Reaffirming a legal memo his office issued last week, Colorado Attorney General John Suthers appeared before an impromptu Senate Education Committee meeting today and said a proposed statewide property-tax hike must be put to a popular vote to comply with the constitution.

Suthers, whose office learned at the last minute of the unscheduled gathering, hastily assembled by Democrat committee Chair Sue Windels, of Arvada, disputed a competing opinion by legislative staff that found that Gov. Bill Ritter's tax proposal does not have to go to a popular vote.

GOP members of the Senate Education Committee listen to Attorney General John Suthers as addresses the impromptu hearing.

That opinion held that the measure technically does not constitute a change in "tax policy." 

"How can you say that's not a tax policy change that's going to directly result in an increase?" Suthers told committee members.

Suthers said the proposal to freeze the tax rate, or mill levy, in local school districts -- raising tax bills as property values rise -- takes away an important protection for voters. That's so, he said, even in the majority of school districts that have voted over the years to let their local schools keep more revenue. Suthers said the voters in those districts did not vote to give up control over their tax rates.

The property-tax hike would raise an estimated $1.7 billion over 10 years, using local school districts to collect the money but then withholding a like amount in state funding that now goes to schools. 

Republican Sen. Josh Penry, of Fruita, an Education Committee member, agreed with Suthers' take on the proposal and chided the Ritter administration and its legislative Democrat allies for making an argument that, "doesn't pass the straight-face test."

"People will pay more in taxes out of their pockets," Penry said. "To most of the non-lawyers in the world, if you're paying more taxes, that's a tax increase."

Only a handful of the state's 178 school districts -- those where voters haven't exempted schools from constitutional spending limits -- would not be affected by the Ritter proposal. In most of the rest, tax bills on residential and commercial property would rise. The tax hike is part of the annual School Finance Act.

Assistant Senate GOP Leader Nancy Spence, who is also the ranking Republican on the Education Committee, at one point attempted to press Windels on the wisdom of seeking yet more tax dollars out of voters on behalf of education. Windels, who is sponsoring the School Finance Act, cut her off and ruled her remarks out of order, telling Spence she could could raise those points when the measure comes to the Senate floor later today.

Senate Bill 199 already has been approved by the Senate, but because the House added the tax hike, it must return to the Senate for further consideration.

Penry chided the Democrat majority for "slamming this thing through" without any public testimony on the tax proposal in the chamber where the bill was introduced. He said the tax hike's backers probably were in a rush to approve the measure before public opinion sours.

"The hurry is that the people with the pitchforks haven't shown up at the door yet," Penry said.