In early election results Tuesday evening, Colorado voters were leaning toward giving state officials permission to keep more taxpayer money over the next five years.
With 35 percent of the expected vote counted statewide, 52 percent of voters approved suspending a key provision of the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights to let the state keep an estimated $3.7 billion that would otherwise be refunded to taxpayers.
The election had far-reaching implications for Colorado’s future, the careers of Gov. Bill Owens and aspiring gubernatorial candidates, and the state’s place in the national tax-limitation movement.
“My confidence in the voting public has been re-established,” said state Sen. Norma Anderson, R-Lakewood, “because they recognize the needs for the services that government provides.”
Referendum C calls for letting the state keep an estimated $3.7 billion in extra revenue over the next five years to pay for roads, schools, health-care programs and pensions.
Referendum D would allow the state to borrow an additional $2.1 billion to jump-start 55 road projects, pay off a legal settlement to fix crumbling schools in poor districts and cover an unpaid pension bill to firefighters and police officers.
Backers said the state needed C and D to overcome the state’s shrinking budget.
Since 2001, Colorado has cut $1 billion in spending and faces another $365 million in cuts next year if the ballot measures fail.
Opponents contended that the state should look harder for ways to cut spending.
Both sides inundated voters with information that confused some of them.
Backers insisted that the referendums did not raise taxes, even while asking for permission to keep more taxpayer money.
Opponents exaggerated how much money an average family would lose if the ballot measures passed. They claimed that the average Colorado family would give up $3,200, while the nonpartisan economists working for the state estimated that most taxpayers would give up $491 over five years.
Norma Hoge, a 77-year-old Democrat in Aurora, said she skipped the vote because the issue was so confusing.
“I was so upset with it that I didn’t know what to do,” Hoge said. “I thought this didn’t make any sense.”
Other voters expressed similar frustration with the election.
Cathy Challenner, a 56-year- old Republican in Colorado Springs, voted against the measures, while conceding that the extra money might help the hospital where she works.
“I just feel like we were being ripped off,” said Challenner, a nurse in a neonatal intensive- care unit. “I hope I didn’t make the wrong decision. I went back and forth, back and forth.”
Quentin Mitter, a 69-year-old retired sales executive who lives in Littleton, said he and his wife voted in favor of the measures.
“I think the state is in molasses,” said Mitter, a registered independent. “We’re not going forward; we’re slipping back. To compete with the states around us,” Mitter said, Coloradans have to get their heads out of the sand.
The battle for votes was one of the most expensive issue campaigns in state history.
Backers raised more than $5.6 million while opponents collected $1.99 million by mid-October.
The campaigns are expected to report additional donations.
The most expensive initiative campaign occurred in 2003, when backers and foes combined to pour $10.6 million into a battle over letting racetracks house slot machines.
The overflowing campaign coffers prompted one supporter to worry that officials had “more dollars than sense” by spending lavishly on yard signs rather than television advertisements.
Others worried about the campaign’s slow-footed start.
Backers of C and D said they were focusing on the ground game by lining up endorsements from more than 1,000 companies, nonprofit groups and other supporters. Senate President Joan Fitz-Gerald, D-Jefferson County, said the campaign faltered last summer when it let opponents set the pace with radio ads blasting C and D as a tax increase.
“I was concerned that the proponents were not going for the heart,” Fitz-Gerald said. “This is a gut-reaction vote. It’s not an intellectual vote.”
She also chided the campaign for using soft-sell television ads that failed to touch voters’ hot buttons.
“You have to make the case for how these government programs affect people, and we didn’t make it,” Fitz-Gerald said. “The ads always showed programs that affected somebody else while the opponents were talking about money you could spend, that you were going to need to pay the bills this winter.”
The secretary of state’s office was projecting that 45 percent of the active registered voters in Colorado would cast ballots in Tuesday’s election.
The highest turnout on record for an off-year election was 47.25 percent in 2003.
In 2003, more than 935,000 voters, about one-third of the state’s 2.8 million registered voters, cast ballots on three ballot measures relating to gambling, water projects and property taxes. Voters rejected all three measures.
Staff writer Mark P. Couch can be reached at 303-820-1794 or mcouch@denverpost.com.
