Colorado says thousands of our vets (TOTALLY & PERMANENTLY DISABLED IN THE LINE OF DUTY) aren't our right kind of vets (TOTALLY & PERMANENTLY DISABLED IN THE LINE OF DUTY) to deserve benefits

 I recently exchanged correspondence with a very courteous state official. The point I wanted to make is that when veterans were granted the small partial property tax exemption for totally and permanently disabled veterans via SCR06-001 that led to Referendum E in 2006, what we voted approval for clearly wasn't what ended up as the wording of the constitution's Article X Section 3.5. 

Did we get snookered? Did the legislature pull a fast one to keep from wasting too much money on disabled veterans?

The official's correspondence and expertise was very kindly offered to me and I appreciate it, but he just didn't address my point and instead stressed, the law is what the law is, and for changes visit your legislator. He wrote, "In Colorado, the factors that affect the determination as to whether a veteran is a "qualifying disabled veteran" who is eligible for the property exemption are:

"(1) the eligibility requirements set forth in the Colorado Constitution; and (2) Most significantly for the purposes of this response, the purpose for which the federal government has determined a veteran to be "totally" disabled."

I do understand. I'm not the official's client but the state government is his actual client so he steps forth in support, despite the oath of office to the national and state constitutions that one must take for public service. I tried to make the point that I agree with his second point, that "total disability for individual unemployability" (TDIU) is a VA classification for....totally and permanently disabled Colorado veterans injured in the line of duty. My point was that total and 100% are the same words, and we follow the "plain meaning" of words in our state.

Here is what the people of Colorado were told we voted for when we read the text of the referendum in the 2006 Blue Book:

"AN AMENDMENT TO SECTION 3.5 OF ARTICLE X OF THE CONSTITUTION OF THE STATE OF COLORADO, CONCERNING THE EXTENSION OF THE EXISTING PROPERTY TAX EXEMPTION FOR QUALIFYING SENIORS TO ANY UNITED STATES MILITARY VETERAN WHO IS ONE HUNDRED PERCENT PERMANENTLY DISABLED DUE TO A SERVICE-CONNECTED DISABILITY."

I've made the point already that "one-hundred-percent" and "total" as in TDIU mean the same; voters made no distinction and weren't asked to do so...we approved 100% which is the same as total. However, here's the version of what we ended up as Article X Section 3.5 of the constitution once administrators and legislators reworded what they sent us to vote on and what we voted for into what they wanted for us. We got the text of the referendum, but the legislature had in SCR 06-001 their very restrictive definition of a "qualified veteran" that we voters didn't get to see:

(1.5) For purposes of this section, "disabled veteran" means an individual who has served on active duty in the United States armed forces, including a member of the Colorado national guard who has been ordered into the active military service of the United States, has been separated therefrom under honorable conditions, and has established a service-connected disability that has been rated by the federal department of veterans affairs as one hundred percent permanent disability through disability retirement benefits or a pension pursuant to a law or regulation administered by the department, the department of homeland security, or the department of the army, navy, or air force.

We didn't get to see the part highlighted in yellow although it was in SCR06-001 and it also ended up in the constitution as Article X Section 3.5. We do know that the legislature wasn't all that concerned about its own wording because when they did the enabling statute for the referendum once it was approved they decided, without regard for the constitution they'd just given to us to approve, that they'd leave out the text highlighted in yellow.

"(3.5) ‘Qualifying disabled veteran’ means an individual who has served on active duty in the United States armed forces, including a member of the Colorado National Guard who has been ordered into the active military service of the United States, has been separated therefrom under honorable conditions, and has established a service-connected disability that has been rated by the United States department of veterans affairs as one hundred percent permanent and total disability pursuant to a law or regulation administered by the department.

That's right. HB07-1251, the statute the legislature passed didn't have the part about totally disabled military retirees, so for the next fifteen years Colorado taxed these veterans, despite their constitutional entitlement to the property tax exemption:

I spotted the problem in 2014 and worked with my state senator to fix it. In May 2016 the legislature passed HB16-1444 to put those constitutional words protecting totally and permanently disabled military retires back into the statute, but Colorado has ever since ignored that law by simply not providing any form with which those qualified veterans can apply. No form = no exemption, despite the nagging minor detail of these veterans having the benefit enshrined in our hallowed constitution. I refer back to the oaths these folks take upon assuming office to support the state constitution...but it seems not of any importance if things like this aren't of interest to them.