AURORA | Colorado voters this Election Day roundly rejected a proposal that would have allowed younger residents to run for political office.
Coloradans dismissed Amendment V, which would have changed the minimum age to serve as either a state senator or state representative from 25 to 21 years old.
With about three quarters of counties reporting as of about midnight Nov. 7, 65 percent of state voters rejected the proposed constitutional amendment, according to returns from the Colorado Secretary of State’s office.
The failed amendment made its way to the ballot after receiving approval from two-thirds of members in both chambers of the state Legislature in 2017.
The bill calling for the constitutional amendment was sponsored by state Sens. Vicki Marble (R-Fort Collins), Mike Merrifield (D-Colorado Springs) and Reps. Kevin Van Winkle (R-Highlands Ranch) and Jovan Melton (D-Aurora).
Colorado joins only Arizona and Utah in the trio of states with a minimum age requirement of 25 for members of both chambers of the state congress, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. While age requirements for senators can greatly vary by state, about half of the states in the country have an age requirement of 21 years old to serve as a state representative. Nearly a dozen other states have a minimum age requirement of just 18 years old, and several other states have no age requirements on the books at all, according to the NCSL.
The average age of state representatives and senators in Colorado was 53 and 57, respectively, in 2015, according to an analysis conducted by the National Conference of State Legislatures.
An identical Colorado measure, Referendum L, was defeated by Colorado voters in 2008.