Members of the Colorado Competitive Council and Politicalworks say extreme politics are having a negative impact on local businesses during legislative sessions.
During the Durango Chamber of Commerce’s Eggs & Issues Forum held Thursday at Fort Lewis College, community members gathered to hear what the two policy advocacy groups had to say on the matter.
Colorado Competitive Council is a coalition that advocates for pro-business policies, while Politicalworks is a public affairs firm that promotes bipartisan government.
Colorado Competitive Council Executive Director Rachel Beck said that extreme politics are harming small business through bills driven by political agendas rather than logic.
“The numbers at the Capitol highly favor Democrats, and a lot of these Democrats are on the far left,” she said.
She added that if there were a disproportionate number of Republican lawmakers, the Colorado Competitive Council would take a similar stance to promote bipartisan lawmaking.
She said many of the bills that were proposed by Democrats this year were not favorable to businesses.
Among those was HB23-1118, also known as the Fair Workweek Bill, which did not pass in the most recent legislative session.
The bill would have required employers in restaurants, food and beverage manufacturing facilities, and retail jobs with 250 employees or more to provide work schedules to employees with more notice. It also applied includes restaurant with two or more locations.
It also would have required employers to post work schedules two weeks in advance, allow employees to request changes to their schedules and require businesses that cancel shifts last-minute to pay employees.
Any changes to an employee's schedule will also require written employee consent.
The Durango Chamber of Commerce opposed passing of the bill and urged local business owners to reach out to Colorado lawmakers with reasons why it should not pass.
Other bills included HB23-1171, which would have required just cause for eviction of a tenant. The bill would have changed what happens when a lease ends. Currently, landlords can often force out unwanted tenants by simply refusing to renew their leases.
Again, the bill did not pass.
Under the just cause bill, a landlord would have needed a specific reason to force a tenant out, even if they are on a month-to-month lease.
“These landlord-tenant bills assume that every landlord is a gigantic corporation systematically leasing to their tenants,” Politicalworks founder Travis Berry said. “They don’t consider that most rental properties on the market are owned by a family and are a source of income for them.”
Both bills were sponsored exclusively by Democrat representatives.
However, the speakers said that bills like SB23-127 (the Protecting Opportunities and Workers' Rights Act) and HB23-1255 were business-positive. Both bills passed during this legislative session.
HB23-1255 passed on May 4 and intends to regulate housing growth restrictions by forbidding the enactment or enforcement of any future local housing growth restriction, unless the government entity has experienced a disaster emergency.
Berry said it prohibits local governments from developing a housing growth boundary and helps employees be more likely to live in the communities where they work.
The Protecting Opportunities and Workers’ Rights Act loosens the legal standard for harassment, so people will no longer have to prove the behavior has been severe or pervasive.
Beck said the law not only provides more protection for employees in the workplace but also clarifies what cases must be heard in front of a judge. She said that will save businesses the cost of unnecessary legal fees, because there will be a better definition of what is considered harassment in the workplace.
tbrown@durangoherald.com
