Senate Committee Kills Employee Partnership Ban

A bill by Sen. Shawn Mitchell, R-Broomfield, that would have overturned Gov. Bill Ritter's executive order allowing state employees to collectively bargain with the state government was killed in a Senate committee Wednesday.

The State, Veterans & Military Affairs Committee, on a party-line vote, rejected SB 86.

The bill's defeat means that both Republican initiatives aimed at Ritter's effort to improve state employee bargaining power have failed. A bill by Rep. Bob Gardner, R-Colorado Springs, to ban and criminalize strikes by all public employees in Colorado was killed by a House committee earlier in the session.