Colorado voters on Tuesday agreed to give up $3.7 billion in a historic move to ease the nation’s strictest limit on state spending after a bitterly fought multi-million dollar campaign.
With nearly three-fourths of the state’s votes counted by mid-evening, Referendum C had collected 53 percent of the ballots cast. Its companion measure, Referendum D, was clinging to a slim lead late Tuesday night.
Some counties reported voting problems, with conservative bastion El Paso County facing ballot shortages at some polling places.
The election restores Republican Gov. Bill Owens’ touch with voters, who had rejected most of his causes and candidates during the past two years, but leaves him vulnerable to charges that he betrayed his party’s commitment to fiscal conservatism.
“It’s a vote for fiscal responsibility,” Owens told a cheering crowd of supporters at the Pinnacle Club in downtown Tuesday night. “Once again, the voters of Colorado showed they’re in charge and voted for the future of the state of Colorado.”
Jon Caldara, a leading opponent, blamed the defeat on the superior resources of the pro-referendum campaign.
“I walked into this with my eyes open. They had the money, they had the politicians, they had the media,” he said.
Opponents have threatened to challenge the ballot measures in court.
Referendum C passed with the bulk of its support from Democrats, led by House Speaker Andrew Romanoff, D-Denver.
“I think there are two messages,” Romanoff said. “One is that bipartisanship works: People want to see Democrats and Republicans working together. And, two, the economy matters. People want to invest in the economy, health care, roads and bridges. They want to bring good jobs to this state.”
Referendum C suspends a provision of the state constitution’s Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights to let the state keep an estimated $3.7 billion in extra revenues that would otherwise be returned to taxpayers over the next five years. The state will use the money to pay for roads, schools, health-care programs and pensions.
Referendum D allows 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.
The vote allows the state to patch a huge hole that ripped into the state budget since 2001, when the state started cutting $1 billion in spending.
State officials had predicted doom and gloom if voters rejected the ballot measures. In the final weeks of the campaign, the governor’s office raised the spectre of widespread closures of government operations.
The governor’s budget director released a memo that showed that the state would close 11 state parks, raise tuition rates at state universities, cap the prison population, end instant background checks on firearms purchases, cut funding for health care for the poor and eliminate inspections of ski lifts.
And that was just a start. The budget office identified only $255 million of the $365 million that state officials expected to cut from next year’s budget.
Some backers of the referendums said the outcome restored their faith in the democratic process, which has whipsawed lawmakers with conflicting constitutional mandates to limit spending while channelling tax money into favorite projects like public schools and health-care programs.
TABOR, added to the constitution in 1992, placed a strict cap on how much taxpayer money the state could keep and spend. Amendment 23, approved in 2000, automatically boosts spending for public schools. Amendment 35, which passed last year, increased tobacco taxes and channelled the money into health-care programs.
“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.”
The battle for votes on Referendums C and D blossomed into one of the most expensive campaigns in state history – with supporters tapping home-grown business executives for millions of dollars, while opponents collected nearly $2 million, mostly from mystery donors.
Backers raised more than $5.5 million while opponents collected about $2 million by mid-October, according to the Colorado Secretary of State. The campaigns are expected to report additional donations. On Tuesday night, supporters said they raised $7.5 million for their cause.
The most expensive initiative campaign occurred in 2003 when backers and foes combined to pour $10.6 million into a battle over letting race tracks include slot machines. That measure failed.
With all that money, the supporters and opponents of Referendums C and D inundated Colorado with propaganda that often confused voters.
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.
Some voters simply skipped the vote, while others voted no because they were frustrated.
Norma Hoge, a 77-year-old Democrat in Aurora, didn’t vote. “I thought this didn’t make any sense,” she said.
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 the state needed the money to improve the economy.
“I think the state is in molasses,” said Mitter, who said he’s an independent. “We’re not going forward; we’re slipping back. To compete with the states around us,” we have to get our heads out of the sand.
Staff writer Mark P. Couch can be reached at 303-820-1794 or mcouch@denverpost.com.
