Colorado Gov. Jared Polis’ first vetoes following this year’s legislative session included a bill aimed at fighting wage theft in the construction industry that he said “would not punish the real wrongdoers.”
The bill sought to hold general contractors liable for wage theft committed by subcontractors. But Polis wrote in a veto letter that as passed, the measure would let subcontractors “off the hook” while penalizing good actors further up the project’s chain of command.
In all, Polis nixed six bills. His office announced the vetoes in a news release Friday evening, and they prompted expressions of disappointment from fellow Democrats who had sponsored the rejected measures, some of which had also been endorsed by the Democratic Women’s Caucus.
The other vetoed bills would have required higher standards for grant-funded ventilation upgrades in schools, including for air conditioning; prohibited mandatory attendance for anti-union seminars and other political meetings at work; required new background check requirements for youth sports organizations’ employees, coaches and volunteers who travel with a team, along with requiring that CPR-certified adults be present for all their activities; added new restrictions and disincentivized the combustion of municipal solid waste; and prohibited insurers from requiring that prescriptions administered by health care providers be dispensed only by specific network pharmacies.
In some of the veto letters, Polis signaled support for a bill’s concept but took issue with how it would have been implemented. He also wrote that his office had tried to work with lawmakers in some cases, but couldn’t find agreement.
The wage-theft bill has been his most prominent veto so far this year.
Its sponsors previewed the measure before the legislative session’s official start, and it was named one of the Democratic Women’s Caucus’ priority bills. The bill also factored into some intra-caucus conflict when a Democratic senator was removed from sponsorship after she faced accusations she wouldn’t sign off on an aide’s time card.
In his veto letter for House Bill 1008, Polis called wage theft “a deplorable crime” but took issue with its final version. By allowing general contractors to be held liable, the bill sought to ensure subcontractor employees working on the job weren’t stolen from and left without recourse.
“Under the bill the general contractor — even when not at fault under any reasonable standard — would effectively pay for the same work twice (in addition to fines, penalties, and interest), raising costs,” Polis wrote.
His letter said he sought to address his concerns with sponsors. Sen. Jessie Danielson, a Wheat Ridge Democrat and the sponsor of the bill in its second chamber, said she never saw suggested amendments from Polis. But her understanding, she said, was that they would have “completely gutted” the bill in a way that none of the sponsors or workers the bill sought to protect would have found acceptable.
Danielson, in an email, wrote that Polis “sided with those companies that earn their profits off of the exploitation of workers.” Co-sponsor Sen. Chris Kolker, a Centennial Democrat, said he had never heard from the governor’s team about changes, adding: “The veto has the governor choosing to not protect workers.”
Despite the veto, Polis highlighted his administration’s efforts to fight wage theft and said he would direct the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment to continue to look at other strategies.
Among the other vetoed bills, Polis called House Bill 1260, which targeted employers’ anti-union meetings, “too broad and too ambiguous” because it more generally would have banned discipline of employees for failing to attend mandatory meetings on political or religious matters. He wrote that he’d support a narrower bill specific to banning forced attendance of anti-union meetings.
And he said House Bill 1080, the background check measure for youth sports organizations, added “unrealistic and counterproductive expectations and undue burden” that would make it harder to recruit volunteers and run the leagues. He also cited a misalignment between it and Senate Bill 113, which also sought to regulate youth sports and was signed into law. Lawmakers who sponsored the bills had issued a public statement last week calling on Polis to sign both.
Danielson sponsored four of the six vetoed bills. She said in an email that “the governor’s vetoes put him squarely at odds with Colorado families and workers.” In particular, she called the veto of background checks for youth sports employees and volunteers “shocking and disturbing.”
“He should be dedicated to protecting kids in sports from sexual predators and abusers,” Danielson wrote.
The vetoes struck down two of the six priority bills from the Democratic Women’s Caucus that passed the legislature. Caucus co-chair Sen. Lisa Cutter, a Littleton Democrat, noted that 18 of the vetoed bills’ 22 sponsors were women, including on bills that weren’t officially part of the caucus’ priority list.
“I think I speak for the entire women’s caucus to say we’re really disappointed that things women believe to be important are not always in alignment with what the governor believes,” Cutter said.
The governor does generally hear out the caucus’ ideas, Cutter said, and she appreciated that four of the priority bills — including free menstrual products for students and a requirement that schools use students’ preferred names — did become law.
This first batch of bill rejections follow a historic year of vetoes for Polis in 2023, when he axed 10 bills. That was the most of Polis’ tenure as governor, and the most since Gov. Bill Owens, a Republican, vetoed 44 bills from the Democratic-controlled General Assembly in 2006. Polis typically has vetoed about five bills per year.
Polis previously has said he makes his signing decisions as the one person involved in enacting laws who represents the entire state, versus the individual districts that lawmakers represent.
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