January 20, 2015 09:29 AM UTC

GOP Takes Aim At Colorado Civil Rights Law

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• by: Colorado Pols

An MLK Day guest column by Colorado Sens. Morgan Carroll and Lucia Guzman in the Aurora Sentinel blasts state Senate Republicans for introducing a bill last week to repeal a significant piece of job discrimination law passed in 2013:

On the day before MLK’s 86th birthday, Republican state senators introduced a bill (SB 15-069) to eliminate the “Job Protection and Civil Rights Enforcement Act of 2013,” which was passed to ensure that all workers are protected from discrimination and harassment on the job. At the time, Colorado was one of only eight states that did not have laws to punish businesses with fewer than 15 employees who discriminated against their workers based on race, sex, religion, disability, or sexual orientation. The bill that passed in 2013 expanded civil right protections for all Coloradans, not just those who worked in big businesses…

The Republican bill introduced last week would erode Dr. King’s legacy and take Colorado back to an unfortunate chapter in our history where it was legal to discriminate. Discrimination unfairly costs people jobs, which is damaging to our economy. Women continue to trail behind their male counterparts in pay for the same work. In Colorado, Latinos and blacks live in poverty at rates much greater than whites, and more single women live in poverty than men. The 2013 bill put teeth in our existing anti-discrimination laws, while the 2015 bill would neuter the advances we made. Why in the world would we want to move backward toward a pre-Civil Rights Act world in 2015?

State Rep. Joe Salazar, a co-prime sponsor of the 2013 bill, noted the hypocrisy of attempts to mask malevolent action through messaging.

“On Friday (Jan. 16), when the House of Representatives honored Martin Luther King, Republicans stood and quoted him magnanimously on the virtues of civil rights, while at the same time introducing a bill to get rid of the Job Protection and Civil Rights Enforcement Act of 2013. It’s very apparent that they cannot comprehend the words, actions and deeds espoused by this great civil rights leader. We should feel sorry for them that they don’t understand, after all these years, what civil rights really mean.”

In 2013, Republicans in the Colorado legislature bitterly fought the passage of House Bill 13-1136, facetiously renaming it the "Trial Lawyers Employment Act" and the "Sue Your Boss" bill. But over time, it became clear in the debate and news reports that Republicans were primarily basing their case on the dubious assumption that "most discrimination claims aren't valid anyway"–actual words one business owner used as a surrogate by Republicans damagingly let slip. Rep. Perry Buck proudly told of a case in her own life of job discrimination, where she chose to quit rather than sue because "I choose to work where I want to work"–seemingly oblivious to those for whom that choice would have, you know, consequences.

Even after the fit Republicans pitched over passage of the bill in 2013, we're still surprised to see this repeal attempt. It's a fact that Colorado was one of a minority of states that hadn't closed this loophole allowing some businesses to discriminate against their employees. There's just no way to message their intent here in a way that looks good to the public–unless you're targeting a fairly narrow segment of the public who really thinks it should be okay for businesses to discriminate against their workers. Of all the fruitless "rollback" repeal battles Republicans are set to take on in the current legislative session, this is one that seems sure to result in more bad press than it's worth.