An issue com­mit­tee fight­ing against a Novem­ber bal­lot mea­sure ask­ing vot­ers to repeal Colorado’s Gal­lagher Amend­ment has sued the state and Gen­er­al Assem­bly over lan­guage in the state’s vot­er guide.

Pro­tect Our Homes Col­orado oppos­es the rewrite law­mak­ers made last week to the “Blue Book” descrip­tions — which every vot­er receives ahead of their bal­lot — for and against Amend­ment B. The group called the changes mis­lead­ing and a move away from the required non­par­ti­san and impar­tial expec­ta­tion of the state’s vot­er guide. Oppo­nents of the repeal are demand­ing a rewrite before guides are print­ed and sent to vot­ers. A hear­ing is sched­uled Fri­day in Den­ver Dis­trict Court.

“With less than five min­utes of dis­cus­sion, the pro­po­nents of the bal­lot mea­sure threw our months of pub­lic input and staff work with changes to near­ly every­thing, includ­ing the title, place­ment of sec­tions, new graphs and charts, and whole­sale changes in word­ing,” said Den­nis Gal­lagher, the amendment’s name­sake, in a statement.

A bipar­ti­san group of law­mak­ers referred the mea­sure to the bal­lot at the end of this year’s leg­isla­tive ses­sion, and Demo­c­ra­t­ic and Repub­li­can law­mak­ers sup­port­ed the changes to the leg­isla­tive non­par­ti­san staff’s lan­guage in a 15–3 bipar­ti­san vote.

One of the spon­sors of the repeal effort, Demo­c­ra­t­ic Sen. Chris Hansen, called the law­suit “des­per­ate” and “a stunt” in a statement.

The amend­ment passed in 1982 intend­ed to lim­it res­i­den­tial prop­er­ty tax­es by forc­ing busi­ness­es to pay a high­er tax share. It has ulti­mate­ly brought down res­i­den­tial prop­er­ty tax­es to near the low­est in the coun­try. But local gov­ern­ments and school dis­tricts depend on prop­er­ty tax­es. Leg­isla­tive ana­lysts have esti­mat­ed that K‑12 edu­ca­tion alone could lose half a bil­lion dol­lars next year if the amend­ment stays. Oppo­nents of the repeal argue that it will add addi­tion­al tax bur­dens on prop­er­ty owners.