 |
2008 LEGISLATIVE END OF SESSION REVIEW Governor signs Sunday Liquor Sales bill…Car Dealers Remain Untouched Many states have repealed their blue laws allowing those businesses, once restricted by the blue law, to now be able to open on Sundays. For example, until 1985, Texas car dealerships continued to operate under blue-law prohibitions. Many states still prohibit selling alcohol on Sunday, although it’s now the second busiest shopping day of the week. Senator Veiga understands that Colorado Auto Dealers want to remain under the state’s blue laws. She has spoken on the issue, stating that she did not want her bill to flow over into other areas of the blue laws. The legislation’s focus was to allow liquor stores to open on Sundays, and keep other businesses (auto dealers) out of the bill. Prior to the legislative session, CADA’s lobbyist spoke with Senator Veiga in hopes of obtaining a tight title for the bill. Efforts paid off as the bill was drafted with a very tight title, meaning only alcohol sales could be addressed in the bill. Adding any other business group would be virtually impossible. There was one attempt to repeal the blue law of in the House of Representatives to include the car dealers to enable cars sales on Sunday, but because the title was so very restrictive, it was not allowed to be amended to the bill. Car dealers have an economic issue when it comes to opening one more day and opening one additional day does not always generate additional sales. Lights, heat, a/c and more employees and the increase in administration for these extras add up to increased expenses for auto dealers. As we meet with our state legislators we need to visit with them about these negative implications and urge them to not support repealing of any additional blue laws in our state. Rental car fee increase to fund state bridges?
Disposition of Abandoned Vehicles
Air Quality Controls for Mobile Machinery ________________________________________________________ Pre-November Initiative Fight…What’s on YOUR Ballot? The Right-to-Work Initiative, Amendment 47 Petitions for the right-to-work initiative proposal, Number 41, with 133,000 signatures were submitted to the Secretary of State’s Office on April 9th. On April 28th, the Secretary of State ruled that the petition had a “sufficient” number of signatures and designated the initiative as “Amendment 47” for the November ballot. The campaign organization created to advocate Amendment 47 is “A Better Colorado”: http://www.abettercolorado.com/
The “Protect Colorado’s Future” Proposals http://www.protectcoloradosfuture.org/ The following two measures have been appealed to the Colorado Supreme Court on the basis that they violate the single-subject rule; the Initiative Title Setting Board had earlier turned down appeals of both measures for that reason:
http://www.courts.state.co.us/exec/pubed/initiatives/initiatives.htm The following four measures--later versions of Numbers 57 and 62--also survived appeals to the Initiative Title Setting Board that they violate the single-subject rule:
Appeals of Numbers 73, 75 and 76 have been filed with the Colorado Supreme Court:
To fight Amendment 41, the right-to-work ballot measure, and to support its own ballot proposals, Protect Colorado’s Future has already received about $1.6 million in contributions, much of that from major national labor unions:
The United Food & Commercial Workers Union Local No. 7 Proposals; Round One http://ufcw7.canvastoolbox.com/ On April 14th, review-and-comment-hearings” were held by legislative staff for the following five measures, which were filed by the United Food & Commercial Workers Union Local No. 7 on March 31st:
On Wednesday, the Initiative Title Setting Board approved Numbers 93, and 96, according to The Denver Business Journal. We are still waiting to see the outcome from the title board (at this writing) regarding Numbers 92 and 95.
The United Food & Commercial Workers Union Local No. 7 Proposals: Round II On April 25th, the UF&CWU Local No. 7 filed the following four proposals with the Legislative Council:
On April 25, the Legislative Council “issued letters” on these proposals without holding a review and comment meeting, presumably repeating staff comments about Numbers 92, 93, 95 and 96 because Numbers 115, 116, 117 and 118 are new versions.
Two More Proposals from (Presumably) “Protect Colorado’s Future” On April 25th, the following were filed with the Legislative Council, and the review and comment meeting was scheduled for this morning:
These two nearly identical proposals seek to negate the definition of “labor union” contained in the right-to-work initiative, Amendment 47, in order that, if Amendment 47 is approved by the voters and if either Number 123 or 124 also is approved by the voters, then labor unions would not be subject to Amendment 47. Here is how Number 124 defines “labor organization,” stipulating that this definition would “prevail over any conflicting definition of ‘labor organization’ in Article XXVIII, including any provision adopted at the 2008 General Election.” “ . . . ‘labor organization’ means any organizations of employees that exists solely or primarily for a purpose other than dealing with employers, concerning grievances, labor disputes, wages, rates of pay, employee benefits, hours of employment, or conditions of work.”
“Defend Our Economy” Created to Fight Union-Backed Measures A political issue committee, Defend Our Economy, has been created to oppose the union-supported ballot measures:
Legislature Passes Ballot Referendum to Tighten Up Initiative Process On Tuesday, the last day of the session, the legislature gave final approval to Senate Concurrent Resolution (SCR) 3, a November ballot referendum that would make it more difficult for voters to amend the Colorado Constitution but easier to propose statutory changes. For news coverage of SCR-3: http://www.denverpost.com/legislature/ci_9174515 http://www.rockymountainnews.com/news/2008/may/09/the-right-incentives/?printer=1/
The Legislative Policy Committee met Tuesday May 13 to discuss the strategy that dealers will take to fight some of the above mentioned initiatives. Read the next edition
________________________________________________________ If you have questions on any legislative topic, please contact:
|
Governor Ritter has signed the Sunday sales of alcohol into law. This legislative session, Senator Jennifer Veiga (D), Denver, and Representative Cheri Jahn (D) Wheat Ridge, sponsored the bill to repeal a portion of the state’s blue law to allow alcohol sales on Sundays. Both car dealers and liquor stores are listed in Colorado’s Blue Laws in the statutes. A blue law is one restricting activities or sales of goods on Sunday, to accommodate the Christian sabbath. The first blue law in the American colonies was enacted in Virginia in 1617. Contrary to popular belief, there is no evidence to support the assertion that the blue laws were originally printed on blue paper. Instead, the word blue was commonly used in the eighteenth century as a disparaging reference to rigid moral codes and those who observed them.
CIADA Legislation
Senate Bill 144, sponsored by Sen. Windels (D), Arvada, establishes a process for motor vehicle repair shops at which a motor vehicle has been abandoned to follow in order to obtain a certificate of title and sell the abandoned motor vehicle in Title 38. This bill will mirror language to a certain extent, already contained in Title 42. Senate Bill 144 revises language in Title 38 for consistency purposes. It requires the repair shop, or its agent, to establish the retail fair market value of the vehicle and have the abandoned motor vehicle inspected and a verification of vehicle identification number (VIN) completed by a peace officer certified to perform VIN inspections. After the repair shop has obtained a certificate of title for the abandoned motor vehicle, authorizes the repair shop, or its agent, to sell the motor vehicle in a commercially reasonable manner at a public or private sale to recoup its costs. The service repair shops are monitoring this bill to ensure the consistency between the two sections in statute. The Department of Revenue spoke at the past committee hearing and proposed further changes to the bill, so much in fact, we could be faced with using yet another form which would execute the changes incurred by this bill. The governor has signed this bill into law.