DENVER – Colorado lawmakers are advancing legislation to restrict the use of proxy marriages in the state, a holdover from the Vietnam War designed to allow deployed soldiers marry their sweethearts.
Colorado's proxy marriage law allows couples to marry with only one of the parties present and without a state residency requirement.
County clerks and lawmakers say such marriages raise national security concerns because foreign nationals with no military ties or connections to the state can use them.
There's no evidence the law has been misused, but a proposal to limit proxy marriages to military personnel and government contractors passed the Senate Judiciary Committee unanimously on Wednesday. It heads to the full Senate.
Colorado is one of four states that allow proxy marriages, but the only one that doesn't limit them to military personnel.
The hottest stories ripped from the headlines, from crime to courts, legal and scandal.
