A controversial portion of Colorado’s 2021 Senate Bill 21-087 — which allowed union organizers and undefined “key service providers” to access private agricultural property without landowner permission — has officially been repealed. On Thursday, May 29th, Governor Jared Polis signed Senate Bill 25-128, which removes the trespass provision found to violate constitutional property rights.
The move aligns Colorado law with the 2021 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Cedar Point Nursery v. Hassid, which ruled similar access rights in California were a “taking” under the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments.
Though SB 87 aimed to support farmworker rights, including unionization, its implementation led to lawsuits from Colorado farmers and ranchers, who said it infringed on property rights and posed safety risks. One of those farmers who sued was Marc Arnusch, owner of Marc Arnusch Farms LLC in the Prospect Valley region of Weld County. While only one union was formed under the law, widespread concerns remained among the farmers and ranchers.
Senator Byron Pelton (R-Sterling), joined by a bipartisan group of lawmakers, led the repeal effort. The bill passed with strong bipartisan support — 53 votes in the House and 25 in the Senate.
Governor Polis said SB 128 fixes the conflict between state and federal law, protects producers’ constitutional rights, and helps avoid further costly litigation. Additional provisions of the original 2021 law, such as overtime requirements for agricultural workers, are still under legal and legislative scrutiny.
Governor Polis visited the farm owned and operated by Marc Arnusch to sign the bill into law. Arnusch said the repeal is a big deal for agriculture, for private property rights and for rural Colorado. SB 87 was an overreach, he said, yet it still went into effect. That’s what started the litigation in which he was a part.
But SB 128 is “what good government does,” recognizing that something is wrong or something has happened that can be fixed…our government’s not as bad as we think because we got this one right.”
He applauded the sponsors, the ag organizations that worked on the bill, and the governor for agreeing to the repeal.
This “protects the farmer, it protects the landowner, but more importantly, it protects those who may want to come onto our farms…We do things to take care of our land, our water, and our property. But when those individuals choose to come on our farm unannounced, they’re at risk too.” Signing the bill in front of the massive equipment used on the farm only served to drive home the risk factor that Arnusch spoke of.
“We’re too inherently tied to [the land], and we want to protect it at all costs,” he said. The law went into effect with Polis’s signature.
