Friday, November 6, 2026

Colorado elects Jared Polis and finishes abolishing slavery in the state constitution

2018 · Colorado

Voters make Polis the first openly gay man elected governor of a U.S. state and pass Amendment A, which finally removes the exception that still allowed slavery as criminal punishment.

November 6, 2018, is a busy night for Colorado ballots. Democrat Jared Polis, the Boulder congressman and tech entrepreneur, defeats Republican Walker Stapleton and becomes the country’s first openly gay man elected to a governorship. He is also the state’s first Jewish governor. In his victory speech he barely mentions the historic part; the partner and kids on stage do most of the talking for him.

The same ballot carries Amendment A. For more than a century Article II, Section 26 had banned slavery and involuntary servitude “except as a punishment for crime.” A 2016 attempt failed on confusing wording. This time the question is plain, and 66 percent say yes. The constitution now simply reads that there shall never be either slavery or involuntary servitude in the state. Prison labor does not vanish overnight, but the exception is gone.

Democrats also sweep the other statewide offices. The maps that night are mostly blue in the Front Range and red on the plains, which is roughly how the state has looked ever since.

Sources: Wikipedia: 2018 Colorado gubernatorial election · Wikipedia: 2018 Colorado Amendment A · AP: Polis is first openly gay man elected governor

Voters pass Amendment 64 and Colorado legalizes recreational marijuana

2012 · Colorado

With 55 percent of the vote, Colorado (and Washington) become the first places in the world to legalize cannabis for adults the way alcohol is legalized. Shops open two years later.

On the same date six years earlier, Colorado voters do something that still feels slightly unreal if you remember the War on Drugs. Amendment 64 passes 55–45. Adults 21 and over may possess an ounce, grow a few plants at home, and, once the rules are written, buy from regulated stores. Public use stays illegal. Employers can still fire you. Local governments can still ban shops.

Possession becomes legal on December 10 after Governor Hickenlooper signs the executive order. The first retail stores open on January 1, 2014, and the tax revenue starts rolling into schools and the general fund. The rest of the country spends the next decade watching, arguing, and then mostly following. Colorado keeps the head start and the jokes.

The county map is familiar: strong yeses in Denver, Boulder, and the mountain resorts; noes on the eastern plains and in much of the Western Slope. The people who wrote the amendment called it “regulate marijuana like alcohol.” The voters agreed, and then went back to arguing about everything else.

Sources: Wikipedia: 2012 Colorado Amendment 64 · Ballotpedia: Amendment 64 · Denver Post: Coloradans say yes

Harold Ross is born in Aspen and eventually invents The New Yorker

1892 · Aspen

A miner’s son from a collapsing silver town drops out of school, edits Stars and Stripes in France, and in 1925 starts the magazine that still defines sophisticated American humor.

November 6, 1892, Harold Wallace Ross arrives in a prospector’s cabin in Aspen. His father is an Irish immigrant miner; his mother is a schoolteacher who cares about grammar. When the silver market collapses the family leaves for Silverton and then Salt Lake City. Ross is already restless. He drops out of high school, works as a stringer, rides the rails, and eventually lands in New York.

In World War I he edits the Army’s Stars and Stripes. After the war he and yeast heir Raoul Fleischmann launch The New Yorker in February 1925. The first cover is Eustace Tilley inspecting a butterfly. Ross runs the magazine until his death in 1951, insisting on fact-checking, commas, and the idea that a sophisticated reader still exists. He is buried back in Aspen.

Also born today in Denver: Paul Romer, son of later Governor Roy Romer, who will share the 2018 Nobel Prize in Economics for showing how ideas and technology drive long-term growth. The state produces both the magazine editor and the growth theorist on the same calendar square.

November 6 weather records: high 80 °F in 2021, low 11 °F in 2000 and 1938, most snow 4.2 inches in 1947. Average high is in the mid-50s. The date can still surprise you either way.

Sources: Wikipedia: Harold Ross · Britannica: Harold W. Ross · Nobel Prize: Paul Romer · Extreme Weather Watch Denver Nov 6