Colorado Conservatives at War Over Tax Cap

By JASON DePARLE

DENVER - There are circles in which the ultimate Colorado icon is neither Snowmass Mountain nor Coors beer, but a set of fiscal handcuffs called the Taxpayers' Bill of Rights.

That constitutional cap on state and local spending, imposed in 1992, has been so effective in curbing government growth that tax opponents are making it the centerpiece of a national campaign. Similar measures are headed for the ballot this fall in California and perhaps Ohio, and parallel efforts are under way in more than a dozen other states.

For some, the long-term targets include Washington, where many on the right are troubled by the rivers of red ink that have continued to flow despite Republican rule. "It's the ultimate goal of what we're trying to do," said Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform. "We want constitutional limits on the size of government."

But even as the Colorado measure galvanizes antispending groups elsewhere, it is dividing them at home, prompting a right-on-right fight that is luring outside combatants and drawing blood.