Colorado bill would roll back farmworker protections in response to Supreme Court ruling
Visitors walk around the Colorado Capitol on the first day of the 2025 session of the Legislature on Jan. 8, 2025. (Lindsey Toomer/Colorado Newsline)
Colorado lawmakers are moving forward with bipartisan legislation that would roll back a protection in state law for farmworkers after an adverse U.S. Supreme Court ruling, over the objections of some advocates who question whether the repeal is necessary.
Members of the Senate Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee voted 5-2 on Thursday to advance Senate Bill 25-128, with two Democrats, state Sens. Jessie Danielson of Wheat Ridge and Janice Marchman of Loveland, opposed.
The bill would repeal a provision in state law guaranteeing access by 'key service providers' — including medical personnel, attorneys, legal advocates and clergy — to farmworkers on private agricultural properties during off hours. That protection was passed by Democratic majorities in the Legislature in 2021 as part of a larger piece of legislation known as the Farmworkers Bill of Rights.
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SB-128's Senate sponsors, Democratic Sen. Dylan Roberts of Avon and Republican Sen. Byron Pelton of Sterling, say the 'cleanup bill' is needed after a 2021 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in the case Cedar Point Nursery v. Hassid, which found a similar access provision enacted in California unconstitutional.
'This isn't a fun bill to run,' said Roberts. 'It's not something that Sen. Pelton and I are celebrating as a big, exciting thing to do here at the Legislature. But it's the responsible thing to do, my opinion, to protect the spirit of the larger law, and also honor the oaths we take to the Constitution.'
The bill would leave intact the vast majority of the wide-ranging 2021 farmworkers' rights measure, which also guaranteed agricultural employees the right to unionize, mandated meal breaks and rest periods, and much more.
But some farmworker advocates argued in Thursday's committee hearing that it's premature to fully strip the key service provider protection from state law. The Supreme Court's ruling in the Cedar Point case specifically concerned access for union organizers, making Colorado's access law meaningfully different, especially given its inclusion of health care providers.
'A lot of these farmworkers are in remote locations and working incredibly long hours, so it simply is not an option to run to the pharmacy on your lunch break or to go to the doctor,' said Valerie Collins, an attorney with progressive group Towards Justice.
Instead of repealing the protections, Collins said, lawmakers should direct the state's labor department to craft new rules 'based on the holding in Cedar Point, and based on the need of workers to access health care providers,' and potentially let further litigation play out from there.
'That could address some of the nuances that we're seeing here, and try to shape some of the parameters, rather than just wholesale eliminating all of these options,' said Collins.
But Jim Manley, state policy chief at the Pacific Legal Foundation, the conservative property-rights group that challenged the California access law in the Cedar Point case, insisted in testimony before the committee that the Supreme Court's ruling clearly invalidates Colorado's version of the law.
'The holding in Cedar Point is quite broad,' Manley told lawmakers. 'The court held that the access regulation 'appropriates for the enjoyment of third parties … the owners' right to exclude.' So it applies in a broad array of contexts, even though the factual situation there was narrower.'
Before advancing the bill, the committee adopted an amendment proposed by Roberts at the request of farmworker advocates, which included language to preserve service providers' access to employer-provided housing.
Following the Cedar Point ruling, the Colorado Livestock Association challenged the key service provider law in state court in 2023. That lawsuit is pending, and Roberts argued that a legislative fix now could prevent 'collateral damage' to other parts of the Farmworkers Bill of Rights in the future.
'There is (a) likelihood that at some point a court here in Colorado will hear this case on the merits,' he said. 'It could go all the way up and could result in a decision that strikes (down) more of this law than we're trying to fix here, which would be worse for workers.'
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