To our disappointment, Coloradans turned down three sound policies proposed on the statewide ballot on Tuesday.

Amendment 78, which needed 55% to become part of the Colorado Constitution and fell well short of that, would have assigned the legislature a check and balance over all that federal funding being doled out to the state government. Right now, it is solely within the purview of the Governor’s Office, the Attorney General’s Office and other executive branch agencies to spend the money as they see fit. The people’s representative body should have some say, and Amendment 78 would have given lawmakers power to appropriate that money. We endorsed the proposal as an accountability measure.

Proposition 119 would have helped Colorado’s school children make up lost ground from their time idling at home in “remote learning” amid the pandemic. Particularly at-risk kids from low-income families would have benefited from 119’s funding for school supplements like tutors. And Big Marijuana, the heir to Big Tobacco, would have had to pay some of the tab through a sales tax on retail pot.

And Proposition 120 would have cut property taxes statewide on apartments, hotels and related kinds of real property. It also would have resulted in over $1 billion a year in total property tax cuts, including on single-family homes, if it had passed and its backers went to court. There, they were prepared to make the case that legislative treachery last spring that sabotaged the original intent of the proposal should be reversed and the full cuts restored.

All missed opportunities – that we suspect will be offered anew, in some form, to Coloradans in the future. We certainly hope so.

Denver Gazette editorial board