Despite Filibustering, Union Bill Goes To Ritter

It was a very long Friday for lawmakers. Senate Republicans balked on a labor bill designed to make it easier for unions to organize job shops, or places where employment is based on joining a union.

For hours, GOP legislators proposed amendments to the bill that were routinely killed by voting and technical decisions.

But despite the filibustering from last week, the measure passed today on a clear party line vote of  19-15. (Majority Leader Ken Gordon was excused.)

Now the legislation will go to Governor Bill Ritter, where it could become law as early as this summer. From the Rocky Mountain News:

Outraged Republicans assailed Ritter and the Democratic leadership of duping the voters and failing to ever mention the pro-union measure during the November elections.

Republicans put on a big show around 1 p.m. and delivered a letter to Ritter urging him to keep a campaign promise to strike down anti-business legislation.

Ritter appeared non-committal, saying he has yet to see the bill in its final form.

“We’ll see what it looks like when it comes to my desk,” he said.

Erin Rosa was born in Spain and raised in Colorado Springs. She is a freelance writer currently living in Denver. Rosa's work has been featured in a variety of news outlets including the Huffington Post, Democracy Now!, and the Rocky Mountain Chronicle, an alternative-weekly in Northern Colorado where she worked as a columnist covering the state legislature. Rosa has received awards from the Society of Professional Journalists for her reporting on lobbying and woman's health issues. She was also tapped with a rare honorable mention award by the Newspaper Guild-CWA's David S. Barr Award in 2008--only the second such honor conferred in its nine-year history--for her investigative series covering the federal government's Supermax prison in the state. Rosa covers the labor community, corrections, immigration and government transparency matters. She can be reached at erosa@www.coloradoindependent.com.