A federal judge on Tuesday struck down a key part of Colorado’s voter-approved Amendment 71, which made it more difficult for people seeking to get a measure on the statewide ballot for a vote. U.S. District Court of Colorado Judge William J. Martinez wrote in the order that parts of the “raise the bar” amendment, which was approved by 55 percent of Colorado voters in 2016, was unconstitutional. The portion deemed to be unconstitutional required people hoping to get a constitutional amendment on the ballot to get signatures from at least 2 percent of the total number of registered voters in each of the state’s 35 Senate districts.
“This Court recently denied that [motion to dismiss from Colorado] and held that subsection 2.5 violates the ‘one person, one vote’ principle inherent in the Equal Protection Clause because voter population varies widely between state senate districts,” Martinez wrote in Tuesday’s decision.
But in his order, Martinez upheld another part of Amendment 71 which upped the threshold that ballot initiatives would need to get in order to pass from 50 percent of the popular vote to 55 percent.
Full Article: Federal judge blocks part of Colorado’s Amendment 71; secretary of state plans appeal – Denver7 TheDenverChannel.com.