I’ve been spending time at two websites, State Bill Colorado and the legislative section of Colorado State Government. Both are good places to find the bills that are being considered in the current legislative session. The state website is all business, and lists information about each bill, including who is sponsoring, which committee is reviewing, and detail about votes. State Bill Colorado provides the same information with a little editorial comment and quotes from legislators. They also print the governor’s schedule and tips for dining.

Already the list is long, but one that caught my eye was a bill requiring drug testing as a condition of eligibility under the Colorado Works Progam. If the worker fails the drug test, they would be eligible to reapply in a year, 6-months if they go through a substance abuse program. This is HB 12-1046, and the sponsors are Rep. Sonnenberg in the House and Senator Brophy in the Senate. Jerry Sonnenberg is a rancher with experience in land and water issues.  Senator Brophy also represents a rural district. Both are Republicans.

I have to wonder if this legislation wasn’t handed to the two Republicans over the summer by ALEC. They have been trying to increase drug testing both in the workplace and for people on welfare. A similar bill was passed in Florida, where it became under attack for two reasons: The Governor owned a company that did drug testing and 96% of all people tested passed the test.

In Colorado, there is another wrinkle—medical marijuana. Does this mean that if someone has a medical marijuana card they need not ever apply for any assistance programs, because they will fail the drug test? Medical marijuana may not be legal under U.S. codes, but it is legal under the Colorado Constitution. The state has even been balancing its budget thanks to fees paid by cardholders and dispensaries.

The proposed bill tries to soften any blow to the innocent children of people who fail the drug test. Their benefits would be continued if there was someone who could pass the test and manage the family’s finances. And you thought the GOP was about small government? What have you been smoking?

Homework

State Bill Colorado

Legislature Home Page for the State of Colorado

HB 12-1046

Colorado Works Program

Blogger Writes About ALEC workforce drug testing legislation

Florida Newspaper Story About ALEC legislation supporting welfare drug testing

Nashville Blogger Reports on Results of Welfare Drug Testing in Florida

It has been interesting to watch the Middle East, and now Russia, protesting rigged votes and/or lack of access to the polls or the ability to vote for someone to truly represent the interests of the people. While that is going on in the rest of the world, Americans can’t seem to find any passion about voting, as evidenced by their failure to vote. Since 1960 in non-presidential election years, slightly less than 40% of registered voters actually vote. The result is slightly higher in presidential election years with a little more than 50% of registered voters turn out.

Given that background, it is probably no surprise that most of America is blissfully unaware of the frontal attack on voting rights that has been waged in 2011 by ALEC, GOP controlled state legislators and GOP governors. A couple of weeks ago, Erich Holder finally decided to lead a counter attack. It is interesting that his opening attack occurred in Austin, Texas—a state noted for playing fast and loose with voting rights.

In that speech, Holder made these comments (The entire speech is linked below, bold added by this blogger):

In 1965, when President Johnson signed the landmark Voting Rights Act into law, he proclaimed that, “the right to vote is the basic right, without which all others are meaningless.”

…despite our nation’s long tradition of extending voting rights - to non-property owners and women, to people of color and Native Americans, and to younger Americans - today, a growing number of our fellow citizens are worried about the same disparities, divisions, and problems that - nearly five decades ago - LBJ devoted his Presidency to addressing.

As Congressman John Lewis described it, in a speech on the House floor this summer, the voting rights that he worked throughout his life - and nearly gave his life - to ensure are, “under attack… [by] a deliberate and systematic attempt to prevent millions of elderly voters, young voters, students, [and] minority and low-income voters from exercising their constitutional right to engage in the democratic process.”

Since January, more than a dozen states have advanced new voting measures. Some of these new laws are currently under review by the Justice Department, based on our obligations under the Voting Rights Act.

…in October, the Justice Department objected to a redistricting plan in East Feliciana Parish, Louisiana, where the map-drawer began the process by meeting exclusively with white officeholders - and never consulted black officeholders.

…in Texas, just two months ago, the Department argued in court filings that proposed redistricting plans for both the State House and the Texas Congressional delegation are impermissible, because the state has failed to show the absence of discrimination.

We need election systems that are free from fraud, discrimination, and partisan influence - and that are more, not less, accessible to the citizens of this country.

…we filed two statewide lawsuits to enforce the requirement that voter registration opportunities be made available at a wider variety of government offices - beyond just the local department of motor vehicles.

We’re also working to ensure that the protections for language minorities included in the Voting Rights Act are aggressively enforced. These protections now apply to more than 19 million voting-age citizens.

I’d like to highlight three areas where public support will be crucial in driving progress - and advancing much-needed reforms. The first involves deceptive election practices - and dishonest efforts to prevent certain voters from casting their ballots.

…we’ve seen all sorts of attempts to gain partisan advantage by keeping people away from the polls - from literacy tests and poll taxes, to misinformation campaigns telling people that Election Day has been moved, or that only one adult per household can cast a ballot.

…during his first year in the U.S. Senate, President Obama introduced legislation that would establish tough criminal penalties for those who engage in fraudulent voting practices - and would help to ensure that citizens have complete and accurate information about where and when to vote…  Senators Charles Schumer and Ben Cardin will re-introduce this legislation…

The second area for reform is the need for neutrality in redistricting efforts.

One final area for reform that merits our strongest support … All eligible citizens can and should be automatically registered to vote. … modern technology provides a straightforward fix for these problems … It should be the government’s responsibility to automatically register citizens to vote, by compiling - from databases that already exist - a list of all eligible residents in each jurisdiction.

…Election officials should work together to establish a program of permanent, portable registration - so that voters who move can vote at their new polling place on Election Day.

Let me be clear: voter fraud is not acceptable … making voter registration easier is simply not likely, by itself, to make our elections more susceptible to fraud. Indeed, those on all sides of this debate have acknowledged that in-person voting fraud is uncommon …

Homework

Voter Turn Out from 1960 thru 2010

Eric Holder's Speech on Voting Rights

Voting Rights Act of 1965

ALEC Exposed

ACLU on Voting Rights

There is a new strategy among Colorado’s Republican legislators in their war against workers.  Laura Bradford is leading the charge to eliminate accrued leave and sick time benefits. Courts have protected these benefits, but the GOP and ALEC have started the drum beat to get rid of them.

Here’s the deal: If part of your employer’s policy is to allow you to earn sick days or vacation days, they are considered part of your compensation package. Sick pay seems to be treated differently than vacation pay under the law. If you don’t take vacation days, but rather save them up to use at a future point in time, they still represent money that is owed to you. If you quit your job or are laid off, all money owed to you, including the vacation time that you earned while employed, needs to be included in your final paycheck.  For Colorado State workers, both accrued vacation and accrued sick time is included in the final paycheck. I spent my whole life working in the private sector, where I left quite a few jobs. I always was paid for accrued vacation time, but never was paid for accrued sick time.

The State of Colorado’s official website has this to say. “Colorado wage law provides that vacation pay, earned in accordance with the terms of any agreement, is classified as wages or compensation. If an employer provides paid vacation for an employee, the employer shall pay upon separation from employment all vacation pay earned and determinable in accordance with the terms of any agreement between the employer and the employee.”

Charles Ashby, who happens to be my favorite reporter at the Sentinel, first reported on the impact of this policy on state finances in a story published a week ago. Since the crash of 2008, Colorado has paid out almost $60 million in accrued benefits, and owes almost $400 million to current state employees. I have been unable to determine how much of the $60 million already paid was for accrued sick time vs accrued vacation pay.  According to Ashby, current policy is that employees can accrue no more than 360 hours of sick time, which represents nine weeks of pay if each week is 40 hours long. Currently when they leave employment, they are paid for 25% of any sick pay that has been “banked.” That amounts to a little less than two and a half weeks worth of pay.

Both the Sentinel, in an editorial, and Laura Bradford have stated that the policy of paying for accrued sick pay must be stopped. ColoradoWINS has vowed to fight any attempt to change the current policy. I’m not privy to their employment contracts, so I don’t know if this policy is included in a legally binding document. Given the economic strain that the state is under, and considering the way that employees are treated in the private sector, paying for accrued sick leave is hard to justify.

But we need to look at the bigger picture here.  This is just the latest salvo in the ALEC and GOP war against workers. In January reporters discovered that ALEC was advising state lawmakers about ways to decrease pension benefits for state workers. Think Progress reported on their efforts to eliminate sick pay: “PR Watch obtained documents from ALEC’s 2011 Annual Meeting showing that one of the group’s committees — the Labor and Business Regulation Subcommittee of the Commerce, Insurance and Economic Development Task Force — focused its entire meeting on the issue of paid sick leave. Task force members, who are legislators, were given copies of a bill …”

Laura Bradford is a member of ALEC. Laura Bradford plans to introduce legislation to stop the payment of accrued sick pay for workers leaving the employ of the state.  This is just one more battle in the war against workers. 

First they came for pension benefits, then they came for sick pay benefits, then they came for vacation pay benefits… Anybody who thinks that we are not engaged in class warfare is dreaming. I’m standing with the 99% of Americans at the bottom and the unions that work to preserve our benefits.

Homework

Colorado Rule on Accrued Vacation Pay

Sentinel Story Abut Bradford's intent to introduce legislation

Story About ALEC vs Pension Benefits

Story About ALEC Working to Eliminate Paid Sick Time Laws Nationally

The Headlines today in both the Sentinel and the Denver Post are all about Colorado’s Governor calling the Speaker of the House and the President of the Senate into his office and telling them to stop messing around with the must pass regulatory review bill or he would call them immediately into a special session. Clearly that got the attention of the Republicans because they immediately backed off their position, removed a bill amendment that helped predatory lenders, and voted unanimously to approve the bill, thus ending this legislative session.

Now that the session is over until January of next year, we will be seeing more of our legislators at events here in the Grand Valley. When we do, we need to ask them to spend less time bickering and staking out no-win positions. We need to tell them to start focusing on jobs for Coloradans. We need to ask Steve King, Laura Bradford, and Ray Scott how much time they spend listening to ALEC instead of listening to us. (Back in February Steve King responded to an E-mail that I sent him that he would be guided by ALEC. Laura Bradford noted at a meeting I attended that she got legislative ideas at an ALEC conference in Washington. When Ray Scott was a candidate he once said he was surprised and disgusted to learn that there were people willing to write his legislation for him. He may or may not have been referring to ALEC.)

Speaking of jobs, Hickenlooper is going to a high tech company today to celebrate their jobs creation record. They help companies gather and report data to the SEC, which we should all be celebrating. By standardizing the reporting, the companies can spend less time on these regulations and yet investors will be able to read company reports knowing that information is reported uniformly across industries and companies.

Homework

GOP Backs Off--Session Ends

Predatory Lending

ALEC Writes Legislation for State Lawmakers

Hickenlooper Celebrates Rivet Software

It has been a really busy week for anyone trying to stay on top of current events. The Middle East is still imploding. Democrats in Wisconsin actually demonstrated a backbone and stood up for unionized public workers by fleeing the state. And Republicans continued speaking with one voice everywhere but in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Last night Richard Engle, Chief Foreign Correspondent for NBC news was shown reporting from the studios of CNBC in Bahrain. His comment was that usually the stories coming out of that nation were about business. Today Manama, the capital of Bahrain, looks more like a war zone, with families mourning their dead and tanks patrolling the streets after violent skirmishes in the city.

Bahrain is a tiny island country, but it is important to the US because it hosts the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet. The 5th Fleet is there as a show of force to Iran’s military leaders. (It is also only 26 miles from Saudi Arabia, and a four hour drive from the Saudi capital.) In the wake of the violence in Manama, the British government has been trying to decide if they should continue to export arms to Bahrain. Hillary Clinton asked the government to exercise some restraint.

Bahrain is a tiny country with a religious problem. It has a Sunni monarch and Shiite citizens. Expect some Glenn Beck Paranoia about the developments there. Saudi Princes might share some of Beck’s paranoia, as they are not likely to be happy if a fellow Sunni monarchy falls. Saudi’s Shiite minority happens to live in the oil producing areas of that country. Oh my!

Meanwhile, back in the US, Boehner has lost control of his House. Those dang upstart Freshmen Republicans just aren’t voting the way they are told, and yesterday voted down one of his personal pork perks. No problem with Colorado Republicans still staying in line, however. I have it on good authority that Senator Steve King listens only to the American Legislative Exchange Council when he’s looking at issues. If you haven’t heard about ALEC, you should research it. They write model legislation that promotes “conservative solutions.” It figures that King would be guided by them—he’s not known for his original thinking. I’m pretty sure that Laura Bradford and Ray Scott drink from the same well. Ask Laura about her trip to Washington DC to learn all about Red Cards.

There is a theory that ALEC is behind the events in Wisconsin. Clearly a lot of Republican governors are working to demolish unions. It has been a Republican mantra ever since Ronald Reagan took on the Air Traffic Controllers. But it looks as though unions are finally fighting back, especially in Wisconsin. What do Republicans have against unions? They write checks to Democrats. What I can’t figure out is what American workers have against unions.

Finally, I found a story in the American Thinker, a right leaning publication, about how our economic world is about to come crashing down. This represents the thinking of the right pretty well. Anything that helps business is good. Anything that helps workers is bad. You can find this stuff all over the internet, but this one had an amusing coincidence. I’d never heard of the author, so I goggled him. You won’t believe what I found. I’m not sure it is the same guy, but if it is…

The blind are leading the blind in the Republican Party.

Homework

Protesters in Bahrain

US Navy's 5th Fleet

Glenn Beck on Bahrain

Bloomberg Talks About Saudi Arabia and Suni Shiite Sects ßPretty good analysis.

All Is Not Well in Boehner's House

American Legislative Exchange Council

Fighting Public Sector Unions

The Tipping Point is Near

Jeff Thomas Allen Barred by SEC