Senators debated Senate Bill 128 on March 7, 2025, a bill that would repeal certain statutory protections governing an employer's interference with an agricultural employee's access to service providers on employer property. Senator Lisonbee moved the bill for third reading and final passage, prompting floor remarks from multiple senators for and against the measure.

The bill drew support from sponsors and other lawmakers who framed it as a constitutionally required fix to conform state law to recent U.S. Supreme Court jurisprudence. "This is a bill about doing our constitutional responsibility, as legislators to respond to what the courts tell us about our laws," Senator Roberts said, urging an "I" vote and calling the changes a "narrowly tailored fix."

Opponents said the bill risks removing practical supports for vulnerable workers. "When key services like health care and legal protection, food distribution, or others, if we're seeing evidence that some of this is starting to be denied to these workers ... that's when we're going to have to revisit it," Senator Danielson said, recounting the 2021 Farm Workers Bill of Rights she helped sponsor and saying she would vote no. She added that the original 2021 law built in protections for water, shade, housing standards and access for critical service providers for workers who live on employer-provided housing.

Senator Weisman cited Cedar Point Nursery, a recent U.S. Supreme Court case, as the constitutional backdrop driving the bill. He said the bill had been improved in committee and on the floor but that unresolved statutory language still left him unable to support it. "I look at the definition of employer's property on page 4 of the engrossed, which speaks not just to a right to exclude, but also to ownership or possessory interests in a disjunctive way," Weisman said, describing concerns that the definition may exceed the narrow holding he said the bill should track.

Senator Lisonbee formally moved the bill on the floor. Senator Roberts reiterated that the bill, as amended, does not affect subsection A of the existing statute guaranteeing key service providers can enter employee housing and that the text now explicitly guarantees access to virtual health care on employer property. "Even the introduced version of the bill, which has now been heavily amended, does not touch subsection A of the statute at all," Roberts said.

The transcript records floor debate and the motion for passage; the final vote tally or outcome for Senate Bill 128 is not recorded in the provided transcript excerpt.

The debate centers on two competing concerns: adherence to recent Supreme Court property-rights decisions and maintaining practical access to food, health care, legal aid and other services for agricultural employees, especially those living in employer-provided housing. Senators urging caution said implementation and monitoring will be necessary if the measure becomes law; proponents said the bill avoids costly litigation and clarifies compliance with constitutional precedent.