A view of the Colorado Capitol on Jan. 25, 2024. (Quentin Young/Colorado Newsline)
A Federal Trade Commission member fired by President Donald Trump this week urged Colorado lawmakers Wednesday to pursue policies that hold corporations accountable.
Alvaro Bedoya, the FTC commissioner whom Trump dismissed, and former general counsel and senior advisor for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Seth Frotman presented to the state’s Joint Judiciary Committee on Wednesday afternoon about the state government’s role in preserving and creating affordability for its citizens.
In doing so, they criticized the Trump administration’s reduction of federal consumer protection capacity and lent support to a handful of Democratic-backed bills in the Legislature.
“In the age of Big Tech, gigantic Wall Street banks and ever growing monopolies, we need law enforcement and regulators at all levels, but especially now in states such as this one, to be equipped with ample tools and resources to actually stand up for people,” Frotman said.
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The Colorado hearing comes one day after Bedoya, a Democrat, was ousted from the FTC by Trump, a move Bedoya said was illegal. Trump has also fired people at agencies that deal with labor and the workplace, such as the National Labor Relations Board and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
In early February, Trump ordered the CFPB to stop most of its work regulating lending activity and then canceled the lease of the agency’s headquarters, essentially shutting it down.
“The lawlessness that the Trump administration is stoking and the abuse of everyday people that continues to rain down on so many can be counteracted, at least in part, by ensuring that states have comprehensive, powerful laws and enforcement mechanisms to protect their citizens,” Frotman said.
That means thinking about what makes people’s everyday lives more affordable, he said.
The FTC targets deceptive business practices and promotes private-sector competition, often through litigation, while the CFPB is an agency created in the wake of the Great Recession to oversee financial products like credit cards, bank accounts and loans.
If the CFPB becomes unable to process the millions of complaints they receive related to foreclosures, student loans and banking problems, Frotman said the work could trickle down to individual plaintiffs, consumer advocates and attorneys. There could be a role for the state to help increase that sector’s capacity.
Both Frotman and Bedoya specifically highlighted a bill in the Legislature to prohibit “junk fees,” or costs that are not clearly advertised in an item’s price. The fees are most closely associated with fees in the rental market for amenities other than rent, such as trash services and pest control, which people often learn about after signing a lease.
That bill passed the House earlier this month on a 41-21 vote and passed a Senate committee Wednesday afternoon.
The FTC announced a junk fees rule last year that targets live-event ticketing and short-term lodging.
Bedoya said the junk fee bill’s provision to allow a person to sue a company is necessary because the federal law enforcement agencies that could go after bad actors are facing budget cuts under the Trump administration. Industry wants that private right of action piece stripped from the bill.
“Under (former FTC) chair Lina Khan, we were able to bring on any number of junk fees cases. But that’s not standard conduct. What the private right of action does is it allows individual consumers to have their day in court to contest these hidden junk fees, separate and apart from whether a state or a federal law enforcer has the ability to prioritize their case,” he said.
Bedoya also praised Senate Bill 25-5, which would eliminate a second union election requirement to negotiate whether all employees would need to pay into representation costs. That bill passed the Senate and is set for a House floor debate soon, but its unamended form could face pushback from Democratic Gov. Jared Polis, who wants to see a compromise on the issue between business and labor groups.
“You have before you the Worker Protection Act, and my hope is that the Colorado Legislature passes it and that Governor Polis signs it and brings Colorado into the same level of protection for its workers as the rest of the country,” Bedoya said.
Bedoya also said lawmakers should pass a bill that would prohibit surveillance from platforms such as ride sharing applications to determine prices for customers and drivers based on personal characteristics and behaviors. That bill was introduced in the House in February but does not have a committee hearing scheduled.
“This is about you as legislators and your unique ability to step up and ensure that Colorado isn’t just in the middle of the pack, but is in the forefront of enacting the strongest protections possible for consumers, small businesses and workers that will promote affordability,” he said.
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