Colorado State Senator Jordan Carter said Friday that two amendments offered by Texas Governor David Acton to the Community Stadium District and Small Business Participation Act were rejected on the floor, leaving the bill’s wage and contracting provisions unchanged.

In a press release issued in Denver, Carter said both amendments targeted sections of the bill that Acton had described inaccurately during debate. Under DynamicSim’s combined State Legislature system, lawmakers and governors from all states may vote on state-specific legislation, with the final result weighted to reflect the party composition of the affected state. The bill at issue applies to Colorado.

According to Carter’s statement, Acton’s first amendment would have removed the bill’s prevailing-wage requirement. Carter said Acton framed that provision as a cost to taxpayers, but argued the legislation already states that it would impose “no new general tax on Colorado residents” and that the venue would pay for itself through its own revenue.

“The ‘cost to taxpayers’ the Governor is worried about isn’t there,” Carter said in the release. He argued that the prevailing-wage language is intended to prevent construction workers from being underbid on wages during the project.

The second amendment would have struck a provision reserving 40% of contracting work for minority-owned, women-owned, veteran-owned, and in-district firms, according to the release. Carter said Acton had labeled the provision “identity-based,” but Carter defended it as a measure designed to keep project benefits with local and small businesses, including firms based inside the district.

Carter said removing the contracting set-aside would benefit larger outside operators rather than smaller businesses near the project site. “This whole bill exists to stop exactly that,” he said in the release.

Both amendments failed, Carter said, meaning the legislation still includes its small-business participation rules, prevailing-wage language, and other accountability provisions. No separate statement from Acton was provided in the materials released Friday.

The dispute marks the latest turn in debate over the Colorado stadium district measure, which has drawn attention beyond the state because it combines public-policy questions about labor standards and procurement with the politics of sports-related development. A news article earlier this week described the proposal as tying public backing for a stadium district to requirements meant to benefit small businesses.

Carter’s response also reflects the broader political dynamics around the bill. Arguments over labor mandates, local economic benefits, and whether development projects should steer work toward specific classes of businesses often divide lawmakers along ideological lines. In the current national climate, issues tied to cost of living, government spending, and economic fairness have proved especially salient, while public trust in institutions remains low and legislative messaging often travels faster than the details of a bill.

Still, Friday’s statement was focused less on a broader ideological argument than on the legislative text itself. Carter, who represents Denver’s Capitol Hill district in the Colorado State Senate, portrayed the failed amendments as objections to problems he says the bill had already addressed.

“I’m always glad to debate the text,” Carter said in the release. “I’d just ask that we debate what it says.”

The release did not say when the full bill could face its next procedural step, and no final legislative outcome beyond the amendment votes was announced Friday. For now, the immediate effect of the floor action is that the Colorado measure remains intact in its current form after the two proposed changes were voted down.