Colorado: Innovation and Persistence on Paid Leave

We are grateful for the collaboration and support of Colorado State Sen. Faith Winter (D-24) and Jessie Ulibarri from State Innovation Exchange on this case study.

The United States remains the only developed country in the world without a national paid family and medical leave program. As federal progress on this issue stalled after 1993, family leave has become a priority for activists at the state and local levels. Nine states and the District of Columbia have enacted paid family leave programs in recent years, funded through payroll taxes. In 2020, Colorado became the first state to enact a paid family and medical leave program by ballot initiative. The story behind this achievement involves years of work and collaboration across many sectors and is a rich example of democratic co-governance.¹

Every year beginning in 2014, the Colorado legislature considered, but never passed, legislation to create a statewide paid family and medical leave program.² In 2020, the public health risks of coming to work sick were higher than ever due to the COVID-19 pandemic, yet 80 percent of Colorado workers did not have paid leave.³ As State Sen. Faith Winter, one of the bill’s original sponsors, pointed out in an op-ed, the pandemic exacerbated existing problems in a system where, even before the pandemic, 25 percent of new mothers return to work two weeks after giving birth.

But despite this context of elevated public health risks, in 2020, the bill once again failed to pass. This prompted supporters of paid family and medical leave to focus their efforts on an existing ballot measure, which would put the question directly to the citizens of Colorado. The supporters of this initiative formed a broad coalition, including elected officials, political candidates, community leaders, medical professionals, and nonprofit organizations. Much of the opposition to the plan came from large business groups, who argued that it would add an extra burden to employers and withhold money from employees for a new state program during an economic crisis.⁴ The logistics of organizing a ballot initiative during a pandemic created new obstacles, as traditional in-person outreach for the required 124,632 signatures⁵ and later voter turnout became more challenging. To adapt, supporters turned to innovative methods such as using text messages to gain signatures.⁶

During the November 2020 election, voters approved the initiative and passed a state paid family and medical leave program, funded by a payroll tax evenly divided between employers and employees, and set at 0.9 percent of employee wages.⁷ The initiative set the date for employee and business contributions to begin on January 1, 2023, and the starting date for access to the program as January 1, 2024.⁸ Benefits will be graduated, so that lower-income workers receive a higher percentage of their normal pay while on leave than higher earners.⁹

Although enacted suddenly through a ballot measure, the victory on a state paid family and medical leave program was the product of years of collaboration and relationships of trust across many different sectors of democracy: bureaucrats, citizens, advocates, and legislators across the local, state, and even federal government. Building and maintaining these relationships and partnerships over many years is a challenge that co-governance seeks to address. Frequent setbacks can undermine confidence in strategic decisions. Shifts in the political climate or changes in personnel can reset the process. But building strong partnerships, as allies inside and outside of government learn to appreciate and work across differing goals and positions, can create opportunities for residents and advocates to shape policy based on their unique experiences and perspectives, informing practitioners of decision-making and expanding the breadth of representation that politicians deliver.

Sen. Winter, who has represented Denver’s northern suburbs in the legislature since 2015, embodies the practice of co-governance, having been an organizer and activist before seeking elected office. New America Fellow Hollie Russon Gilman spoke with Sen. Winter to better understand the long path and complex relationships that led to Colorado’s breakthrough on paid leave.

This interview has been condensed and lightly edited for length and clarity. To hear the full conversation, listen to this special edition of the Politics in Question podcast.

HRG: In this movement, were there strategies that you thought would work but then had to be adjusted? And how did the coalition function together?

FW: This bill was run six times before it was a successful ballot initiative. I ran it five of those six times, and many of those times I introduced the bill, we were a divided legislature when the Republicans had control. [The bill] was killed by two Democratic women first in the early years. We introduced it knowing we were going to lose, but it gave us an opportunity to “lose forward.” And what I mean by that is we were building a movement and not just trying for a one-time policy win. And so, every time we brought this legislation forward, we got more businesses involved that supported this. We built the coalition, we brought on pediatricians and NICU nurses, and we found more people to tell their stories. And every time we brought this forward, we had more media attention, a bigger coalition, and we refined the policy. When we first introduced this, we didn't have the perfect policy on how to fund it, and we eventually figured out the best way to fund it. That was very responsible, very fiscally responsible. And so every time we brought it forward, I considered it “losing forward” in a way to build a movement, include more people, and build up more leaders.

HRG: Can you say anything more about managing those political relationships from the legislative side? From the news coverage, it seemed like this was a sensitive issue. What are the lessons in terms of managing these relationships that we can extrapolate for others?

FW: One of the first decisions was actually moving forward, knowing that the Democratic House was going to kill the bill. It's not popular to divide your caucus, and we decided that this was a big enough, important enough bill to move forward and actually have accountability around a no vote. And that was a pretty bold statement that I couldn't have done without the backing of outside organizations that said, “We will have your back. We will actually do the accountability work. We will have this conversation about those Democrats [who] voted no.” And that changed the calculation.

The next year we brought it forward where we had the support of everyone in my caucus. And then we had a difficult decision in the last year when we brought this bill. It was probably the time that there was a fissure of co-governance. It was when we faced our governor and how he wanted this policy to be implemented. We'd been working on this for years, and we knew that the coalition really wanted this policy to be accessible, available, affordable, and we had worked to maintain 12 weeks of paid leave. We had worked to make sure that what was going to pass was [implemented] on a progressive basis—so that low-income folks paid less and higher-income folks paid more. And that the benefits you had were higher if you were a minimum wage worker. We worked to make sure that [the bill] provided paid family and medical leave for parents and for [their] own self-care. But the governor really wanted to do it through the private insurance market. Probably one of the hardest parts of this time was [asking], “Do we move forward with something the governor will sign and deliver something where people will have paid family leave? Or do we fight for a social insurance program, which we know is better, and get nothing?”

And ultimately, we decided at that moment to move forward, to try and provide something, but we weren't in line with the advocates. We didn't know the advocates had a bottom line that had to be social insurance. And so, there was a lack of communication at that moment. But ultimately, having a private insurance program didn't play out, and we got the better policy passed because we gave the power to the people [through a ballot measure].

HRG: We know that sometimes political relationships can feel transactional or zero-sum. Therefore, how can movements build effective relationships to share power while also being honest about the nature of political relationships?

FW: In moving from an organizer and advocate to being elected, it's a different job. When you're an advocate, you are focused on your one issue or a select number of issues. And your job is to push as far as you can to get as much as you can. And as an elected official, your job is to actually work in the reality of what is possible. There are some elected officials that will go out and, regardless of what happens, stand in their power and their truth. But they might not ever pass that bill. And part of my job of being an elected official is to work in the art of what's possible and create as much space as we can, and what remains true of co-governance is that advocates create more space for me to negotiate.

So when they tell more stories, get more media attention, have more rallies, send more postcards, and ask for more [of] what they want for paid family medical leave, they create the space for me as an elected official to negotiate on what I can pass. And you can only do that when you build trust. So I'm negotiating, and I'm not going to get everything the advocates want; I’m not going to get everything I want. I wish I could. But that's not the reality. It’s definitely not the reality of what the governor of Colorado wanted around this issue.

But having that trust to understand that the advocates are going to go to the left, they are going to be louder and I'm going to negotiate what is possible, but everything that they do creates more space for me to negotiate, and that takes trust and communication and updates to each other to actually get to the end.

HRG: You talked a little earlier about losing forward. When it works well, it can help refine a movement or a policy into something better than the original draft. But how do you keep those relationships going if the press highlights the challenges without moving beyond to the bigger picture item? How do you explain that back to constituents or advocates when there's frustration, for example?

FW: You have to celebrate every success. And the ultimate success was passing the policy and having the voters support the policy. But there are other successes along the way. Adding 10 more businesses to the coalition is a success. Getting an opinion editorial published is a success, having a Tweet storm that the governor notices is a success. And everything adds up, and it's cumulative. And [how] I view the world [is] that power is infinite, not confined. How do we actually share power and grow power? Part of the way we do that is by celebrating each step forward. It might not be the ultimate goal of passing a policy, but getting one more business signed on is a big deal. So how do we celebrate that and recognize the work and acknowledge the work and celebrate the work? Because that's what builds a movement versus building a one-time win.

HRG: When the policy actually passed, it wasn't through the legislature, but through a ballot measure. Did you pass that effort off to advocates?

FW: We had worked with advocates for a long time to actually use the ballot process as an alternative. So we had polling information that we made sure got leaked to the business lobby, for example, to show that this was really popular on the outside. And in co-governance, when it was my bill, my name was on it. But I was relying on advocates to help build the coalition and provide testimony. And when we sent it to the ballot, I was still there and doing a lot of the debates. I fundraised for the initiative, made sure that we were getting yard signs out, texted voters, talked to voters. And so it goes both ways, right? Whether my name was on it or it was a ballot initiative, it was co-governance, and we were a team. And ultimately, it was about strategy in what we could do to get this across the finish line and making sure that we were connected and making those decisions together.

HRG: I'd be curious about lessons that you've learned from doing this through a pandemic and any policy changes that you see to make our institutions more participatory and have more avenues for direct democracy—both during times of crisis and how to reform institutions in a more ongoing and sustainable way.

FW: I am just so grateful and thankful for our field team from the ballot initiative because they figured out how to collect signatures when we were basically still in stay-at-home orders, and they had single-use pens, they had masks. They doorknocked and stood six feet away. They were at grocery stores and managed to do it in a way that protected people and made sure we weren't spreading COVID-19, and also collected enough signatures and did a phenomenal job.

So the basic tenet of organizing is starting with where people are at, and we were already starting with where people were at. They cared about paid family leave. They wanted paid family leave. The pandemic showed even more how close we all were to needing paid family leave. And we were nervous about safety. And so we started with where people are at. “You can sign this, I have a mask on, here’s my single-use pen, there's sanitizer. We've got you, right?” It's the basic tenets of organizing, whether it's a pandemic or not. You start with where people are at, and you start with their concerns. You start with what they're concerned about and you go from there.

HRG: Some of your colleagues in the legislature also describe the process of creating state-paid family medical leave. For example, one early step came all the way back in 2013 when the legislature expanded the definition of family to include same-sex couples and unmarried partnerships. Adopted families is a pretty creative use of the legislative process of long-term planning when you have a goal as big as a new statewide policy. How can a collaborative movement work together to break down the steps and then plan for long-term success?

FW: The way a movement works together is by providing all the separate pieces, so you need a really good policy. There's a lawsuit right now at the state level on our policy, and we've gone to the Supreme Court before on this policy. So you need a really solid policy, which means you need good policy people. You need good lawyers. And then you need good organizers and good storytellers that could build power through people. So you have a solid foundation on policy, you have a solid foundation of law, and then you have organizers building power through people. You have legislators that are working inside the system to push the narrative. You have a really good communications plan to take that organizing work and storytelling and win over the hearts and minds of people. And that all has to work together in collaborative governance where you acknowledge, “This is my niche, this is what I'm supposed to do at this moment in order to move this forward. And I'm going to trust the lawyer over here is doing that. I want to trust that the organizers are doing that. I'm going to trust that the field team is doing that. I’m going to trust that the TV commercial that comes out is going to tell our story in the right way.” So it has to do with making sure that you have different talents on your team and that you have brought them together in a way where they trust each other and move forward together.

HRG: What happens now to these relationships? Does it move mostly to implementation? How do we keep those relationships moving on? And, of course, you mention the legal challenges that you're now working on with these policies. I would be curious about how you're managing that, including those external relationships.

FW: We're continuing to make sure that this gets implemented in the right way, because the worst thing that could happen is that this doesn't actually go well. So we're working on making sure the state government's hiring the right people to do this. We're making sure the policy is in the right place. We're making sure that we're keeping the community updated. There is going to be rulemaking, and when there's rulemaking, we have to turn people out to talk about that rulemaking.

We know that paid family and medical leave is really important and also that it is not the last policy we need to pass to make sure we're protecting workers. So, for example, I ran the Power Act this year, which we “lost forward.” That's changing the definition of sexual harassment from severe or pervasive to something that actually makes sense for the modern workplace. And many of those partners that I worked with on paid family medical leave, we are now working with on making sure we're updating our workplace harassment standards. We worked with those partners to make sure we updated our equal pay standards. We're working with our partners to make sure we're expanding access to affordable housing.

So when you build power and when you build a movement, it's not about a singular issue. It was fantastic that we won on paid family medical leave. And now we have relationships. Now we have a coalition. Now we have an ecosystem of creating change. And now we can think about: what else is next and what can we do next? And that's what we're doing.

HRG: Anything else you’d like to share?

FW: I read somewhere that politics is about relationships and not giving up. We don’t always automatically win on the first try. To get where we're going, we need to have a conversation and listen. Let's be persistent. Let's have resilient skin where we keep moving forward and together we can actually build power and build movements that change the world.