The only news legislative leaders are willing to share about negotiations over the future of union organizing in the state is that they remain ongoing as the 2025 lawmaking term slowly winds down.
They’re framing the simple fact that Colorado’s labor movement and business community are still talking about the Labor Peace Act as a big positive.
“Every day that we stay engaged is a good day,” said House Speaker Julie McCluskie, a Dillon Democrat who is helping lead the talks. “What I think is important is that we stay at the table.”
But it has been about three months since Senate Bill 5 was first introduced and it hasn’t been amended even once.
Senate Bill 5 would abolish a rough 80-year-old requirement in the Labor Peace Act that 75% of workers at a company sign off before a union can negotiate with an employer on union security. Union security is the term used to describe when workers are forced to pay collective bargaining representation fees whether they are in a union or not.
Democrats likely have the votes to pass the legislation as is. But Gov. Jared Polis has all but said he will veto the bill unless a deal is reached between business and labor.
“My yardstrick will be: Does it bring business and labor together in support of a way of organizing that’s more stable and does it preserve the right of workers to be able to have a say in whether union fees are required to be deducted from their paycheck?” Polis said.
So far, however, the governor’s office isn’t playing a role in the dealmaking.
“I, as well as my team, are happy to talk to both legislators as well as the business community — as well as labor — to see if there is a constructive role for us to play,” he said. “We’re open to playing whatever role we can. If there’s a pathway to get to something that can become law, we’re open to be as active or passive as the times indicate.”
But the governor also suggested that labor is the holdup.
“The business community has proposed several changes,” Polis said. “There’s absolutely a victory for labor, if they will simply take it.”
Loren Furman, president and CEO of the Colorado Chamber of Commerce, said the business community has offered three proposals to labor that would reduce the 75% threshold required for the union security vote and compress the timeframe between the simple majority vote to form a union and the vote over whether to begin negotiations over union security.
“The business community feels as if we came to the table with legitimate offers,” Furman said. “We have been really working in good faith to try to find a path here.”
Furman said she’s negotiating alongside the Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce, Colorado Concern and the Colorado Contractors Association, among other groups.
The sponsors of the bill and union representatives have so far declined to discuss businesses’ proposals, saying they don’t want to litigate the issue in the media. So it’s unclear if labor has made any counterproposals or why they rejected the ideas from business groups.
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CORRECTION: Friday’s edition had an incorrect list of the candidates running for Colorado GOP chair. They included former state Reps. Richard Holtorf and Lori Saine; former Routt County Treasurer Brita Horn; and Darcy Schoening, the state party’s director of special initiatives. Horn won the race.
NO REASON TO NEGOTIATE?
There are incentives for both business and labor not to give up anything in the Senate Bill 5 talks.
The business community knows Polis almost certainly won’t sign the measure unless there are changes. And labor knows that the governor will only be around until early 2027. There is also the distinct possibility of a costly ballot measure fight.
State Rep. Javier Mabrey, a Denver Democrat and lead sponsor of the bill, hinted at the political dynamics when talking to reporters recently.
“I’m confident that Michael Bennet would sign it if we’re unable to get it done this year,” Mabrey said, a reference to how Bennet is expected to announce a 2026 gubernatorial bid soon.
But Mabrey also said a deal is still possible in 2025.
“I’m committed to getting this done this year,” he said. “I believe that we can meet the moment here in Colorado. I think that there’s space for us to make a deal that people are happy about and that the governor will sign.”
Furman agrees.
Senate Bill 5 awaits a hearing in the Senate Appropriations Committee. McCluskie didn’t have any information last week on when that hearing may happen.
The 2025 legislative session ends May 7.
THE BIG STORY
Colorado’s marijuana budget still “doesn’t make any sense”
In 2019, the Joint Budget Committee had had enough.
Marijuana taxes were being tapped to pay for too many things, lawmakers said. And it was time for the legislature to impose some discipline on how those dollars were spent.
“Right now, it just kind of is a piggy bank that folks look to when they want something funded,” then-Sen. Dominick Moreno, the former Joint Budget Committee chair, told The Colorado Sun at the time. “It has become a pool of money that you can just raid.”
Seven years later — even after multiple rounds of cuts — the Marijuana Tax Cash Fund feels as sprawling as ever, paying for more than 50 programs across a dozen departments. And the JBC’s exasperation level may have reached an all-time high.
“Nothing paid for by the Marijuana Tax Cash Fund makes sense,” JBC Chair Sen. Jeff Bridges complained at one point last month.
“Some of it does,” he conceded a moment later, “but a lot of it doesn’t make any sense.”
Marijuana tax collections had already declined 41% from their pandemic peak last year. When the state’s revenue expectations were revised downward again in March, it triggered another round of last-minute cuts to marijuana-funded programs. As a result, Bridges, a Greenwood Village Democrat, is now calling for a line-by-line review of the fund this summer and fall — part of a long list of state expenses the JBC plans to put under the microscope when it’s not contending with legislative deadlines to pass a budget.
The budget panel cut $16 million from marijuana-funded programs, including substance abuse prevention and cannabis research. They also eliminated a $20 million payment to BEST, the state’s public school construction grant program.
Rep. Rick Taggart, a Grand Junction Republican, wanted to go even further, calling out a series of line items for potential cuts.
“I don’t know what concurrent enrollment has to do with marijuana,” Taggart, a Grand Junction Republican, said at a March hearing. “I don’t know what trial court programs have to do with marijuana. I definitely don’t know what consumer protection and antitrust have to do with marijuana.”
Most of the cuts on Taggart’s list proved a bridge too far for JBC Democrats, who said that even if certain programs didn’t have a logical connection to marijuana, they all provided public services of some value.
Further complicating matters, many of the programs that don’t sound like they have anything to do with marijuana actually are related to the drug’s legalization. (The committee members’ predecessors, after all, have spent years culling the list of the most questionable expenses.)
The consumer protection funding, for instance, was actually approved in 2022 through Senate Bill 205 — legislation aimed at cracking down on intoxicating hemp, a product whose proliferation has contributed to the drop in legal marijuana sales.
In 2019, the JBC wanted to restrict marijuana tax dollars to two areas: education and the opioid crisis. Since then, opioids have faded as a political priority. But lawmakers remain interested in some sort of new restrictions around marijuana spending.
“There will be a conversation about (the Marijuana Tax Cash Fund) this interim,” Bridges said in March. “We are going to dig through this, look at what’s funded (and) perhaps think of a different approach to MTCF generally.”
BUDGET PACKAGE
The 2025-26 Long Bill was introduced in the state Senate on Monday, along with 63 other bills that make up the $43.9 billion state budget proposal.
Of that, nearly $17 billion is general fund spending. Another $13.9 billion comes from the federal government, with the rest coming from cash funds. (The budget bill itself reports nearly $47 billion in spending, but that includes $3 billion in reappropriated dollars that are double-counted.)
The list of companion legislation, known as orbital bills, is especially long this year. As part of its budget cutting, the JBC scrapped a number of programs created by the legislature, pared back others and swept a number of cash funds into the general fund in the search for money. You can see the full list starting on page 132 of the long bill narrative.
JUDICIAL OMBUDSMAN
The saga of the judicial discipline ombudsman continues.
As we reported previously, the JBC’s budget proposal claws back funding from an ethics office that the legislature never set up. But in a reversal from their initial discussions, the JBC opted against running legislation to repeal the office entirely. That buys the rest of the legislature time to decide whether they still want to hire an independent ombudsman — and whether it’s still enough of a priority to pay for it.
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THE POLITICAL TICKER
CONGRESS
U.S. Rep. Gabe Evans, R-Fort Lupton, is scheduled to host a telephone town hall at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday.
Register to attend here.
FEDERAL CAMPAIGN FINANCE
Adam Frisch has converted his federal congressional campaign account into a political action committee.
The Aspen Democrat, who ran unsuccessfully to represent the 3rd Congressional District in 2022 and 2024, recently transitioned his campaign account into the WinTheCenter PAC. His campaign account had nearly $240,000 in it at the end of 2024.
Frisch is also the director of electoral programs and the finance chair of the Welcome Party, another PAC that works to elect Democrats.
STATE CAMPAIGN FINANCE
A new state-level super PAC, Colorado’s Mountain PAC, formed last week with the purpose of helping Republican candidates running for office.
Meanwhile, Yes on Local Control is an issue committee formed last week to support a 2025 ballot measure that would make Douglas County a home-rule county.
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THE BIGGER PICTURE
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