Judicial Activism Strikes Close to Home

December 14, 2011 JEnergy & Environment

By now you’ve probably heard about last Friday’s outrageous court ruling in the Lobato school finance case, a ruling that could have a devastating impact on Colorado taxpayers and state services. You can help make sure that Gov. John Hickenlooper and Attorney General John Suthers do the right thing by appealing this terrible ruling.

In a ruling that The Pueblo Chieftain euphemistically called “judicial overreach,” Denver District Court Judge Sheila Rappaport spent weeks listening to testimony on both sides of this case, but ended up copying and pasting large sections of the plaintiffs’ own arguments into her decision. While accepting wholesale the contention that the state ought to spend $2 billion more per year on K-12 education, she also openly disregarded constitutional protections like the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights (TABOR). Joshua Dunn, a national expert on school funding cases, says he had never before seen such “an absolute contempt for the constitution.”

That’s right. An unelected, unaccountable judge has completely thrown our right to vote on tax increases under the bus only a few short weeks after 64 percent of Coloradans resoundingly rejected Senator Rollie Heath’s Proposition 103. And she openly said it doesn’t matter what our state constitution has to say about it!

“Great Education Colorado,” a Left-leaning group that pushes for endless increases to state funding, has created an online petition called “No Appeal.” Supported by local school board tax dollars to prosecute their case, plaintiffs got everything they wanted from a Denver judge. They want our state officials to shirk their duty to taxpayers. We can’t let the Left’s voices go unchallenged.

In just a moment’s time you can sign AFP’s “We Must Appeal” petition and pass the word along to your friends. It’s easy to do, but it could make an important difference in ensuring that outlandish judicial activism doesn’t stand and in protecting taxpayers’ rights. Tell the governor and attorney general that the outrageous Lobato ruling has to be fought and overturned!

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