There were ten citizen-initiated questions on the ballot, yet only two passed. What lessons did we learn about Colorado voters?

More on that in a moment on the Face The State Radio Minute.

Only two of this year’s ten citizen-initiated measures found enough votes to pass.

Amendments 50 and 54 were the lucky duo. 50 allows mountain gaming towns to usher in higher bet limits and new games. But the real news is Amendment 54, a hard-fought effort to clean up government no-bid contracts. Despite millions of dollars pumped into ads opposing the measure, just over half of Colorado thought the system needed cleaning up.

But that’s it – every other citizen proposal came up short. Including one to limit the citizen initiative itself. The system works, even if Colorado voters showed themselves to be very cautious this year. Not everyone will come away happy with the results, but initiatives are a powerful tool in which we can all find value.

For FaceTheState.com, I’m Brad Jones.