Under Article X of the Colorado Constitution, the state was obligated to return the excess revenue to vendors it was collected from, plus interest.

[2][3] On April 10, 2023, Representatives Julie McCluskie and Emily Sirota and Senators Dominick Moreno and Rhonda Fields introduced House Bill 23-1290 to the Colorado General Assembly to refer the issue of the excess tax revenue to voters.

[4] The proposition appeared on the ballot as follows:[5] Without raising taxes, may the state retain and spend revenues from taxes on cigarettes, tobacco, and other nicotine products and maintain tax rates on cigarettes, tobacco, and other nicotine products and use these revenues to invest twenty-three million six hundred fifty thousand dollars to enhance the voluntary Colorado preschool program and make it widely available for free instead of reducing these tax rates and refunding revenues to cigarette wholesalers, tobacco product distributors, nicotine products distributors, and other taxpayers, for exceeding an estimate included in the ballot information booklet for proposition EE?The main campaign to vote yes on Proposition II was led by the organization Preschool for all Coloradans.

The organization contended that the passage of Proposition II would make preschool more widely available for Coloradan families and that the increased tax rate would lead to fewer youth and young adults using tobacco and nicotine products.

The guide offered that Proposition II was an unnecessary expansion of government given that Colorado preschools were already fully funded and that the higher tax rate could harm those suffering from addiction.