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Colorado Chamber of Commerce assesses 2023 legislative session

By Marianne Goodland June 12, 2023 | updated 2 years ago

The Colorado Chamber of Commerce Monday released its review of the 2023 legislative session, and while they raised concerns about the deterioration of Colorado’s economic competitiveness, “the number of bills that made their way to Gov. Jared Polis’ desk that significantly bother business leaders were surprisingly few.”

“We are seeing a direct correlation of the deterioration of Colorado’s economic competitiveness based on laws and regulations that continue to be adopted by state leaders and the competitiveness data and surveys we’ve conducted,” Colorado Chamber President and CEO Loren Furman said. “The outcome of this legislative session required a great deal of work and collaboration to ensure that Colorado’s business climate did not further deteriorate.”

The chamber cheered the defeat of measures such as the Fair Workweek bill (House Bill 1118), which backers said would lead to more predictive scheduling and fairer work hours but that businesses said would have led to fewer available jobs for workers, lower pay, and less flexibility and would have driven businesses out of the state.

“The restrictive scheduling bill was one of the worst bills for business we’ve seen from the legislature in years, and that was reflected by the significant backlash from business owners across the state,” Furman said.

HB 1118 died on an 8-2 vote in its first committee hearing, with four Democrats voting it down along with the four Republicans on the House Business Affairs & Labor Committee. 

Bills the chamber supported included those boosting worker pipeline programs, such as House Bill 1246, which requires the community college system to administer an “in-demand short-term credentials program” in early childhood education, law enforcement, fire and forestry and construction; as well as creating two new short-term degree nursing programs at community or technical colleges.

The group also supported Senate Bill 205, which creates a scholarship program for Colorado high school graduates that prioritizes awards for students pursuing high-priority postsecondary degrees, certificates, and registered apprenticeships.

Both measures are needed to “upskill workers,” particularly as the state has experienced a 10% drop just since 2019 in the number of high school graduates seeking any kind of advanced degree or certificate, the chamber said in its report.

While the chamber supported the need for more housing, particularly for workers, it was less than enthused about Polis’ signature housing proposal, SB 213, which died on the session’s last day. Chamber officials said their members pointed out the bill failed to reform construction-defects law “that continues to make it easy for condominium owners’ associations to sue builders and, in doing so, scares most builders away from putting up condos.”

The chamber opposed both the rent control legislation in HB 1115 and the proposal creating a right of first refusal for local governments, allowing them to purchase older apartment buildings for affordable housing, in HB 1190. 

The group also cited its work with lawmakers and other business groups “to transform potentially seismic bills into ones that are likely to have much smaller impacts on businesses’ operational abilities,” such as the POWR Act (SB 172), which redefines harassment in Colorado’s anti-discrimination laws, removing “severe or pervasive” from the definitions of a discriminatory or unfair workplace practice. The chamber said in its report the law is unlikely to result in a “floodgate” of lawsuits.

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Marianne Goodland

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