It’s not surprising that union members turned out in force on the Capitol steps Thursday to rally against Jared Polis’ vetoes of three labor-friendly bills that passed with ease in both houses of the state legislature.
And it’s not surprising — and I say this with appreciation, as an old-time labor activist — that the rhetoric got, well, heated.
In fact, The Sun’s Unaffiliated newsletter called it a “hate-fest” and noted that, along with chants of “Shame on Polis,” expletives flowed freely.
What was surprising, though, and also maybe #$%@ing significant, was how many Democratic legislators and other officeholders showed up for the, uh, hate-fest.
I’m pretty sure that, say, state Treasurer Dave Young, who was there, didn’t offer up any Polis-directed expletives. But the fact that he, Secretary of State Jena Griswold, the state Democratic Party chair, Democratic majority leaders from both houses and maybe two dozen other legislators joined the rally at all must have caught Polis’ attention.
Polis has vetoed six bills from this legislative session (his record is 10 from last session). As Colorado governors go, Polis is fairly heavy-handed in threatening to block legislation as bills are being shaped. He’s definitely a believer in the strong-executive mode.
And if Polis really dislikes a bill, as we saw with the proposed bill to ban the sale of assault-style weapons, he can usually make sure it never comes to a vote.
But these vetoed bills did come to a vote. And these vetoes are very much a statement that the governor, as putative leader of the Colorado Democratic Party and as a likely presidential hopeful someday, intends to keep a progressive legislature in check.
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And yet, I’m old enough to remember when Polis, a libertarian-minded businessman, was considered by many to be a radical.
Hey, I can even remember a 2018 gubernatorial debate in which GOP candidate Walker Stapleton called Polis “radical” exactly 13 times, just in case anyone missed the point. And yet, most voters — few of them radical — must have missed it because Polis won easily that year. And in his last election, against the vacuous Heidi Ganahl, Polis won by 19 points.
It’s true Coloradans of late nearly always elect Democratic governors — in fact, for all but two terms over the past 50 years — but they rarely, if ever, elect radicals. Most Colorado governors are moderate Dems. See: Hickenlooper, John; Ritter, Bill; Romer, Roy, etc.
And Polis, despite his progressive credentials back in his days in Congress, definitely fits that moderate model, to the disappointment of many Colorado liberals.
I’m not sure which of his vetoes was most egregious, but I’ll mention two that particularly riled labor leaders, who are, of course, traditional supporters of Democratic candidates.
The first is House Bill 1008, the wage-theft bill that was designed to offer protections for construction workers from disreputable subcontractors who cheat workers out of their wages. The vetoed bill would have made contractors directly responsible for the wages lost to those cheating subcontractors that they, of course, had hired.
The bill was a labor priority, and it’s one that is similar to laws passed in 10 other states. Many of the victims of wage theft are minority workers, who, despite laws already on the books, have had trouble being made whole from subcontractors who cheat on overtime or other payments or who, when the job is finished, simply disappear.
But a concentrated lobbying effort by a coalition of contractors coordinated by the Associated General Contractors of Colorado persuaded Polis to veto the bill. In his veto letter, Polis agreed that wage theft was a “deplorable crime,” and noted that he had signed many bills during his tenure as governor addressing the issue. But he added that going after often-innocent contractors for the sins of subcontractors, who wouldn’t be held responsible under the law, would be ineffective and counterproductive.
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Not surprisingly, that’s exactly what the contractors’ lobbyists were saying. Everyone seemed to agree that cheating workers is deplorable, horrible, awful — pick your own adjective — but what about the poor guys who own the businesses?
Polis said he had offered the bill’s sponsors other options, but that they had refused. The sponsors, meanwhile, fired back that the lobbyists were depending on their ability to influence Polis, who objected to the fact that construction companies — as their lobbyists strongly noted — were being singled out when wage theft hits many industries.
But one Denver Democrat, Rep. Javier Mabrey, told The Sun that Polis’ vetoes showed the “power of the corporate lobby” to overwhelm priorities in the Democratic-controlled legislature. And bill sponsor Rep. Meg Froelich, D-Englewood, told Colorado Newsline that the contractors’ desired changes to the bill would have rendered it “useless.”
Another bill vetoed by Polis, House Bill 1260, would have allowed employees to skip mandatory meetings on “political and religious” matters. This seems like a fairly simple matter of freedom of speech vs. freedom of choice. Why should workers be subject to reprisal if they refused to hear employer lectures on politics or religion?
But in his veto letter, Polis said the bill was “so broad” in its definition of political and religious matters that it could lead to dreaded “unintended consequences.”
Generally, bills like this one are meant to stop employers from demanding their employees show up for lectures against the dangers of forming unions. And interestingly, Polis said he would have signed a bill that prevented employers from doing just that.
Of course, there are bills and there are bills, and we don’t know how limited a bill on mandatory anti-union meetings would have to be for Polis to actually sign one.
But here’s a guess. Both of these bills, passed with huge majorities, will be back next session, and Polis will have another chance to show his pro-union cred. Or not.
And if Polis does run for president someday, as I suspect he will, he knows Democrats don’t win, even running in the moderate lane, if they don’t have union support.
In any case, it’s a welcome sign that progressives in the Democratic legislature have so visibly shown their unhappiness with the vetoes to the governor and to Democratic voters. Under Colorado law, when a governor vetoes a bill after the session has ended, legislators have no recourse other than to make their objections known.
Well, objections have been registered, the gauntlet has been thrown down, and now we must wait to see whether legislators can show the same kind of backbone during the next session — which, I have to say, is hardly a sure thing — and whether Polis will care.
Mike Littwin has been a columnist for too many years to count. He has covered Dr. J, four presidential inaugurations, six national conventions and countless brain-numbing speeches in the New Hampshire and Iowa snow. Sign up for Mike’s newsletter.
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