Colorado Voters Have a Long Memory - especially about how veterans and their survivors are treated

I believe Colorado's Democrat legislators have initiated the more important advances in veterans' benefits, but it would be wrong to conclude that either party is truly disinterested or uncaring. Democrats controlled the House and Senate in 2006 under a Republican governor and are together credited with getting Referendum E in front of the voters. There, the constitutional amendment found overwhelming support. This established the Disabled Veterans Property Tax Exemption in 2007 and reflected well on both parties.

Yet Democrats were particularly uncaring on June 7, 2021 when the Colorado Senate Veterans and Military Affairs Committee voted down HCR21-1002 (by pure party line vote). The bill had been approved unanimously by the House to correct an awkward problem in our Disabled Veteran Survivor Property Tax Exemption. 

This small property tax exemption was initially offered to totally disabled veterans and saved them about $640 a year. The Legislature updated the exemption with HB14-1373 in 2014 to provide for veterans' survivors who were already in receipt of the exemption. Repeat: the exemption was for survivors of a vet already receiving the exemption.

Sadly, that language overlooked the real-world tragedy that not all troops survive to come home to be veterans. Colorado's current tax statute denies the exemption to every widow of every servicemember lost in the line of duty while on active service.

Get the distinction? Get disabled but survive to come home and the exemption is there for your survivor. Sacrifice far more and die in the line of duty and your survivor gets denied the exemption. Widows from World War II, Korea, Vietnam and recent conflicts are refused this exemption because their spouses died on duty, rather than surviving to come home and "be in receipt." 

HCR21-1002 was going to fix that unfortunate wording of the statute so our 140 Colorado Gold Star Widows could qualify for the same small partial property tax exemption. But the opportunity to do the right thing on June 7 was shot down when every Democrat on the state senate's veterans and military affairs committee voted against the bill. There were some heartless phrases thrown around that "we'll have to look at this important issue during next session" and "let's get focused on this next year for something by 2024."

These Democrats might not have known than 80% of these widows are over 60 and 40% are over 65. They've done without the exemption due veterans' widows since losing their husbands in World War II, Korea, Vietnam and more recent conflicts. The state senate turned its back on these survivors.

The Senate made a mistake. Voters took note.