Goal: investigate voting on funding education and pot legalization.
Proposition 103 (education): A 2011 measure to increase the state income tax rate to 5 percent from 4.63 percent and the state portion of sales taxes to 3 percent from 2.9 percent for five years and devote all those new revenues to education. The higher tax rates (the same as those on the books in 1999) would be in effect for five years. Heath, prompted by 2011 school budget cuts to propose the idea, calls it a temporary fix for education funding while policymakers develop broader, more permanent solutions to state revenue issues. The measure would raise an estimated 3 billion dollars over the five years, and lawmakers would decide annually how to split the money among preschool programs, K-12 schools and state colleges and universities. The legislature couldn?t use the new money to supplant existing funding; 2011-12 spending would be set as a floor.
Amendment 64 (ganja): A 2012 popular initiative ballot measure to amend Colorado's constitution, outlining a statewide drug policy for cannabis. The measure passed on November 6, 2012, and along with a similar Washington measure marked "an electoral first not only for America but for the world." Now enacted as Article 18, section 16 of the state constitution, the law addresses "personal use and regulation of marijuana" for adults 21 and over, as well as commercial cultivation, manufacture, and sale, effectively regulating cannabis in a manner similar to alcohol. The first stores officially opened on January 1, 2014.
Amendment 66 (education): A 2013 proposal amending the Colorado Constitution and the Colorado Statutes to change how the state funds public preschool through twelfth grade (P-12) education by raising taxes to increase the amount of money available, changing how the state distributes funding to school districts, and requiring that a fixed percentage of revenue from certain state taxes be annually set aside for schools. This measure: 1.) raises the state individual income tax rate from 4.63 percent to 5.0 percent on the first $75,000 of taxable income and to 5.9 percent on any taxable income over $75,000 and deposits the additional tax revenue in a separate fund to increase public education funding; 2.) implements legislation passed by the state legislature creating a new formula for allocating state and local funding to school districts; 3.) repeals the constitutional requirement that base per pupil funding for public education increase by at least the rate of inflation annually; and 4.) requires that at least 43 percent of state income, sales, and excise tax revenue, collected at existing tax rates, be set aside annually to pay for public education.