AURORA, Co. -- I've been so focused on California's eight propositions that I completely neglected Colorado's ballot initiatives. They're not nearly as interesting, though.

Yesterday, Colorado voters decided on two state-wide initiatives, Referendum C and Referendum D. Colorado has a weird law called the Taxpayer's Bill of Rights (TABOR) which requires taxpayers to approve any state fiscal measure that would affect their taxes in some way. Referendum C would increase state funds by $3.7 billion over the next five years by taking that money from taxpayers' state sales tax refunds (apparently, in Colorado, taxpayers get refunds of sales tax as well as income tax). Referendum D, which would only take effect if Referendum C were passed, allows the state to borrow $2.1 billion from state tax revenue.

But where would this money go? According to Colorado's 2005 State Ballot Information Booklet, the text of Referendum C says that this $3.7 billion will be used "to fund health care; to fund education, including any capital construction projects related thereto; to fund retirement plans for firefighters and police officers, so long as the General Assembly determines that such funding is ncessary; and to pay for strategic transportation projects included in the Department of Transportations's Strategic Transportation Project Investment Program."

Sounds great, right? I mean, who doesn't love firefighters? Not so fast, there, chief. It turns out that the General Assembly doesn't have to spend money on the stuff they said they would; the legislature can change the spending priorities at any time. For this reasons, Referendum C is not such a good idea, but it looks like the voters thought it was. With 95% of precincts reporting, 53% of voters supported Referendum C. Much like Proposition 77 in California, just one clause in a piece of legislation is enough for me to throw out the whole thing; in the case, the clause is that the legislature can change the spending priorities.

There was also a ballot initiative in Denver, and it was a terrible idea. The initiative in Denver would tie teacher salaries to student performance. As Levitt points out in Freakonomics, they tried this is in California, and instead of teachers and students getting better, they found a lot of teachers cheating. The incentive to cheat is too great when teacher salaries are tied to student performance. If you have a bad teacher with dumb students, it's easier for the bad teacher to cheat and change students' test answers rather than improve the students' performance.

"Colorado: Come for the Skiing, but Stay for the Conservatism."