TOPEKA ? Kansans should heed Colorado voters’ decision to suspend their Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights, opponents of TABOR-like proposals in Kansas said today.

Coloradoans approved a referendum that suspended TABOR for five years allowing the state to keep an estimated $3.7 billion in taxes.

“The fact that the only state that actually has to live under TABOR just voted to suspend it should send an important message to Kansans,” the Coalition for a Prosperous Kansas said in a statement.

But supporters of TABOR in Kansas said the Colorado vote wasn’t a defeat for their cause in Kansas.

“The people of Colorado have said that they want their Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights to look more like the improved versions that are being proposed in up to 20 other states,” said Alan Cobb, director of the Kansas chapter of Americans for Prosperity.

But Douglas Bruce, an anti-tax crusader who wrote the 1992 Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights, said Tuesday’s vote makes it harder now for other states to cap spending, he said.

“The establishment is going to say we had 13 years of experience with spending limits and we changed our minds. I’m sorry for their sake and I’m sorry for our sake,” Bruce said.

But supporters of suspending TABOR said Colorado couldn’t afford to vote no, not with higher education, health care and transportation already suffering from millions of dollars in budget cuts.

“It means we can join 49 other states recovering from the recession, we can make up some of the cuts,” said Republican Gov. Bill Owens, who stunned his own party by joining Democrats in crafting the ballot measure.

“TABOR has been such a crippling straightjacket on Colorado that Governor Bill Owens, a major proponent of TABOR, begged the taxpayers to suspend it,” the Kansas group opposed to TABOR said. “The vote on Tuesday is a dramatic demonstration of the failure of putting tax and spending policy in the constitution.”