Colorado State Senator Vicki Marble, was one of two to vote against the Equal Pay Day bill — a resolution encouraging government agencies within the state to close the gender pay gap. She explained she could not support something that “was so focused against the white man.”

“Frankly, I feel white men have done a lot for this country and this legislature, as all men have, and I just want to thank them,” Marble said.

In the resolution, researched by the National Partnership for Women and Families, it says women in the state earned 86 cents to the dollar when compared to men, and black women earned 63 cents on that same dollar. The statistics went on to report that over a 40-year career, a black woman would lose over $850,000 to the pay gap.

Marble gave multiple reasons for the pay gap; including experience and field of work, adding she was at odds with some of the numbers.

"I know that in my family, the Mexicans, the Native Americans, the Chinese, the Muslim, the Jews — they're all making what they can and we've never talked about someone being paid more than another for doing a job," Marble said to the Coloradoan. "Not all white men make the same as every white man in a job. It's just not a given that anybody is going to be making the same. It doesn't matter if you're a white man or a purple man. People are hired at different levels."

Statistics in the bill posit that poverty rates could be cut in half from 5.6 to 2.8 percent should the pay gap be fixed. Sen. Rhonda Fields, who voted in support of the bill, used this reasoning for her vote. She told the Coloradoan she voted to help put an end to poverty in the state.

The bill's passage marked April 2, 2019, as Equal Pay Day throughout the state. The other no vote was Sen. John Cooke, who provided no explanation for his vote.

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