Colorado House 2026 Legislative Day 093

Thank you. Thank you.

Please join me in the pledge.

Mr. Schiebel, please call the roll.

Here.

Here.

Is excused.

Who's excused? Espinosa.

It's excused.

It's excused.

No, Rep. Marshall's excused.

Representative Ricks is excused

Representative Valdez is excused.

Present. Wilford.

Representative Titone.

Thank you, Representative. Members, you have heard the motion that the journal be approved as corrected by the Chief Clerk. All those in favor say aye.

Thank you. All those opposed, no.

The ayes have it. The motion is adopted.

Sleepy today. Announcements and introductions. Representative Leader.

Majority Leader Duran. Thank you Madam Speaker. Today in the gallery with us I want to recognize some members from LiUNA Local 720 who came down for the day at the Capitol. LiUNA Local 720 plays a big role advocating for our construction workers in this state and does a wonderful job ensuring our workers are represented. Members please join me in recognizing them and if I can ask them to stand in the gallery.

Representative DeGraff.

Thanks for joining us. Representative Lukens. Thank you, Madam Speaker. The House Education Committee will be meeting 10 minutes upon adjournment of the Upon Adjournment Committee or at 1.30, and we will be hearing Senate Bill 19, House Bill 1264, Senate Bill 103, or House Bill 1335. Representative Woodrow. Good morning, Madam Speaker. It's an honor to serve with you. It is an honor to serve with you. Colleagues, House Finance Committee will be meeting 10 minutes upon adjournment of our business here on the floor. 10 minutes upon adjournment in room 112 to hear two bills, House Bill 26-1346 and House Bill 26-1119. testimony given the number of witnesses will be limited to two minutes with seven-minute panels. See you there.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Members, today is Religious Freedom Day here at the Capitol, sponsored by the Interfaith Alliance, and I would like to thank Sister Washington for her prayer this morning, who is a member of my church from Commerce City. I'd also like to thank Rep. Ryden for announcing yesterday and passing out the flyers for today's occasion. in our faith we believe we are all brothers and sisters and we state we are all brothers and sisters in our church this is articles of faith among many other beliefs we state we claim the privilege of worshipping almighty God according to the dictates of our conscience and allow all men the same privilege let them worship how, where, or what they may our nation was founded on, among other things, religious liberty and it must be protected in all we do we invite you to join us for a lunch in the foyer during lunchtime today

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Members that are not here yet, but the Pikes Peak School of Expeditionary Learning from Falcon, Colorado and House District 20 will be here today. You will not be able to miss them because there's over 100 of them. They're going to be in our gallery sometime between 10, 30 and 12. So please make sure when you see them come in, you give them a wave. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. No state civic military veterans affairs committee today. Yay.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Capitol Choir, please come down. Capitol Choir, join us. It's Representative Marshall's birthday, tomorrow's Representative Brown's, and we also did have a couple of our staffers, Elizabeth and also Jacqueline's birthday last week. So please come down, Representative Bob and everybody. Representative Bob. Representative Marshall and everyone. Please. Birthday. Birthday, yes. Capitol Choir. Yes. Singers. For you, you're the only one with the throne at this moment, Representative. He's 35, huh? All right. One, two. We'll sing for Representative Brown and his absentia. One, two, three.

Minority Leader Caldwell Thank you Madam Speaker Since we doing birthdays today I just want to recognize my Chief of Staff Kimberly as it is her birthday today so please make sure you tell her happy birthday when you see her.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Members, we have some exciting news to share with everyone today. a town in our neck of the woods, Palisade, Colorado, was named by USA Today as America's number one small town. And that's not just because they have 30 wineries or 2,400 acres of peaches and happen to have the best farmer's market in all of Colorado, but it's also because they have great places to ride your bike, and in a good snow year, great places to raft the Colorado River, spectacular views of the Book Cliff Mountains, and a town that looks like a Hallmark movie set.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. It's a pleasure to work with you. It is a pleasure to work with you. I just want to remind everybody, I know you think it's eight hours to the western slope of Colorado. To Palisade, Colorado, it's a little bit less than four hours. It's worth your drive, but you're not welcome to live out there with us.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Tomorrow morning at 8.15 in the Old State Library, the Appropriations Committee will meet. We will hear the following bills in the following order, 1028, 1075, 1078, 1027, sorry, 1227, 1287, 1298, 1307, 1317, and 1338. And even though it is printed in your calendar, 1206 will be laid over until a future appropriations meeting. Thank you.

Madam Speaker, I move to proceed out of order for consideration of resolutions.

Senate Joint Resolution 18 by Senator Judah, also Representative Zokai, concerning recognizing the celebration of Nowruz and in connection therewith, expressing support for the human rights and fundamental freedoms of the Iranian people, including the ongoing struggle for equality embodied in the women's life freedom movement.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I move Senate Joint Resolution 18 and ask that it be read at length.

Whereas Nowruz, meaning New Day, is the traditional Iranian New Year celebrated on the spring equinox and marks the beginning of the year of the Persian calendar, a holiday observed for more than 3,000 years by hundreds of millions of people across Iran, Central Asia, the Middle East, and the diaspora of Middle Eastern communities around the world. And whereas Iranian-Americans and members of the Iranian diaspora, including many Coloradans, celebrate Nauru's and contribute greatly to the cultural, economic, and civic life of communities across the United States and the state of Colorado. And whereas, Nowruz is a celebration of renewal, hope, and the rebirth of nature, symbolizing the promise that each new year can bring great peace, prosperity, and justice. And whereas, the people of Iran continue to face profound challenges to their fundamental civil and human rights, including restrictions on freedom of expression, freedom of assembly, freedom of religion, and equality under the law. The women life freedom movement that began in September 2022 has become a global call for gender equality, human dignity and fundamental civil rights, highlighting longstanding discrimination against women and girls in Iran, including legal inequality and restrictions on personal freedom, and reflecting the extraordinary courage of Iranian women and girls who demand equality and bodily autonomy. And whereas students, journalists, activists, workers, and ordinary citizens across Iran have risked their safety and their lives in peaceful demonstrations, demanding democratic freedoms, bodily autonomy, and basic civil rights, even as escalating conflict and violence in the region, have placed millions of civilians at risk and caused devastating harm to families and communities. And whereas the Colorado General Assembly recognizes No Ruse as a celebration of renewal, resilience, and hope for Middle Eastern communities across Colorado and the world. Now, therefore, be it resolved by the Senate of the 75th General Assembly of the State of Colorado, the House of Representatives concurring herein, that the Colorado General Assembly recognizes the celebration of Maru's and extends its warmest wishes for a year of renewal, hope, and peace to Iranian communities in Colorado and around the world, affirms its solidarity with the Iranian people in their ongoing struggle for fundamental civil rights, democratic freedoms, and equality under the law, recognizes the courage and leadership of Iranian women and girls and the global call for dignity embodied in the words, women, life, freedom, mourns the lives of civilians, especially children, lost to violence and war, calling for the protection of civilians, schools, and essential community institutions, and expresses its hopes that the spirit of Nowruz, a new day, will bring a future in which all people of Iran can live with equality, freedom, justice, and the full protection of their civil and human rights.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. And members, please be seated. Thank you. And Ada Shoa Mubarak, Happy New Year. We are a bit late in bringing this resolution forward, but we wanted to make sure to still recognize this important holiday. Noros means a new day, and it is a holiday celebrating renewal, rebirth, and resilience. Originating in Iran over 3,000 years ago, Noruz is now celebrated across the world, uniting the Persian diaspora across different faiths, ethnicities, and nationalities. And it is a holiday that has a lot of personal meaning and importance for me. Noruz is a time where we start our lives anew. It isn't just ringing in the new year. It is a celebration over the course of 13 days. We clean our homes, we buy new clothes, we exchange gifts, we set a half scene, which is a table with symbolic items, and we visit friends and family. And not just the friends and family that you might typically get together with, but it is a time to intentionally go and visit everyone in your community. And that might also mean people you're not particularly excited to see as well, because part of Noruz is not just celebrating a renewal of life, but of friendships as well. people end their animosity and visit one another with a renewed hope, which is something I think we could all use a bit more of in this building. Now this year, of course, did feel different. And I will say I struggled to find a sense of how to bring this resolution forward this year. Most of the text of this resolution was written before Iranians were facing a war. Senator Judah and I had talked about taking Nooruz this year as a time to recognize the struggles of Iranian people and especially of Iranian women who have led the largest women rights movement in recent history The women and girls of Iran called out for Zan Zendigyi Ozodi woman life freedom And they were faced with brutality from their government, and they continued to show up in the face of repression and violence and risk their lives for a future with civil rights and economic opportunity. And we wanted to take this Nowruz to recognize their resilience and their power, because it deserves recognition. But when we talk about the power of Iranian girls, I cannot gloss over the fact that a little over 40 days ago, the lives of over 150 little girls was lost when the United States bombed in elementary school. When I talk about renewal and rebirth this Nowruz, I cannot ignore that literal black rain fell over Tehran from strikes on oil depots and refineries, causing hazardous air and potential lifelong health risks for Iranians. And when I talk about this Nowruz, I have to mention that it was spent with cousins who did not know if their parents were alive. that it was spent with family members asking us where they should go to be safe with threats of escalating attacks with a pregnant family member not knowing where she would deliver her baby when the hospital was bombed with kids traumatized by their walls shaking with us not knowing if a family member in the hospital in iran would pass away because the electricity would be cut off as our president threatened to attack civilian infrastructure. Members, I am not trying to politicize a holiday or detract from the message of hope that underlies Nowruz. But as the only Iranian member of this body and one of just a handful of Iranian elected officials across the country, I feel an immense pressure to represent the truth of how my family and many other Iranian families are experiencing this holiday. And the truth for me is that this role is incredibly lonely and isolating. And I have done my best to show up here and advocate for all Coloradans despite my own uncertainty and fear about the well-being of my family. and I just want to take that human moment to share that with all of you because I have felt stuck showing up here to do this job which is not foreign policy at a time where foreign policy is deeply personal and the matter of life or death for people that I love and despite being in the middle of a war that impacts me every second, while the President of the United States is threatening to eradicate an entire civilization, the world in here does go on, and our work does continue. And so for me, what this comes down to is that this, Nouruz, we cannot celebrate renewal, rebirth, and resilience passively, but instead we must make an active commitment to embody those values in our policy making And so I asking us to commit to renew on calls for peace and justice for all Iranians including the members of the Women Life Freedom Movement who are fighting for their most basic rights against an oppressive regime and whose struggle is in no way helped by American bombs. I am asking us to commit to a rebirth of foreign policy that rejects endless wars and instead ushers in a new era of diplomacy. I'm asking us to commit to celebrating the resilience of Iranian culture by protecting that culture from those who threaten to drive it to extinction. And above all, I'm asking us to remember the humanity of Iranians everywhere, especially those who have one less family members with them this new year. Noruz reminds us that no matter how dark things are the light always comes no matter how many flowers may be cut down it cannot stop the spring I asked my family members if they have a message to share and they said we hope that after all this Noruz all wars end and peace and prosperity returns to everyone on planet earth. And I could not have said that better myself. Thank you, members. I urge an aye vote.

Representative Lindsay, how do you vote? Yes.

Representative Routnell, how do you vote? Yes.

Representative Weinberg, how do you vote?

Representative Weinberg votes yes. Please close the machine. With 59 I, 2 no, 4 excuse, Senate Joint Resolution 18 is adopted. Co-sponsors. Representative Routenel and Lindsay, co-sponsor. Please close the machine.

Seeing no objection, House Bill 1245 will be removed from special orders and returned to general orders second reading calendar. Madam Majority Leader.

Seeing no objection, the bills listed by the majority leader will be made special orders today at 9.35 a.m. Representative Lukens. Members, you have heard the motion. Seeing no objection, Representative Lukens will take the chair. Thank you The committee will come to order. With your unanimous consent, the bills will be read by title unless there is a request for reading a bill at length. Committee reports are printed in your bill folders. Floor amendments will be shown on the screen on iLegislate and in today's folder on your box account. Bills will be laid over upon motion of the majority leader and the code rule is relaxed. Mr. Schiebel, please read the title of House Bill 1290.

Majority Leader Duran. Thank you, Madam Chair. I move House Bill 1290 and the Judiciary Committee report. To the committee report. In Judiciary, we ran amendments to remove the medical professional piece and just to make changes to the second-degree assault for any persons, and I ask for a yes vote.

To the bill. Thank you, Madam Chair. I'd like to say that I am honored to stand here with Representative Hartzuck on a bill that centers around something that we don't talk about enough, but that lives quietly in too many homes across Colorado are impacted. The reality of strangulation and the survivors who carry its impact long after the moment has passed. Many of you know my story. I'm a survivor of domestic violence, and I'm one of the ones who made it out. And I carry that truth with me every day. The data makes it clear. According to the 2025 Domestic Violence Fatality Review in 2024, there were 54 cases that resulted in 72 deaths. 38 were intimate partners. 8 were innocent collateral victims. While overall homicides in Colorado declined, domestic violence fatalities rose more than 20%. Nearly 1 in 5 homicides in our state is tied to domestic violence. That's not a statistic. That is a warning. And one of the clearest warning signs we see over and over again is strangulation. Non-fatal strangulation is not a minor assault. It is near homicide events. It is the moment where life is almost taken, even if the outside world can't see it. A person can lose consciousness in seconds. brain injury can begin in under a minute. Oxygen is cut off. Blood flow is interrupted. And yet, in many cases, there are no visible marks. And we have to say this clearly. For victims with darker skin, those markings are even harder to detect. Too often, their injuries are overlooked, dismissed, and not believed because the harm is not easily seen. But the damage is real. The risk is real. And the danger does not fade just because it's invisible. Survivors may walk away, but days, weeks later, they could suffer a stroke, a seizure, or fatal complications. Memory gaps caused by oxygen loss can make it harder to report. The system can miss it, and when the system misses it, we lose the opportunity to intervene. This bill will close that gap, and I ask for a yes vote.

Thank you, Madam Chair. In most incidences of violence, there's very distinctive marks. If there's accidents, there's very distinctive marks. There's broken bones, there's gunshot wounds, there's knife wounds. You can see the blood. Strangulation is a very intimate, very direct, very lethal attack, yet seldom leaves identifiable marks. But it leaves long, long lasting impacts. Domestic violence victims are 750% more likely the second time around to result in a homicide. I would submit to you that we need to curb this and deal with it in the beginning of strangulation and not wait until we are taken a trial for homicide. We urge an aye vote. Thank you.

All those in favor say aye. Aye.

House Bill 1312 by Representative Clifford, also Senator Mullica, concerning measures related to peace officer participation in matters related to peace officer performance and a connection therewith, requiring the Attorney General to submit a proposal to update law enforcement academy training programs, changing the composition of the post board, requiring a person to be 21 years or older to pass post board examinations for certification and authorizing a peace officer academy staff person to be eligible to receive training or grants for training offered by any state or local entity.

That is a title. Thank you, Madam Chair. I move House Bill 1312 and the Judiciary Committee report. To the Judiciary Report. In the Judiciary Committee, we did a strike below that didn't fully rewrite the bill, but basically created the bill as it is. So I will have you refer to that as the bill. And that is an urgent aye vote on the committee report.

All those in favor say aye.

The committee will go into a brief recess.

The motion has been withdrawn.

I thought we were amending the bill.

Is there any further discussion on L9? Seeing none, the question before us is the passage of L9.

Those opposed, no. The ayes have it. L9 passes. Rep Clifford.

Is there any further discussion? Seeing none, the question before us is the passage of the judiciary report as amended.

Those opposed, no. The ayes have it. the Judiciary Report as amended passes. Rep Clifford.

We want them to be able to make effective decisions quickly They meet four times a year and as a result this is what we came up with And I request your aye vote Is there any further discussion Seeing none the question

House Bill 1321 by Representative Stuart R. Hamrick, also Senator Cutter, concerning modification of the school security disbursement program.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I move House Bill 1321 in the Education Committee report.

Thank you, Madam Chair. In the Education Committee, we thought that the timing of the grant disbursement was going to be affected by having a petition clause, so we added a safety clause. It turns out that actually, that was probably the wrong move, So we are actually asking for a no vote on the Education Committee report to strike the safety clause and go back to a petition clause. So again, I'm asking for a no vote on the Education Committee.

No.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I move L-8 to House Bill 1321 and ask that it be properly displayed.

Thank you, Madam Chair. L-8 is reflective of a lot of the conversations that we had in the education committee, as well as some additional conversations with the Office of School Safety and the Office of Public Safety. It reflects some loosening of the requirements around organizations that provide, oh, let's see, do-ba-doo, incidence response, violence prevention, and behavioral health. And we are changing the ands in that sentence on line 13 to be ors to provide a little bit more flexibility for organizations who may provide incidence response and behavioral health, but not safety response and vice versa. and let's see we are also adding in a prioritization of organizations who are going to provide the services for free or low cost but we are removing the requirement that the services be provided for free and i would ask for an i vote is there any further discussion seeing then the

Thank you, Madam Chair. This bill expands eligibility for program funds to nonprofit organizations that are based in Colorado. A nonprofit applying for grants must commit to providing its training to all local education providers, local law enforcement agencies, and other local first responders in the areas of incident response, violence prevention, or behavioral health. The bill also requires that the DPS disperse all grant money awarded for use in an upcoming school year, no later than August 1st. And this simple refinement guarantees that public grant money serves the broad public good through inclusive, high-quality training that prioritizes both prevention and mental health. I respectfully ask for your aye vote

Thank you, Madam Chair. I move the committee to rise and report.

Thank you. Thank you. . Thank you. Thank you. Thank you Thank you. Thank you.

Madam Speaker, your Committee of the Whole begs leave to report as under consideration the following attached bills being the second reading that are of and makes the following recommendations thereon. House Bills 1290 is amended, 1312 is amended, and 1321 is amended. Pass on second reading. Order and gross in place on the calendar for third reading and final passage.

Yes.

Yes. Oh, I didn't. Sorry.

I'm to adopt the report of the Committee of the Whole.

Yes.

No, ma'am.

Madam Speaker, I move to proceed out of order for third reading.

Madam Speaker, I move to lay over Senate Bill 43 until tomorrow.

House Bill 1233 by Representatives Lukens and Zocay, also Senator Roberts, concerning property tax procedures for non-residential properties.

The motion before us is the adoption of House Bill 1233 on third reading, final passage. Mr. Schiebel, please open the machine and members proceed to vote. Representative Lindsay, how do you vote?

Representative Lindsey votes yes. Representative Weinberg, how do you vote?

Representative Weinberg votes no. Please close the machine. With 38 I, 23 no, 4 excused. House Bill 1233 is adopted. Co-sponsors. Representative Lindsay, co-sponsors. Please close the machine. Mr. Schiebel, please read the title to Senate Bill 128.

Madam Majority Leader. Madam Speaker, I move House Senate Bill 128 on third reading and final passage.

Yes.

No, ma'am.

No.

House Bill 1195 by Representatives Rodney and Mabry, also Senators Mable and Muleka, concerning restrictions on the use of artificial intelligence relating to psychotherapy services.

The motion before us is the adoption of House Bill 1195 on third reading and final passage. Mr. Schiebel, please open the machine and members proceed to vote. Representative Lindsay, how do you vote?

Representative Lindsay votes yes. Representative Weinberg, how do you vote?

Representative Weinberg votes yes. Representative Routenel, how do you vote?

Representative Routenel votes yes. Please close the machine. With 62 ayes, 0 no, and 3 excused, House Bill 1195 is adopted. Co-sponsors. Representative Lindsay, co-sponsors. Please close the machine. Mr. Schiebel, please read the title to House Bill 1324.

Madam Majority Leader. Madam Speaker, I move House Bill 1324 on third reading and final passage.

Yes.

No, ma'am.

Yes.

DeGraff.

House Bill 1235 by Representative Ferre, also Senator Doherty, concerning updates to the medical assistance program.

The motion before us is the adoption of House Bill 1235 on third reading and final passage. Mr. Schiebel, please open the machine and members proceed to vote. Representative Lindsay, how do you vote?

Representative Lindsay votes yes. Representative Weinberg, how do you vote?

Representative Weinberg votes no. Representative Rutnell, how do you vote?

Representative Rutnell votes yes. Please close the machine. With 44I18, no, and three excused, House Bill 1235 is adopted. Co-sponsors. Please close the machine. Mr. Schiebel, please read the title to House Bill 1288.

Madam Majority Leader. Madam Speaker, I move House Bill 1288 on third reading and final passage.

Yes.

No, ma'am.

Yes.

story

House Bill 1224 by Representatives Velasco and Basinecker, also Senators Cutter and Roberts, concerning financial protections for mobile home park residents.

Representative DeGraff. Thank you, Madam Speaker. Colleagues, this room has got to get out of trying to intervene and fix every other problem that it has made. Maybe we need to spend some time unfixing the problems that you fixed prior. Everything is for sale. If somebody owns a piece of property, it's for sale. At some level, it's for sale. Now, I just saw a picture of a house at an airport in Narita where the taxiways go around it because they decided it wasn't for sale. But really it was just not a sufficient offer hadn been made So we have regulations that are coming out of this room continuously that are forcing that are forcing and we know that are forcing individuals out of the rental space They are having to get out. And now you want to put more bureaucracy in the middle of a contractual arrangement. Now, we should just let every mobile home park know that the rules that are being promulgated in here are really encouraging those small to sell, to sell and develop and turn into some sort of high rise, which is obviously the preference in this. Basically stacking up more shipping containers in which we can house the citizens of Colorado. So this is what the citizens have is we have, and the government is here to protect, the purpose of government is to secure these rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness to ensure that life, liberty, and property are not deprived without due process. and then we stick bureaucrats in the middle of this because, and I get it, I don't like the idea that somebody is going to be uprooted from a property that they've been on for a long time, but that's not going to be solved by putting a bureaucracy in the middle of a contractual arrangement. So I would encourage mobile home parks, the residents of those parks to make an offer. To make their offer first, if they're interested in buying this property, they should do all of the things that are laid out in this bill, they should do in advance. And then they would have, not expect that the property owner is just going to be sitting passively. Because if somebody comes to them and offers them a better price, it could be that they had that property as a means of, say, paying for their retirement. And if the only way, and at some point they're going to sell it, and they're going to sell it to the highest bidder. Unfortunately, based on the preference of the developer preference that has been promulgated in the rules out of this house, that is not going to be necessarily those people that are in that mobile home park. Because the mobile home park is not going to be able to offset the cost with the number of mobile homes as they can if that property is developed because now you've made it possible to skip all of the processes and then you can build high-density Calcutta Rado-style housing. So a mobile home park, by your rules, is not going to be able to compete if the people themselves want to maintain the property to which they become accustomed on living. And so now after creating these rules, now after seeing the result of these mobile home parks probably selling to get out, and the property having an increased valuation because now they can bypass zoning and they can build houses, they can build properties that are smaller denser and have none of the restrictions that they did before which left the mobile home property in probably a lesser valuation So now you created the environment whereby these properties are worth more if somebody buys them, if somebody buys out a mobile home park, and now because people are selling out because their property is worth more to build something besides a mobile home park, that people are selling to not be a mobile home park, and now you're upset, it seems like maybe there's some not happy with the results of the unintended consequences, which aren't always unintended, but the unintended consequences are the displacement of mobile home parks. And so now the solution is to create the precedent where the government is now the arbeiter, is now the referee in this sale. So this, I think, is this need for the bill is a result from, well, specifically, prior legislation in the same vein. That was meant to solve housing, and now here we are. Now you're displacing the people, and now you come back and say we want to help them and what's your help? Is it creating a better market? Is it lowering the price of housing? No. You still have things like asbestos. You have regulation. We just added regulation that's going to add $25,000 per property. That doesn't make property more affordable for these individuals. We have the asbestos regulations that we could get rid of but are going to cost the state of Colorado an estimated $20 million to $40 million per year. We're not going to roll those back to federal levels that we're working just fine. What we're getting the solution is always more taxes, more fees and more regulation. And then as we saw yesterday with the regulation, another bill is going to add about a thousand pages to the building code. And it's not even code that we've written. So always this is a natural, I see the need for this bill as a natural consequences of your prior bills. and the prior bills leading up to this, transportation-oriented housing, getting rid of the family occupancy limits, all of those things, moving density from like 6 to 15 to 40 units per acre, all roll into this. They make these mobile home properties a more lucrative target as long as they get rid of the mobile home park. So, yeah, if you live in a mobile home park, citizens of Colorado, just know that the prior legislation targeted you, your property, and they want you gone.

Yes.

No, ma'am.

Yes.

Senate Bill 105 by Senator Henriksen, also representatives Martinez and Morrow, concerning county coroners and a connection therewith requiring coroners to disclose their financial interests in regulated businesses.

The motion before us is the adoption of Senate Bill 105 on third reading and final passage. Mr. Schiebel, please open the machine and members proceed to vote. Representative Lindsey, how do you vote?

Representative Lindsey votes yes. Representative Weinberg, how do you vote?

Representative Weinberg votes yes. Representative Rutnell, how do you vote?

Representative Rutnell votes yes.

Please close the machine. With 62 I, 0, no, and 3 excused, Senate Bill 105 is adopted. Co-sponsors. Representative Lindsey, co-sponsors. Representative Routnell, co-sponsors. Please close the machine. Madam Majority Leader.

House Bill 1196 will be laid over until tomorrow. Mr. Schiebel, please read the title to Senate Bill 122.

Madam Majority Leader. Madam Speaker, I move Senate Bill 122 on third reading and final passage.

Yes.

Yes, ma'am.

Yes.

Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I move to lay over Senate Bill 144 until tomorrow.

Madam Speaker, I move to lay over Senate Bill 109 until tomorrow.

Senate Bill 104 by Senators Listan and Snyder also Representative Clifford concerning requirement to install exterior key boxes at schools

The motion before us is the adoption of Senate Bill 104 on third reading and final passage Mr. Schiebel please open the machine and members proceed to vote Representative Lindsay how do you vote?

Representative Lindsay votes yes Representative Weinberg, how do you vote?

Representative Weinberg votes no. Representative Routenel, how do you vote?

Representative Routenel votes yes. Please close the machine. with 42 I 20 no and three excuse Senate bill 104 is adopted co-sponsors representative Lindsay co-sponsors please close the machine Mr. Schiebel please read the title to Senate Bill 121

Madam Majority Leader Madam Speaker, I move Senate Bill 121 on third reading and final passage.

Thank you, Madam Speaker and members. I know that I have taken up a lot of your time on this bill, and it's for a reason. I wouldn't just fight against a policy unless I felt and believed and knew that it would fundamentally have negative impacts and harmful impacts to communities. I want to just read a part of a letter that many members in this chamber sent to the director of the Division of Labor Standards and Statistics when Senate Bill 87, which has been discussed a lot in this bill, was being contemplated. This was in an attempt to, again, raise the threshold of overtime to 60 hours and as well finding an idea of a compromise for it to be 56 hours, which is exactly where we are today. Contrary to the spirit of Senate Bill 87, the proposed carve-out from daily overtime perpetuates the inequitable treatment of agricultural employees dating back to unconscionable race compromises during the New Deal Moreover the initial overtime threshold of 60 hours does not protect the health and welfare of employees nor does the 56-hour threshold applicable to small and highly seasonal employers. The seasonality exception for 22 weeks would most likely be used from July through November, the hottest and smokiest time of year, encompassing the entire duration of most seasonal workers' employment. Rather than provide meaningful protections to agricultural employees, the proposed rules simply reformat the exceptional treatment through a complicated overtime system with high weekly thresholds and no daily rights to continue to create unique difficulties for agriculture employees seeking workplace conditions equal to those provided to other employees. What led to this was the adoption of the rules that gave agricultural workers 48-hour threshold before they could start to earn overtime. The fact that we are coming back without continued Colorado-based data that built on the research that led us to our current practices right now is concerning to me. the idea that by raising the overtime threshold will give an employee more hours that they can work is somehow going to save the agricultural industry is astonishing to me if we want to save our local, our family farms, our small farms like we've been debating over the last two days, then why would a direct cash tax credit not be the answer to these small farms? Why is giving them the opportunity to keep somebody on their time card longer without any cost savings the answer? there is zero cost savings in this but there is increased chances for injury increased cost because of increased injury for small farms and their workers comp insurance when you have injured workers and if they even report the injury, that's if they report the injury, then you lose out on productivity. We all know that productivity diminishes with every additional hour you are on the clock. That is for brain labor and that is certain for manual labor. these protections are in place to protect farm workers these protections that we were barely able to put in place in 2019 and 2021 were to correct a harm that was caused during the new deal that targeted black and brown workers? Why would we want to erase the work that this state that the General Assembly has done to correct racism This body, maybe not everyone in here, but this body stood up before to this, fought back against this before. Let us be that body that is on the right side of history and do that again today. I ask for a no vote.

Thank you, Speaker. I do agree with the sentiment of the bill sponsors. I'm not trying to question their motives here. I really am not. I believe that in the world that they live in, that this is the way that it works. But the workers in the fields, this is not the way it works. And so I would love to see workers get overtime at 40 hours in the fields. I would. It's just not a possibility because these farms can't afford it. These workers move from fields to fields. And when you move from one field to another field, by the way, your hours start over. This isn't like one big company that hires all these people to work in all these different fields. It's not the way it works. They're moving from field to field because that is the point of this. And I can tell you, and I gave the story yesterday, I don't want to filibuster, I don't want to take a lot of extra time, just to say again, I have worked in the fields with these people. I have picked many vegetables. I have picked corn and onions and all kinds of things in the fields with these people. I love these people so much. We've had ministries and outreaches to these people. If you try to stop this and you move it from 56 to 48 and then over five years to 40, the only thing you're going to do is you're going to take food from the people's table. I know this. I have been there. I know these people. I have picked with them and then had lunch with them. I know this. You are going to hurt them. I am doing the best I can at the point of begging please do not stop this bill this is going to hurt people I know the intentions are fine and if you and you guys have been in here long enough to know if I thought their intentions were nefarious I would say it I'm not worried about that I think their intentions are good it will never work this way and you're going to take food from people's tables please, please, please do not do this You need to vote yes on this bill.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I don't think everybody was in here yesterday when I read a letter from one of my constituents. He's actually a really, really smart dad in my school where I was last an administrator. and he's not the kind of man to be coerced by his boss. And so I think it's really important that his words are on the record. And I read most of the letter yesterday. Omar, I'm going to read it again. Dear members of the committee, my name is Omar, and I've spent the majority of my life working in agricultural sectors here in Colorado. I currently work on a diversified farm operation in Weld County. I'm writing today in support of Senate Bill 26-121. Since the full implementation of Colorado overtime rules I have personally experienced adjustments from my employer in my allotted work hours thus resulting in less take pay than I have normally made during certain times of the year I also know other agriculture workers who have experienced the same limitation in hours worked since the overtime requirement has gone into effect. Although done with positive intentions, the overtime requirements are impacting all of our families negatively. Our elected officials must understand that the agricultural industry is not like any other industry. Those of us who have worked and continue to work in the industry do it because we love the work we do and the overall gratification that we get from producing food and fiber that then benefits our communities. Of the personal impacts my own family and community has experienced, the loss of take-home pay has forced many to turn to working two or even three jobs to make a living and support their families. Again, I ask you to support Senate Bill 26-121. Kind regards, Omar. Omar, I just wanted to make sure that everybody hears your words, how important it is. I urge a yes vote on 121.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Members, I wanted to just speak again in regards to what I mentioned yesterday, and I will start by thanking the sponsors for the service to their community, as well as how they have just clearly demonstrated that they are just advocates who believe in their neighbors. And they are also people who have welcomed people like me into their communities to understand their issues. I want to point out and notice that, you know, I do know yesterday was a long day. but I do believe the debate and the time spent on it demonstrates the issues and the concerns and the importance of this topic to our communities because I got to say if anyone wanted to run a bill for example on segregating schools I'd stand up here for 90 hours and so I want to thank everyone for the debate and demonstrate why this is a difficult topic and why we should talk about it I will say that having been here in 2021, when we voted on the bill to support farm workers to now in 2026, I am particularly listening to what is the difference in circumstances to which we are now responding to. And the argument that I have heard the most is talking about the financial stressors and strains on the industry. I was here when we decided what a work week should be, given the context of the type of work. And I think the reason why we're having that conversation is because farm work is difficult for everybody, but for the farm worker, I just want people to understand. There is a distinct physical impact that occurs in this type of work that is different. According to physicians, they are concerned about the long-term impact to muscles, the curvature of spines, and whatnot. So this is a particular type of work. Most of this work is done outside. And so when we're talking about overtime, we're not just talking about numbers on a sheet. We're talking about... how it impacts bodies. Then the people who work in this space typically make $25,000 a year, which means when they seek health care for those things, this is an average. It's not all the time. I apologize. Right? Okay. Even for a range, we're not talking about more than $60,000 to $80,000. And the reason why I bring that up is for all the things that we use to determine indigency or support for things like health care. So at the end of the day, this also costs everybody because of what we know to be true about the type of work. Furthermore, when we, right now, overtime is at 48 hours, and we looked into the data, 38% of farm workers are working overtime. So there is a way to understand the math about the hour change. And this is why I want to go back to what my colleague from Adams County said. If the argument is about finances, then tell us how much we're talking about. Because to live in a world where we are confronting our values, so much so that they were demonstrated by X amount of hours, X amount of stories, X amount of fill in the blank, we should be in a place to understand what we're talking about to give some of us in this room a chance to help solve this problem. I do believe it was an opportunity for all of us as this entire chamber in this building to say we believe in Colorado growers and ranchers and farms. And can we all have an opportunity to respond to the environment? And more importantly, can we have the information to do that? So if this is about costs, tell us how much it is. Can we support without saying a worker who we know is impacted with X amount of money, time, physical impact has to take the brunt of this? It is true what our farmers are facing. Costs are up. Margins are small. There is no argument about that for me. The community that does this work is incredibly important to the identity of this state. There is no Colorado if we do not have Colorado ranchers. There is no Colorado if we do not have Colorado dairies. There is no Colorado if we do not have Palisade peaches and melons from Rocky Ford. There is no Colorado without those things. We need to find a world in which those farms can be sustained so that they can offer ours, yes. But when we are faced with this challenge, especially over the last four years of The Only Difference, we should have an opportunity to address it where we do not pit those against each other because costs are going up for everybody. Whether you are a farmer or farm worker, milk is the same price, unless you're out of dairy. So we cannot operate to lower the income of one side when we know the costs are going up for everybody and not think that's going to impact us as well. We will have another budget year talking about health care. And so I think it fair to say what is the problem and how are we trying to solve it Because this may not be it And lastly I say this If it is about conditions the conditions are highly measured The commodities markets we are aware of, we know what the impact is of lack of rain or water. Maybe we'll get an easing up of tariffs or whatever it is. And so we did not have an opportunity to make this conditional either because when we vote on this, this is for all time. It is not for when we are facing these issues. There is not a difference in this bill between seasonal workers and year-round workers. In fact, I did not see what it is that we value for farm workers to keep our farms alive that are matched by conditions that we can actually control in this building. And so lastly, members, I do want to address what we're talking about by impact because I do believe that the laws that we have and the treatment of this space is different and it is rooted in bias. But I'm not going to say that is the intent of our sponsors. The concern that we have is it is clear who is in this industry. And when we limit their opportunity to earn, that means we limit their opportunity to build wealth and to take care of their communities. And factually speaking, critical mass of this community now who does this work has stayed the same. I am still afraid to buy grapes because of the work of what happened five decades ago and the impact it had to certain communities. And so when we hear commentary from leadership talking about whose bodies are built for this type of work, we can't walk around ignoring that. But what we do have the opportunity to do is be conscious of the space and figure out how we can lean in. Because what is also true is there also is a critical demographic that is in farm work and who runs and owns the farms. And so to whatever extent we have to recognize what our eyes see and what we factually and statistically know to be about the space, we should take every effort, every effort to mitigate those harms and think about, think about how we can meet people where they're at to maintain all of those goals and good values. And so on behalf of my side of the aisle, we do believe that we value labor and good wages. And what I will meet is there has to be an opportunity to actually do that because there is a business. But if we have other levers, we should pull them.

And so I want to end with anybody who's done a work, even for a day. Whenever I got in trouble, we used to say cotton picking as a cuss word. Anybody ever pick cotton? It hurts. It's thorns in the ball. And so the truth of the matter is, all of us have stories about this. But the question is, how do we solve the problem? The question is not the problem. The question is how we solve the problem. So I have faith in this body that we can do it together. But we might need a different approach than what been proposed here And we have the best people trying to solve it all at the same time Thank you body

Thank you, Madam Speaker. And I'm going to come at this a little differently than what others have spoke about. You know, I listened all day yesterday, and I had put my little business hat on. You know, across the entire nation, you know, we have different pay structures. We have commission only. We have hourly plus commission. We have low wage plus tips. We have salaried people who will work 100 hours, but they still pay the same salary. And there's straight pay and et cetera, et cetera. This type of industry has, like the restaurant industry and corporate industry, they have their own type of pay structure. And this is it. This bill right here supports that pay structure. And the kicker is, is during committee, workers actually came into committee and they were asking for this bill. They were begging for this. They were saying, hey, we want to stay at the same place to be able to work longer. It's up to us how much money we want to make. It's up to us how many hours we want to work. and so worker after worker after worker came in, and they spoke. They want to be able to work. They're okay with this. They're actually asking for this. I say we don't limit them. I say we give the people who are actually doing this type of work what they are asking for. It's their industry. It's their time. It's their money. They understand it completely, and I think that we should do what they want. It's not what we want. We can put our feelings on our sleeves. We think of it from our own industries. But this is theirs. They get it. They understand it. They work it. They live it. They want it. So I'm asking for a yes vote today. Because think of all the different pay structures. They chose this one. It's what they want. Who are we to tell them what they want? They already told us. I'm asking for a yes vote please

Thank you Madam Sears it's an honor to serve with you It is an honor to serve with you Colleagues I know this third reading and I wasn't going to add to the marathon yesterday but since we're doing this again I thought to bring up one point that hasn't been heard at least I haven't heard is I don't fault the sponsors one bit because they're answering to their constituents. But I think a factor we need to consider is the people we're trying to help here aren't really constituents of any district because most of them are migrant farm workers. And as they've been talking about, they move. They move from place to place to place. They don't have the political power of being in one place and having voting power. It's not the same. So us looking at the situation and deciding that we need to take some kind of action, I think, is appropriate. So trying to just defer to whatever the constituents want, in this case, when we have a labor pool that doesn't have the political power to defend themselves because they are mobile, makes the balance of power out of whack we hear well that not what they want that not what they want Well that what they would say about the serfs in Russia constantly that was there for hundreds of years The labor costs going into the final product I don't think is a massive amount for the final product. And I kept hearing the argument, well, this is a commodity market. We can't decide the price we're going to get, so we really have to be able to slam down our labor costs. Well, steel, coal, rubber, they were all commodities when they did the Fair Labor Standards Act, and they all got protections. So I think we do need to protect this group. When we say it's tradition, it's how we've always done things. Churchill had the famous statement after he became first lord of the admiralty and wanted to get rid of all the sailing training when the royal navy had the greatest sailors in the world and all the admirals revolted said this is something that's tradition we have to spend all this time and his response of course was rum sodomy and the lash are all great traditions of the Royal Navy, meaning that just because something's been done that way forever doesn't mean it's the right thing to be doing now. Things need to change, and I understand that this has been the way for the agricultural community forever, but that's why I'm going to be a no, is I think it's time for us to change. Thank you.

thank you madam speaker just hit start all right yeah sure these individuals migrant workers are not technically constituents but they do fall under the all created equal endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights among which are life liberty and the pursuit of happiness and these individuals are mobile let's say they just live in mexico they don't necessarily have to live in, they could be from other countries, but that's, and the allusion to that, the allusion to serfs, serfs were part of the property. There was no, that was, serfdom is more in lines with socialism, where you have no property, and you have, where you've successfully abolished private property. These migrant laborers are engaging in the free market, and they are looking for a place where they can maximize the value of their labor. God bless them. So let's look at the math because math, I always like this quote, math is the language with which God wrote the universe. And I teach my students that it's a language that helps you understand the reality that's before you. So let's look at the reality that lies before you because this math tells me that this is a pro-migrant bill. So let's look at the reality that lies before us. In Mexico, the average wage is somewhere between $17 and $24 per day for an ag worker. So let's just call it $20 because I like easy math because $20 a day kind of corresponds with $20 per hour, which is where they're making. Now, the minimum wage in Colorado is $15.16. so that little specificity of 16 cents not just calling it 15.25 something rounded but that 15.16 those 16 cents add up is what we're saying that's why it's 15.16 and not 15 so $20 an hour that does reflect a level of that physical toil because somebody that's standing at a retail counter is not putting in the same physical demand on their body as somebody that is out in a field. So we have some of that compensated already and we compensate it. So why would a migrant worker come here and exchange their time and effort and time away from their family to make a daily wage every hour? Why would they do that? Now, we have some of the equivalent. Like we'll have like oil rig workers, and they'll go out for a month at a time or something like that because that's the nature of the job. They get paid. They get compensated. Somebody comes to the United States to work in a field. They get $20 an hour instead of $20 a day, and they can do that eight days a week. Eight days a week. They can do that for eight hours a day, right? And so let's look at if we have a set amount of work. And you say that 56, let's say we have 56 hours per worker right now. We'll take that and you say, okay, the farm can do that. Now, we do need to solve the problem, but don't say, don't push off the, if you want to solve the problem of why the farmers have low margins, if you want to solve that problem of why they're selling their water in order to keep up with the taxes on their land. Well, let's solve that. Don't push that off and then just say, well, we should solve that someday. But let's just look at 56 hours times 6 workers is 336 hours. Now, if you step that back and you go back to what we have now, that 8 hours would be overtime, so it costs more. So what you'd have is you'd say, well, if this was a pro-farmer bill, you would say 48 hours actually works more in that favor because 336 hours would be 48 times 7. Now the benefit for that farmer, for that ag owner, is that if you're working 7, because everybody has said that the individuals are going to be more productive and more safe for that 8 hours, that they're not working. So now the farmer has to be taking on an additional level of risk in order to make that happen. So what he's going to be inclined to do is hire an extra worker. Well, that puts a demand on the labor force, but what does that do? Well, that means that that ag worker is not going to work those eight hours that week.

Representative DeGraff you have one minute remaining

Representative Clifford.

Representative Johnson.

Representative Velasco.

Representative, you have 40 seconds remaining.

Representative Richardson.

and it worked for nearly 150 years. As I said, we waded into that as a legislature to try to fix something that was not broken, and we broke it. We heard an offer earlier today that let's just throw money at the problem, as if we have money that isn't taken from the pockets of the people we're saying we're trying to help. That is not a fix to a problem. and I know it's hard because we made the problem now we're trying to fix it but it's something we didn't need to fix to start with farming is hard, ranching is hard the people that grow up in that life the people that choose to pursue it as their livelihood are good people. There are bad actors, I'm sure. There are bad actors in every industry, in every sector, in every room. But the people I know, workers and those that employ them alike in agriculture, are good people and they're humble people. And they're humble people because they are humbled almost on a daily basis, certainly on an annual basis. They're humbled by the weather. They're humbled by lack of rain. They're humbled by too much rain. They're humbled by blight. They're humbled by disease that moves through herds. They're humbled by the things they know they can't control, and yet they keep working. You hear it a lot. It ain't much, but it's honest work, and that applies to everybody that we're talking about here today. these are people on both sides that are trying to do well for themselves their families and their communities whether they're moving away from their communities for a short period of time to work each year or whether they're trying to sustain a community here in Colorado we've heard a lot about wages and very little about earnings and earnings is what important here you know every day we work a long day here our hourly rate is really low But some days we take off early and our hourly rate would be fine, but our earnings stay the same. I just ask you to think about some of those things. But I do want to talk a little bit about my district. where agriculture is not just a talking point. It's the backbone of the economy. It supports families, small towns, local businesses, the way of life that still matters deeply in rural Colorado, and we're trying to think that we can fix rural Colorado from this room. It is the backbone of our state, and it's under a lot of strain. in the seven county region that i represent we've seen the loss of farms the loss of farm production and yes rising economic pressure on the operations that remain well the value of economic production in my district has risen the cost of producing has gone up tremendously and yes worker cost is one of those input costs folks that run businesses need some flexibility to best address what they're facing and they can do this in coordination with their workforce we're taking away the ability to coordinate to work with the people that are employed that's kind of the context that i see this bill in and it's been said a lot that agriculture and i think everybody understands it some from looking at it from the outside some of us from looking at it from the inside but it doesn't run on a 9 to 5 schedule livestock doesn't care what the clock says even if you have pets when the clock's changed they still wanted to be fed when they were hungry not when the clock just changed they've got to be fed, milked, monitored and cared for every day most of the farming in my region is grain, it's largely mechanical, but we have a lot of folks that work in animal care and livestock care. And a long time ago, 88 years ago, we're still talking about it today, the government did decide that agriculture didn't fit neatly into a model built for other industries, and that is something that we're struggling with. And if you're familiar with other industries, I think we all try to kind of put things in the boxes we're familiar with. If this is one of those areas you're not familiar with, it doesn't fit neatly into a box. When we get it wrong, and I think we did a few years ago when this was originally passed, now we're trying to fix it. Nobody's winning. There's a lot of people here that are angry at each other because we're looking at the problem from different sides. There's no reason to be angry with one another. Nobody's trying to hurt anybody in this building. We're all trying to help. But we also have to recognize that sometimes when you try to help, you break something. And we've got to admit that and sometimes let others fix what we broke. when producers can't absorb the added costs that they're seeing they do what they have to do they make savings where they can first just about every one of these employees takes the hit themselves they absorb all the costs they can to the point of taking losses before they cut into workforce pay That is generally the absolute last thing you want to do. You've got people that come back to you year after year if you are a good employer. You want those good workers back. They are treated as members of the family. visiting members of the family for months at a time sometimes permanent members of your family depending on who you're employing and what you do but by making these steps or refusing this bill we are cutting into the earnings the overall earnings that people can make and that does matter

the bill is not anti-worker it's actually just pro-reality We need flexibility. We need to be able to adjust where we have to in order to keep farms and ranches operational and to have jobs for people to seek out. If we're serious about protecting rural Colorado, we need to stop forcing one-size-fits-all policies down the throat of this industry and every other. We are doing a lot of damage in this building. We've done a lot of damage by trying to throw money at problems that doesn't fix them. It just allows them to grow under the surface. So let's put the fix back in the hands of those that know this industry best. Let our farmers and ranchers decide and our workers decide together what's the right amount for somebody to pay for the labor that they are giving. Please vote yes for this bill.

Thank you Madam Speaker. First off, I just want to say that I believe that the bill sponsors believe they're doing the right thing. I disagree with them. And to the bill sponsor from the San Luis Valley, I show up in your district over and over again. I visited farms there. I hear the concerns and I know you are trying to help the people in your community and respond to your constituents. Farm workers remain to this day fully excluded from federal overtime protections under the Fair Labor Standards Act. Every other hourly worker in America qualifies for overtime pay after 40 hours. Farm workers do not. The United Farm Workers spent decades fighting that legacy, organizing in the face of violent oppression, marching, fasting, because farm workers had been deliberately cut out of the protections every other hourly worker had. Their fight was not just about wages. It was about the proposition that a person who harvests our food deserves the same protections as the people who build our cars. And today, we are being asked to move in the opposite direction. Here in Colorado, we have approximately 30,000 farm workers. Their median annual income is between $20,000 and $25,000 for full-time work in an industry that is often seasonal, meaning they often earn far less. Colorado farm workers earn roughly half the average wage of all workers in this state 21 live in poverty roughly twice the national rate despite performing some of the most physically demanding dangerous and essential work in our economy And I want folks to hear from farm workers directly who had put in comments with the Department of Labor and Employment when we were crafting this overtime rule. Alfondo said, I worked an average of 60 to 90 hours a week where I did not receive not even a single dollar of overtime pay. In addition, we are verbally abused by our boss if we tried to defend our labor rights. An anonymous farm worker from the San Luis Valley wrote, Working overtime has affected my mental and physical health. I feel guilty not being there for my family. Always tired. Stop treating us like indentured servants. We are people with family and children. I want to name what this bill means for health and safety. Farm workers are six times more likely to die on the jobs than the average American worker. Research shows that mortality rates rise nearly 20% as weekly hours increase. Circe Leone, a health prematura working with Colorado farm workers, describes seeing workers with constant pain and mobility impairments due to muscle fatigue who resort to daily ingestion of painkillers and even alcohol. When we raise the overtime threshold to 56 hours, we are telling workers they must absorb more hours of dangerous, physical, brutal labor before receiving any premium for that added risk. Now, I want to address the economic arguments we hear against this bill directly. We are being told two things that, to me, cannot be true at the same time. First, that farms are in financial distress, and they cannot afford a little bit of extra pay for overtime. Second, that workers will earn more because this threshold being lifted will let them log more hours. Those arguments contradict each other. If farmers can't afford overtime, why would they be able to pay people to work more hours if they are really at the margins? We are talking about $15 an hour. If they are really at the margins, that argument makes no sense. The rational response is going to be to keep workers under the threshold no matter what it is. The farm saves and the worker earns less money. We have data on how this is already working, and it's not. 55% of dairy workers and 70% of livestock workers in Colorado are already exceeding the 48-hour threshold. But only 38% of those workers are actually receiving overtime pay. 38% of the 55% of dairy workers and 70% of livestock workers are getting the extra pay even though they have earned it. That is wage theft. Are not getting the extra pay. That is wage theft. And it does not paint a picture of something that is likely to make or break an industry. The financial pressures on farms are real, but they come from a broken economy. economy. They come from tariffs, collapsing commodity markets, a war driving up fertilizer costs, federal relief flowing overwhelmingly to mega operations. Under the Farmer Bridge Assistant Program, the largest 5% of farms receive 41% of all bailout payments. That's not caused by overtime pay or workers. Manuel Barone is a Colorado landowner and farmer, He said during the 2021 rulemaking process that 40 hours is dignified, a solid week's worth of work. People who are not underpaid and over-exhausted perform better. That is not science. It is humanity. He is a farm owner. He said it was on him to figure it out. It is on me to figure out. So when supporters say small farms are suffering, I believe them. My response, address the actual causes, challenge the tariffs, reform the subsidy programs, funding dollars to mega operations instead of family farms. Don't cut worker pay. Asking farm workers earning less than $25,000 a year to solve farm financial distress by forfeiting overtime is not a solution. It is a transfer of wealth from the poorest and most vulnerable workers to their bosses. I also want to be honest about the political dynamics here. Senate Bill 121 has been driven by owners and industry groups, not by the workers whose wages are at stake. 70% of farm workers are foreign-born. Under this administration, immigration enforcement has created real and documented fears in the agricultural communities across the state. Patricia, who is an ESL teacher who works with Colorado farm workers, described workers who cannot take a night class to learn English because they work so many hours. Workers who are threatened against speaking to advocates and fear they won't be hired back if they accept help. These workers are afraid. My best friend is a workers' rights attorney. One of his clients last year, an immigrant, was told by their boss when she complained about not being paid for work that she did that she could get a bullet in her head or a call to ICE if they asked for their pay one more time. This industry is dominated by migrant workers. This community is under attack and terrified. And now we are looking to cut their pay at this moment in this country? The people who are most afraid to stand up and advocate for themselves out of fear of retaliation. Another farm worker who commented on 2021's rulemaking asked a question that I can't shake. There are times of the year when farm workers are working 60-plus hours a week, and they deserve to make the same overtime pay as any other worker who's hustling during peak season. Think about a retail employee who's working in a warehouse in December. Why do retail and warehouse workers deserve overtime pay in the Christmas season but farm workers in the harvest season do not? Workers deserve equal protection under the law. All work is dignified, and there is no reason to give one group of workers fewer protection than the rest. The farm workers who spent generations fighting for these protections, who organized when it was dangerous, who marched when they had nothing, were not afraid. The least we can do is hold on to what they want. Democrats should not pass legislation that cuts pay for vulnerable workers in our state. That's not who we are. And a key question I keep coming back to is what will be the legacy of this legislative session? What will be the legacy of the 75th General Assembly? If we pass this bill, part of that answer will be cutting pay for farm workers. We will have made it harder for the most vulnerable workers in our state to qualify for wages that they had already won. I am a strong no on this bill, and I urge my colleagues to join me.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I rise in strong support of this bill. Members to quote John F. Kennedy, who said, the farmer is the only person in our economy who buys everything at retail and sells everything at wholesale and pays freight both ways. These words have always echoed with me throughout my entire life because of the impact of the unique situation of the American farmer the Colorado farmer They treated completely differently the farmer and the farm worker because the dynamics are completely different in agriculture. I hail from a small farm town in rural western Colorado. My legislative district has close to 3,000 acres of orchards, including the famous Palisade peaches, 1,000 acres of grapes. 3,000 acres of Olathe sweet corn, some in my district, some in Repsukla's district. We also have alfalfa for cattle production. There's beets, onions, potatoes that are also grown. What we know is that over the last five years, throughout our entire state, 1.6 million acres of farmland has been lost. We also know that agriculture is on eggshells right now in our state. I had one farmer tell me it might be best if we just send all our water to California where they have the large corporate farms, they construct the food back to us, and we'll pay California rates for it. Maybe it's better that way. I like to think that we produce a better quality in Colorado, using Colorado workers on Colorado soil, supporting Colorado's economy. The last thing I want to do is to create a situation in which Colorado's farmers can't make it, and the only result is to sell out for the value of the land and water, with the latter being probably more valuable. And the large corporate farms that can farm year-round using high-tech equipment in Southern California will be our access to food. That's not the future I want. Ninety percent of Colorado's farmers are only paid in an 8- to 12-week period. I want to quote that again. Ninety percent of our farmers are only paid in an 8- to 12-week period. How often are you paid? Well, I happen to know the answer. We're paid every month here in the legislature. We don't worry about having to float for, what, nine months, not knowing what happens over that time. Or how about if there's a weather disruption? like this year, the year without winter. A farmer now who was paid in 2025 in that 8 to 12 weeks is having to float what they may have made throughout this year going into next year. And heaven forbid, we see a freeze. I read the weather, and we are slated to have a bad freeze both here on the Front Range and over on the West Slope. Farming is incredibly difficult and is perhaps one of the few members in this chamber who has been a farm worker. For eight summers I worked picking Olathe sweet corn. I can tell you from 4 a.m. to mid-afternoon we worked hard. My brother and I were perhaps the only Caucasians on the crew We made at least in our opinions quite good money We knew that it was hard work. We volunteered for the job. But we also knew that the intensity was over relatively quickly. Harvest season is very quick, and then it's over. You're wanting to work as hard and as long as you can to fill your back pocket with as many dollar bills as possible. Both then and still today, I know many migrant workers. They all happen to be from Mexico, but that's not exclusively the country of migrant workers, obviously. And they have told me, I just want to work many hours, fill my back pockets with cash, and go back home, because they also own farms in their home country. They invest what they make in the United States back in their farms and with their families back home. Having lived long enough to get to know now a second and third generation of some of the farm workers, I have actually had the pleasure of knowing several of them who have been able to send their kids to schools here in Colorado. You watch as a migrant labor program has actually uplifted an entire country, one where now an opportunity has emerged, one where those kids are not remaining in agriculture. I think some of their parents might like them too, because they're also worried about the legacy of their family farms in their home country, just like we're dealing with in our state. We have an aging agricultural community. Our farmers aren't getting younger. The average age of a farmer is now hitting their late 50s. the continuation of farms in Colorado is looking pretty bleak to tell you the truth the next generation of Coloradans look at the financials they look at the struggle that their parents have been through and they say there's no way I'm going to be a farmer we need to think about the farming community. The fact that whether you're a farm laborer or the farmer themselves who labors, they're all out there together. There's not this owner class and worker class. We have farmers. And I think it's important that we don't just distinguish it between the two. They're farmers. and a farm laborer is a farmer. And when I talk to my friends who come here every year, we don't talk in terms of, oh, you're a migrant worker, you're a laborer. No, they say they're a farmer and they're proud to be a professional farmer. That's what they're incredibly proud of. and I believe it's also a little bit demeaning to try to create this strong separation because this is all a choice members as we vote today I would encourage you to think about the unique situation of farming It's not like factory work. It's not like working in a warehouse. This is where you have a short burst of intensity in the harvest season, and then, surprisingly, it's relatively quiet, not without continual work, but certainly the number of hands needed are not as strong. But you also have lots of downtime in farming, time that you can't really quantify. That warehouse company or that widget factory, they're going to be expecting certain outputs all the time. But imagine you're a sheep herder on the Uncompahgre Plateau. How do you quantify when you're out there for three months at a time, protecting the herd of sheep, watching. How do you quantify that?

Thank you, Madam Speaker. And that's the uniqueness of agriculture. That's why it's not like any other industries. You have downtime that's still being paid for, but then you also have intensities, a time that is being paid for. So I'd strongly ask for a yes vote. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. It is an honor to serve with you. It is an honor to serve with you. Folks, this is the first time I've gotten up here on this. I've been a no vote for a long time, and I haven't wavered, but I wanted to take the opportunity to explain why. I do appreciate the sponsors bringing this very important topic forward, and I honestly feel like we all care about farm workers. But when my colleague from Denver asked if anybody had picked cotton, my hand shot up because I have. Granted, it wasn't for a very long time, but I did get the technique down. And I did spend time when I lived on a kibbutz in Israel weeding those cotton fields, so unfortunately that's the extent of my agriculture work. But I did spend my whole career with a master agreement as an educator. And that master agreement were negotiated wages and working conditions. Our farm workers don't have master agreements. We've heard how hard it is on their bodies. We've noticed that they haven't testified. we feel mostly because it's out of fear and because they're afraid but the bottom line here is that they have very few protections for what they do I love Olathe sweet corn I love Rocky Ford melons I love Palisade peaches and I've drank a bottle of wine from Palisade too but the point here is that it's on this it's left to us, this body to protect those workers And voting no on this bill is a way to protect them, and that's why I am a no. So thank you.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I rise in support of this bill, and I want to give a shout-out also to the representative from Denver for noting that this bill resulted in quite a bit of deliberation yesterday, deliberation that I believe we should have on most every bill, and so I will take the opportunity to support the notion of principled discourse from the well as we flesh out the impacts of any particular policy, this one being roughly three pages, on the people of Colorado. In 2021, I represented House District 47, which at the time encompassed portions of Pueblo and Fremont counties as well as Otero County. And so I had the pleasure of meeting the Naps and the Hirakatas and the Hannigans. There's the Jenkins and the Colons, the Musos and the Maros. And when that bill was being debated, I had some folks in my office who are explaining to me their farming and the community that they have established. There are folks in that district who have been farming for generations, who own the farms in Colorado, but also families who have been farming those farms for generations that have crossed the border to do so. There are Coloradans who married the migrants. There are migrants who are the godparents of the Coloradans. And it is genuinely, for many of these farms, a family. And so it pains me to hear of some of the stories that have been shared and I would venture to say that because we've heard the exact same example today and yesterday that one example that it's probably a one-off

Representative Luck, you have one minute remaining.

Representative Wilford.

Madam Majority Leader.

Assistant Minority Leader Winter.

AML Winter, you have one minute remaining.

I know it's a tough decision. It's hard to do. All I can tell you is I'm committed to working on this next year and the year after, but waiting one more year is it... 100 more farms? Is it 200 more farms? I don't know. Do we come back next year and it's 2 million acres? Do we come back next year and instead of 3,000 farms, it's 4,000 farms? That's not the side of history I want to stand on. So I'll be a yes today.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. It's an honor to serve with you. It is an honor to serve with you. Members, agriculture depends on workers. Agriculture depends on workers. Over the last five years, we've seen growth in protections for agriculture workers that have been established in this state. We are one of only four states that have codified these protections into statute. And these are amazing things. from setting state minimum wage standards, which if anyone's asking, 15, 16 an hour here, so we are not affected by what's happening at the federal level, establishing meal and rest breaks, overwork protection, prohibiting short-handled tools, and of course, the right to organize. This has also made farm work a competitive industry Many farm workers, starting pay is above minimum wage, and in my area, between $20 and $22 an hour starting pay for the seasonal work, which if you do your math for four months is roughly about $20,000 in four months in that seasonal period. many are offered vehicles for personal use cell phones bonuses and housing as a part of their employment contracts this shows that call that colorado values farm workers and have valued them and have made massive strides in employment equitability since 2021 but a lot has occurred since then we've seen historically low commodity pricing rising operational cost and fuel fertilizer and equipment, tariffs, and of course I would be remiss if I didn't mention the historically low snowpack that has led to a shortage of water in the San Luis Valley. All this requires pause and a call to evaluate the effectiveness of Senate Bill 87 in regards to overtime pay, and the data shows that farm workers are making less than what they did before that bill passed. I have the unique opportunity to represent both Latino farmers and ranchers and farm workers. I have Latino farmers and ranchers that have been working in this land since before Colorado was Colorado. I have generational farm workers that come back year after year after year, including their sons, their nieces, their nephews. Let me be clear. This bill is not about competing interests. When farm workers succeed, the farmers succeed. I want to talk a little bit about why this is so important and why I'm doubling down in this space. The other industries, we are losing farmland. In the San Luis Valley, in the last 10 years, we've removed a quarter of our agland out of production. It never going back in We don have the water We invested million of our own money to making sure that we have water sustainability which means that already our farmers are growing less, which means that they're hiring less, or not at all. Some of my Latino farmers and ranchers aren't even hiring anybody because they're working two jobs just to sustain and pay the taxes on their farmland. That's not beneficial to workers. These Latino farmers and ranchers that have been affected by this have survived. Their business has survived Spain, Mexico, New Mexico, and Colorado, and they're at risk of closing. Those voices matter too. Let me be clear how this is affecting. Working at multiple farms and ranches just to earn the same wages is neither fair nor equitable to the farm worker. These are the workers that I've heard from. And the intent of the overtime provision in Senate Bill 87 was intended to have farm workers earning more. And that's not happening, and the data shows that. The farm workers that came and testified in committee were not coerced. There were no bosses present. when I've talked to them, they did it under their own free will because they wanted to advocate for themselves and their colleagues. What do we risk if we do nothing? I argue you're going to get corporate farms that are going to buy up this land at best. And they're not going to give a damn about their workers because it's all going to be about the bottom line. What do we have here? 80% of our farms that are owned in Colorado are family-owned farms today. If you do nothing, that's where you're pushing the industry to. I was told yesterday that I did not accept an amendment that was going to be directly feeding into farmers to help them out. We did the math. It's about $2,800 for every farmer. That's not enough to cover the diesel overage costs that have been here, including for a month, let alone to really make a difference. And why is that? Here's the data. Two years ago, the city of Aurora saw a farmland that was failing in Otero County, and they purchased that farmland. and does anyone want to take a guess at what that cost was? Oh, that's okay. I got it right here. $80 million just for their water rights. $80 million as a public entity, a public entity that made that purchase to purchase up water rights in Otero County to have it pumped up here. We're not even talking about the water developers that are coming after the water in my neck of the woods because they're a private equity firm and they have more money and they don't have the restrictions that they do. So we don't have that kind of money in the state to be able to making sure that these are protected. And the other bit to it, we have been trying our best to figure out how to subsidize the farmers with what we have, agrovoltaics, being able to lease out land to being able to help them out and cover some of these overage costs. This is a little outside, so right after I say back to the bill Madam Speaker but we do not see the investment in rural Colorado million for a mile to get a transmission line to get that solar energy out No, it's too much. Oh, it's too expensive. Oh, you have a couple passes. Oh, we can't really put that investment in now. But we'll sure be okay with it when your water's taken for front-range development. That is the reality that we're facing. You have all of these things that can be true in the same space. And I will never apologize for coming and fighting for my district because these are the realities that we face. It is a hard balance. In 2021, we took a positive step in solidifying protections for workers. And we now have a level of responsibility to adjust when it is not working. they aren't having these conversations in texas montana and florida even though they're dealing with the same things that we've been talking about the last couple days because they don't have the same standards that we do they're paying their workers seven dollars an hour they're at risk of losing all or seeing seeing the tank in the market from the federal government because they're even in more fluctuation but they're paying their workers less and there's no protections for those workers. This is why we were elected. We have to make the tough decisions for Colorado. And I have been and always have been committed to improving wage theft for ag workers. That's why I ran the amendment. And if there are any other improvements on that, I am happy to have those conversations. Life happens outside of the metro area. and that life matters. As this debate has shown, I will fight like hell no matter what issue it is to make sure that my people in my area are taken care of. Senate Bill 121 is an attempt to make the best out of the situation that we find ourselves in and I hope that you'd be willing to have the same fight if your district was in crisis. Vote your conscience, vote your district and don't forget about Rural Colorado.

Yes.

No.

no

yes ma'am

Thank you, Madam Speaker. The House Education Committee will be meeting at 1.30 in room 107, no matter what. We will start at exactly 1.30.

Members, today is World Semicolon Day. For those that don't know, it was started back in 2013 to commemorate people who, despite tough times, decided to continue to prevail. So I have been very advocate, very vocal about suicide awareness and prevention and the warning signs. So today I drew a little semicolon on my wrist to commemorate that. You know, I've had a lot of friends, I'm sure you have too, that you hear who have maybe contemplated self-harm or just in the world we live in today with depression and anxiety. It's a very cold world. And so it's okay to talk to somebody. It's okay to break the stigma. We have a lot of work to do in this space. and so I encourage you all to, my call to action to all of you, is just reach out to somebody who may be troubled. I'm here to talk to any one of you. I respect all of you, and so I know sometimes we have things that we keep bottled up, and it's okay to talk to somebody. So on World Semicolon Day, it gets better, and I'm glad you're here, and I appreciate everybody. I think we've got to break the stigma, especially when it comes to mental health. So World Semicolon Day is April 16th.

Madam Speaker, I move to lay over the balance of the calendar to Friday, April 17, 2026.

Madam Speaker, I move the House stand in recess until later today.

Thank you. Thank you.