House narrowly adopts bill raising agricultural overtime threshold after hours of debate

The Colorado House of Representatives passed Senate Bill 1-21 on third reading on April 16, 2026, adopting a measure that raises the overtime threshold for agricultural employees to 56 hours per week, with seasonality exceptions. The final recorded vote was 33 yes and 32 no.

Sponsor Representative Serena Garcia urged colleagues to vote against the motion to raise the threshold in its prior formulation earlier in debate but framed her later remarks around protecting long-term worker welfare and fairness, saying the proposed changes would “perpetuate the inequitable treatment of agricultural employees” and leave seasonal workers with fewer protections. Garcia cited historical context and argued the measure would roll back hard-won gains for farmworkers and worsen health risks tied to long hours.

Opponents of Garcia’s position, including Representative Bottoms and Representative Soper, said the bill is needed to preserve family farms and to allow seasonal operations to remain solvent. Representative Bottoms, addressing colleagues from the well, said many farmworkers favor more flexible hours and that passing the bill would allow workers to stay in a single location and avoid the safety risks of traveling between multiple employers for extra hours.

Throughout the debate, members offered competing evidence about the bill’s economic impact and public-safety implications. Representative De Graaf warned that the change would reduce workers’ bargaining power and could lead to lower take-home pay; De Graaf argued the policy risked turning short-term remedies into long-term reductions in workers’ earnings. Representative Johnson described encounters with exhausted workers who drove long distances between farms to make ends meet and urged support for pathways that would reduce fatigue and road safety risks.

Supporters, including Representative Martinez and Representative Luck, said farms face rising operational costs, water shortages and thin margins, and argued the bill gives employers limited flexibility during concentrated harvest windows. Representative Martinez noted that Colorado has codified farm-worker protections into statute in recent years and framed the bill as a pragmatic response to new economic pressure on growers.

The House’s narrow margin reflected the depth of disagreement: advocates for workers repeatedly asked members to preserve overtime protections at 40 hours or the 48-hour level adopted in previous rules, while supporters said the 56-hour threshold with seasonality limits is necessary to keep family farms operating in changing market and climate conditions.

The bill’s passage does not itself specify additional funding or mitigation measures for affected workers; members on both sides discussed the need for future action to address wage theft, worker safety and supports for smaller producers. The bill will proceed according to legislative process for any subsequent steps required by statute.

The House debate lasted multiple hours and combined personal testimony, constituent letters, and data citations. The final procedural step on the floor was a recorded roll call that certified adoption of Senate Bill 1-21 on third reading.