A bill to bar employers from asking about job seekers’ criminal histories on application forms took another step forward in the Colorado Legislature Friday, despite increasingly harsh accusations that the bill is meant to benefit trial lawyers more than released felons and that opponents are speaking from a place of “a lot of privilege.”
House Bill 1388 is expected to pass the Democratic-held House on its final vote on Monday. But if Friday’s debate on the chamber’s floor was any indication, it is likely to have a hard time getting through the Republican-majority Senate.
House Bill 1388, sponsored by Rep. Beth McCann, D-Denver, would ban employers from asking people to check a box on job-application forms if they have a criminal record.
It would not ban those same companies from checking applicants’ criminal histories independently or from asking during in-person interviews about such histories.
It is meant instead to allow felons hoping to find employment to get a foot in the door and try to win potential jobs on their own merits, McCann said.
Read more at Denver Business Journal: http://bit.ly/1Si0hdR
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