NewsOK: Oklahoma City News, Sports, Weather & Entertainment

Colorado OKs primary, wage hike, medically assisted suicide


DENVER (AP) — Coloradans voted Tuesday to restore a presidential primary, raise the minimum wage and allow terminally ill patients to end their own lives in an election that also will make it tougher to get constitutional initiatives onto future ballots.

Voters soundly rejected a $25 billion universal health care initiative, with several other measures outstanding late Tuesday, including a cigarette tax increase.

Coloradans approved replacing the current Republican and Democratic presidential caucuses with winner-take-all presidential primaries.

Colorado held presidential primaries from 1992 to 2000 before returning to caucuses to save money. Both major parties opposed this year's initiative, and Republicans vow to challenge the new law.

Still pending was a decision on a second measure to allow independents to vote in major party midterm primaries without affiliating.

Other ballot initiatives:

—MINIMUM WAGE: Coloradans voted to hike the minimum wage to $12 an hour by 2020, up 44 percent from the current $8.31 per hour. More than 400,000 people earn the minimum wage.

Colorado last voted to hike the minimum wage in 2006, when it was indexed to inflation. Advocates for the working poor said the wage hasn't kept up with costs, especially escalating housing prices in metro Denver. Business opponents warned the hike would cost jobs, especially in rural areas.

—HEALTH CARE: Voters rejected Amendment 69, a plan to create the nation's first government-run health care system that covers everyone. ColoradoCare aimed to abandon President Barack Obama's health care law and replace it with a universal coverage plan funded by a new payroll tax.

The $25 billion-a-year tax would have been taken out of paychecks, similar to how Medicare is funded. That money would then go to an elected board of trustees that would act as an enormous insurance company and reimburse doctors.

—MEDICAL AID IN DYING: Voters approved Proposition 106, allowing terminally ill people to end their own lives. The law requires that a mentally competent patient have a six-month prognosis and get two doctors to approve requests for life-ending medication.

Colorado becomes the fifth state to allow medically assisted suicide, joining Oregon, Washington, Vermont and California. Montana's state Supreme Court has ruled that doctors can use a patient's request for life-ending medication as a defense against any criminal charges linked to the death.

—CIGARETTE TAXES: Amendment 72, a proposal to raise cigarette taxes for a range of health-related needs, was trailing late Tuesday.

—CONSTITUTION: A proposal to make it tougher to amend the state's malleable Constitution was leading.


Associated Press writer Kristen Wyatt contributed to this report.

Associated Press
