily Sentinel of Grand Junction, The Pueblo Chieftain, and The Durango Herald.

The Post reported that the rate freeze is applicable only in the 175 (of 178) Colorado school districts that voted to waive restrictions on retaining and spending revenues mandated by the Taxpayer's Bill of Rights (TABOR) provisions of the Colorado Constitution. The Post also reported that under the law, 34 districts will see lower mill levies and 38 others will see no change:

The rate freeze means mill levies will be higher than they would have been in 106 districts, lower than they would have been in 34 districts and unchanged in 38 districts, according to last week's briefing. The freeze applies only to districts where voters have decided to shed certain Taxpayer's Bill of Rights, or TABOR, rules, and it also sets a mill-levy cap.

Ritter's spokesman, Evan Dreyer, said the freeze did not need to go to an election because voters in the districts where it applies have already decided to break free of TABOR.

"The question had already been asked and answered in 98 percent of the state -- 175 of 178 school districts," Dreyer said.

The property-tax rate freeze has drawn controversy since Ritter introduced it earlier this year as a way to raise money for public schools. Ritter announced last week that the money would be used to fund preschool and full-day kindergarten programs, as well as to hire dozens more guidance counselors to keep high schoolers from dropping out.

However, several Colorado newspapers did not report one or both of the facts about the law's actual impact on school districts. The News, for example, reported that the Ritter administration argued in response to criticism of the freeze that "voters in 175 of 178 school districts waived" TABOR restrictions, but did not describe how the freeze would affect the districts to which it applies, noting only that the law constituted "a freeze on property tax rates in most school districts." Similarly, a December 14 Associated Press article citing the Post as its source reported that Ritter spokesman Evan Dreyer noted nearly all of Colorado's school districts waived TABOR restrictions. The AP did not, however, note that under the bill, taxes will be lower than they otherwise would have been in 34 districts and unchanged in 38 others. Neither the Daily Sentinel nor the Durango Herald addressed either issue.

In addition to the Post, the News, the Daily Sentinel, and the Herald, The Gazette and the Chieftain published December 14 articles about the lawsuit. None of these articles reported what the News on May 9 called the Independence Institute's "long record of bringing legal actions or running issue campaigns at the ballot box." Colorado Media Matters has identified examples of the Independence Institute's political advocacy:

• As the May 9 News article noted, the institute filed a lawsuit against the 1996 ballot proposal Amendment 15 in order to "to halt campaign finance limits proposed by Colorado Common Cause." On August 10, 1999, responding to the institute's lawsuit, U.S. District Court Judge Daniel Sparr ruled portions of the campaign finance reform ballot measure to be unconstitutional.
• The institute also filed a legal challenge to the 2001 Colorado ballot item Amendment 26, a proposal to build a monorail along the I-70 corridor from Denver International Airport to mountain ski resorts. According to a November 6, 2001, News article (accessed through the Nexis database), a Denver district judge ruled that supporters of the proposed measure had enough valid petition signatures to get the issue on the ballot. The Independence Institute had sued to block the petition, saying the inclusion of thousands of disputed signatures was illegal. The think tank also led the electoral opposition to that measure, which voters rejected.
• The institute unsuccessfully opposed the FasTracks public transportation referendum that Denver metro-area voters approved in 2004.
• In 2005 the Independence Institute opposed the successful Colorado ballot issue Referendum C, which authorized the state "to retain and spend all state revenues" through 2010, suspending the spending restrictions imposed by TABOR on state coffers.
• The think tank also filed a lawsuit on October 11, 2005, against a proposed amendment to limit campaign finance contributions, claiming that it mainly benefited Democrats.
• In 2006, Caldara conducted a petition drive for Initiative 88, a proposed ballot measure that would cap Referendum C revenues at $3.7 billion. The measure would have returned any revenues above $3.7 billion to taxpayers "in order to offset home energy costs." The proposal failed to get on the 2006 Colorado ballot because, according Caldara, the ballot's backers did not have sufficient funds to promote the initiative successfully.
• Most recently, the Independence Institute sponsored the "Ask First" campaign, which attempted to block payroll deductions of union dues at the city and county level. Ask First helped promote measures on the November 6 ballot in Greeley and Englewood, where voters defeated them, and in Centennial, where it passed.

—E.B.