DENVER — State Senator Jordan Carter (D-Denver) responded today after two amendments filed by Texas Governor David Acton to the Community Stadium District and Small Business Participation Act failed on the floor. Both, Carter noted, were aimed at provisions the Governor described inaccurately.

Acton's first amendment sought to strike the bill's prevailing-wage requirement, calling it a cost to taxpayers.

"There's a line in this bill that says it imposes no new general tax on Colorado residents — the venue pays for itself out of its own revenue," Carter said. "So the 'cost to taxpayers' the Governor is worried about isn't there. What prevailing wage actually does is keep the people who pour the concrete from being underbid to the bottom. He wants to cut the workers' pay to solve a taxpayer problem the bill already solved."

The second amendment sought to remove the 40% contracting share reserved for minority-, women-, veteran-owned, and in-district firms.

"He called it identity-based. It reserves work for veterans and for businesses inside the district — that's who owns the corner shop by the stadium," Carter said. "Strike it, and the winner isn't 'competition.' The winner is the national operator that boxes local small businesses out of the project built next door to them. This whole bill exists to stop exactly that."

Both amendments failed. The bill's small-business, wage, and accountability provisions remain intact.

"I'm always glad to debate the text," Carter added. "I'd just ask that we debate what it says."