[ed. Note: I will be writing occasional pieces on legislation that I see working its way through the Colorado State Assembly. I am going to start by following the proposed fix to a loophole in our unemployment laws. This first column will give the history of how it landed on Capitol Hill.]
Deep in the moldy corners of the Colorado Politics Hall of Shame you will find the names Marilyn Musgrave and Jim Congrove crudely scratched into the stone walls, but back in 1999 when they were still young State Senators, their Republican held chamber churned out bill after bill to weaken worker protections, injury compensation, and minimum wage rules. Cementing their status as rising disasters was their crowning gift to lovers of unfair business practices; SB 99-155.
For over thirty years in Colorado, if a corporation tried to squeeze concessions out of their workers by shutting them out of their jobs, the employees could at least scrape by on unemployment benefits while forced out of work. This might sound reasonable, but the corporations felt that starving families was exactly the point and they wanted the rules changed.
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