Last week I traveled to Sterling, Colorado, where I argued the taxpayers’ side in Aranci v. Lower South Platte Water Conservancy District alongside my co-counsel, Dan Burrows of Advance Colorado. This is the case of the water district that doubled its property tax without getting voter approval, as required by the Colorado Constitution's Taxpayer Bill of Rights (TABOR).
Before the argument, we were able to have lunch with our clients in the case, all farmers in the Water District who suddenly saw their tax bills double in 2020. As I told the Court, they initially thought it must have been some kind of mistake or an accident, and tried to work with the District to understand what was going on. Those efforts were fruitless, and we offered to help them take the District to Court.
The government attorney argued that the District is completely exempt from the voter approval requirement, because in 1996 they asked voters to retain $13,000 in excess revenue collected instead of refunding it back to taxpayers (as required by a different provision of TABOR). Because voters approved that, the District believes, they could raise rates a quarter century later without any further votes.
This is a radical and unprecedented position, as I told the judge in my 45 minutes of argument. I went through every case cited by the government, illustrating how none of them involved a forever waiver of voter approval of rate increases. I held up a copy of the 1996 ballot guide, where the District promised voters that approving it would not raise their taxes. "Elephants do not hide in mouseholes," I told the Court, refuting the government's notion that a gigantic loophole to TABOR's requirement of voter approval was hiding in plain sight.
The judge played it very close to the vest, although he had a couple of pointed questions for the government lawyer. We're not sure when we might get a decision, but it would probably occur in a couple of weeks.