According to the latest election results posted to the Colorado Secretary of State website, the statewide ballot measure Proposition CC was rejected by Colorado voters in yesterday’s off-year election. That measure would have allowed the state government to retain revenues in excess of the limits created by TABOR — the Taxpayers Bill of Rights, inserted into the Colorado Constitution in 1992 by a vote of the people. The intention of Colorado voters in 1992 appeared to be to restrain the unfettered growth of state and local government. The defeat of Proposition CC suggests the intention remains alive and well.
According the Secretary of State website — with 58 of 64 counties reporting — showed 55.12% of voters opposed to Proposition CC, and 44.88% in favor.
Also on yesterday’s ballot was Proposition DD, which would legalize sports betting in Colorado casinos and tax the profits to raise an estimated $29 million per year, to be used to fund as-yet-undefined “water projects.” That measure appears to have passed by a very narrow margin. Results are still unofficial.
Colorado media sources published variety of reactions to the results.
The only-in-the-nation fiscal handcuffs on Colorado’s budget will remain in place after voters Tuesday rejected a move by Democrats to repeal the spending limits in the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights…
If the numbers hold, it would amount to a resounding victory for fiscal conservatives and national organizations that spent big money to keep TABOR intact and push back against Gov. Jared Polis and the Democratic agenda.
“I think tonight’s evidence that the voters aren’t willing to go along with a full TABOR repeal,” said Jesse Mallory, Colorado director of Americans for Prosperity, the lead organization against Prop. CC. “I think it sends a clear message that the people of Colorado support the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights…”
Proposition CC, which would have allowed the state to keep money that would normally be returned to taxpayers because it exceeds revenue caps set in the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights, has failed, according to the Associated Press.
The measure was trailing by more than 100,000 votes when the AP called it shortly after 8:30pm on Tuesday.
“This is a mandate to the state legislature that they damn well better start prioritizing roads and education without raising our taxes,” Amy Oliver Cooke, executive vice president of the Independence Institute, told a anti-Prop CC party at the Great Northern Tavern in the Denver Tech Center…
Colorado residents have rejected a request from their state legislature to remove an annual government spending limit that some elected officials argued is holding back the state’s roads and schools. Instead, voters opted to continue getting tax refunds when the state reaches a revenue cap set by the Taxpayer Bill of Rights.
“People want their money,” Republican State Sen. John Cooke of Greeley said at a watch party organized by opponents of Prop CC. “They don’t trust the legislature to prioritize the projects. So I think this is a good learning lesson for everybody.”
“I don’t trust the legislature to do the right thing, and I’m a member of it,” Cooke continued. “I think this is a shot across the bow to state legislators to say, ‘Do your job’…”
Bill Hudson began sharing his opinions in the Pagosa Daily Post in 2004 and can’t seem to break the habit. He claims that, in Pagosa Springs, opinions are like pickup trucks: everybody has one.