Colorado: Jon Caldara

Lower-level criminals could face less jail time under a sweeping prison sentencing reform lawmakers plan to unveil today, saying the proposal will cut incarceration costs.

Sen. John Morse's bill would lower penalties for nonviolent, property and drug offenses — some to the point of eliminating jail time altogether. It also would dial back the range on some felony sentences to pre-1985 levels and relax laws that put those on probation behind bars for minor mistakes.

District attorneys say the bill would encourage crime and that there's not enough time left in the legislative session to consider the 46-page overhaul of sentencing law.

A Democratic-backed law that kept property taxes from decreasing survived its final legal challenge Monday as the Colorado Supreme Court overturned a lower court ruling that the 2007 measure violated the Taxpayer's Bill of Rights in the state constitution.

In a 6-1 ruling, the court reversed a May 2008 district court ruling that said the law, which kept local mill-levy rates from going down and is expected to raise more than $100 million annually, violated TABOR's requirement that voters approve any additional tax increases.

Democratic Gov. Bill Ritter, who was a defendant in the suit, said the ruling would avert even deeper cuts in the state budget to education programs like full-day kindergarten and school counseling.

Colorado's Taxpayers Bill of Rights, known as TABOR, requires voter approval for any net increase in government revenue, contains a section that reads, “other limits on district revenue, spending, and debt may be weakened only by future voter approval.” Republicans are saying this includes the 6 percent limit, also know as Averschoug-Bird, which means that voter approval would be required for its elimination. Democrats, meanwhile, argue that the 6 percent limit is not actually a limit at all. SB 228's sponsor, Sen. John Morse, D-Colorado Springs, has taken to calling the 6 percent limit an “arbitrary allocation formula.”

Barry Poulson, one of the original collaborators on TABOR and a senior fellow at the Independence Institute, agrees with Republicans.

One hundred enthusiastic Atlas Shrugged fans braved chilly temperatures on the east steps of the Colorado capitol Friday as part of a nationwide “tea party” protest to rail against the federal stimulus package and the government, in general.

Beyond the typical conservative-Libertarian rhetoric was some practical advice on how to “shrug these parasites off our backs” like opening a black market in your own garage.

(Photo/Wendy Norris)

Jenny Hatch of Louisville kicked off the event with a reading from the fictional anti-government manifesto Atlas Shrugged by libertarian darling Ayn Rand.

(Photo/Wendy Norris)

Hatch implored the crowd of mainly middle-aged white folk to shrug off medical care, run a subsistence farm with a garden, cows and chickens, and create a black market barter-and-trade system with like-minded neighbors.