INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS

The Colorado Way of Life means enjoying equal rights regardless of your identity and being able to live your life free from government interference or identity-based harassment. We have long been a state where women’s abortion rights are respected and I will always support keeping it this way. We need to protect Coloradans from overreach from other states.

Below are bills I’ve sponsored and supported to protect Coloradan’s basic freedoms:

Protecting Opportunity & Workers’ Rights (SB23-172) - No Coloradan should face harassment or discrimination at the workplace, yet our state still lacks adequate policies to protect our workers and hold bad actors accountable due to outdated legal standards.  I sponsored this bill to update our bedrock Colorado civil rights law, the Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act, to allow survivors of workplace discrimination and harassment to better pursue justice. It also modernizes language around non-disclosure agreements, expands protections for people with disabilities, and adds marital status as a protected class.  Status: signed into law.

Protecting Family Time in Dependency & Neglect (HB23-1027) - Family time is essential for healthy child development, especially for children or youth placed outside of the home. I sponsored this bill to improve our state's practices around family time services. It would create new requirements for determinations in dependency and neglect court proceedings to encourage maximum family time.  Status: signed into law.

Prosecuting Bias-motivated Crimes (SB21-280) – Bias-motivated crimes don’t just target one victim – they target an entire community of people of a certain race, ethnicity, orientation, religion, or other trait. But some offenders have been able to beat bias crime charges by arguing “mixed motives” – they weren’t attacking someone because of race, for example, they just wanted to steal that person’s wallet. I sponsored this bill to close this loophole so that perpetrators of bias crimes can be prosecuted where the crime motive was in whole or in part due to bias. STATUS: signed into law.

I have also supported legislation to:

• Protect a woman’s right to decide whether to have an abortion or to continue a pregnancy free from government interference (HB22-1279 - signed into law);

• Create abortion rights “shield laws” for women seeking abortions and those who assist them in exercising their rights, to protect from over-reaching out of state laws that seek to project anti-abortion rights policies into Colorado (SB23-188 – signed into law);

• Protect access to abortion and preventative healthcare by requiring insurance companies to fully cover costs of these healthcare options (SB23-189 – signed into law);

• Prevent deceptive marketing by organizations that try to dissuade women from exercising their abortion rights and that do not actually offer abortion counseling or services, but may communicate that they do (SB23-190 – signed into law);

• Ensure access to contraceptives by requiring insurance carriers and pharmacy benefit managers to dispense 12-month prescriptions (SB23-284 – signed into law);

• Protect equal rights for people with disabilities by ensuring access to the courts without lengthy administrative processes where someone has experienced ability-based discrimination in a place of public accommodation, including restaurants, theaters, doctors' offices, pharmacies, hotels, retail stores, museums, libraries, amusement parks, private schools and day care centers (HB23-1032 – signed into law);

• Allow all students to learn free from harassment and discrimination by requiring schools to have modern policies for investigating allegations and to conduct regular trainings (SB23-296 – signed into law);

• Promote equal employment opportunities by prohibiting employers from requiring disclosure of age, birth date, or college graduation date in an initial job application (SB23-058 - signed into law);

• Update our employment discrimination laws so people discriminated against on the job have better remedies (HB22-1367 – signed into law);

• Make it easier for same-sex couples to complete adoption procedures so both parents can have full legal parental rights concerning their children (HB22-1153 - signed into law);

• Protect people from discrimination based on gender identity (HB21-1108 - signed into law).