Amendment 43 is very straight-forward: it legalizes possession of an ounce of marijuana for adults. Adults cannot sell it, cannot consume it in public, nor can they drive while under the influence. And anyone under the age of 21 cannot legally possess marijuana. This is another well-thought out, balanced proposal. I say:
YES!
This is a hate-filled proposed Amendment. Every single person in Colorado should vote:
NO!
Amendment 42 is a very well-thought-out solution to the problem of the ridiculously low federal minimum wage. It would raise Colorado’s minimum wage immediately from $5.15 to $6.85, and then it woud adjust the minimum wage every year to account for inflation. This would ensure we don’t see a decade go by without a raise to the minimum wage. And since it’s in the constitution, the minimum wage would not be at the mercy of a Governon who doesn’t believe in helping out the lower classes (e.g. Bill Owens).
YES!
Amendment 41 is a mess. Theoretically, it’s supposed to stop government officials from receiving money/gifts from special interests, and create an ethics board for oversight. But the language of the proposed amendment is so vague that it is open for multiple interpretations. And the supposedly objective ethics board can be made up of other government officials, who would probably not be as objective as expected.
I appreciate the ideals and efforts behind this, but it gets a NO! for poor implementation.
Amendment 40 would establish term limits for Colorado Supreme Court and Appellate justices. While I am in favor of term limits in both the executive and legislative branches, I think it’s a very bad idea to do so in the judicial branch. Justices become more effective at their job the longer they are on the bench. Forcing justices to step down after four years will create a major lack of institutional knowledge on our high courts.
That is not a good idea, in my opinion. NO!
Amendment 39 and Referendum J are two different methods to make the same change: require public schools to spend 65% of their budgets “in the classroom.” This sounds like a good idea, if you choose to ignore the support staff that a school needs. Schools need cafeteria staff, they need school nurses, they need busses and bus drivers and fuel for the busses. Schools need to spend money on administrative purposes and secretaries and office managers. In the real world, there’s no way that public education could survive as it is today.
And that gets a firm NO! from me.
Amendment 38 proposes to amend the Colorado Constitution, allowing changes to petition regulations for state and local laws. Theoretically, it gives citizens more of a voice in local politics. In practice, though, what it would do is drastically reduce oversight for petitions. It forbids governments from randomly sampling signatures, reduces the reasons for which a signature can be invalidated, places undue burden on the government to send out information on the proposals from proponents and opponents (instead of unbiased third-parties).
All this adds up to a big NO from me.
Every election year, I spend a lot of time researching the local ballot issues. But I almost never share that research with anyone except for my wife. I figured that I need to start sharing my hard work with others, so I present you with my first ever Colorado Voting Guide.
This isn’t going to be an unbiased guide, however. If you want one of those, there are plenty available on the web. Instead, I am going to point out how I am voting, and why. I will be spreading this guide out into seperate posts for each issue, to make it easy for you to skip to the issue that you are most interested in. Watch this space for more (hey, this’ll be live blogging for anyone here at 2:00pm on 11/2/2006).
So now I probably should’ve expected this: Colorado voters are of two minds regarding marriage equality (via 9news.com):
A new poll shows Colorado voters want to define marriage and, at the same time, allow same-sex couples to become domestic partners.Amendment 43 wants to change the Colorado Constitution to define marriage as between a man and a woman.
Referendum I would establish a relationship between same-sex couples as a legal domestic partnership.
So the majority of Coloradoans want to make sure the term “marriage” can never be applied to same-sex couples. But on the other hand, it looks like Coloradoans also want to make sure that same-sex couples have all the rights and privileges as married couples. Does anyone wonder why living here is both encouraging and frustrating?
Boo and hiss to those who want to vote yes on Amendment 43. Huzzah for those who want to vote yes on I. I reckon that, once everything is sorted out, the net result will be a positive movement towards marriage equality here in Colorado. Like I’ve said before, this is a long journey, but we will eventually see this through.
For those who wonder: I voted No on 43 and Yes on I.
The folks over at ProgressNowAction tried to interview Marilyn Musgrave and ask her a question posed by an undecided voter in her district. Instead of answering, however, Musgrave cut and ran while those with her tried to manhandle the questioners. Sound far-fetched? Fortunately, there’s video of the whole incident:
[youtube]LKqvMdMV7hM[/youtube]
