Power to the people

Politics | From abortion to stem cells to property rights, some of the most important votes this November will be on ballot measures | Lynn Vincent

By the time his fellow lawmakers elected John Andrews president of the Colorado state senate, the state had already imposed term limits on its legislators and its governor. But Andrews had long felt that judges needed limits, too. And a string of heavy-handed, left-leaning decisions by the state's highest courts—including a 2002 case in which the Colorado Supreme Court invoked a 150-year-old Mexican land grant to give hundreds of local residents free access to 77,000 acres of a rancher's private property—convinced Andrews to act. While serving in the state senate from 1998 to 2005, he tried twice to pass term limits for Supreme Court and appeals court judges.

"Those efforts were turned aside by the establishment," Andrews, 62, of Centennial, Colo., told WORLD. Now, a year after terming out himself, Andrews is using his state's ballot measure process to take the issue of judicial term limits directly to the people. If Colorado's Amendment 40 passes, the state will be the first to enact term limits for Supreme Court judges. A recent Rocky Mountain News poll showed the measure leading by 54 percent to 37 percent.