Colorado voters approved a ballot measure Tuesday that will establish paid family leave in the state, according to projections from The Associated Press. The measure made Colorado the ninth state to offer time off for workers after the arrival of a new child, as well as for workers dealing with an illness or caring for loved ones in an emergency. The policy is scheduled to go into effect in 2024, and would guarantee workers 12 weeks off.

Paid leave advocates fought to put the referendum on the ballot this year after efforts to pass a bill in the legislature were shot down in 2019 due to a massive lobbying effort from big business.

We talk a lot about money in politics, and this is a story of where lobby money inside the building continued to defeat something that was so popular, Faith Winter, a Democratic state senator who supported the referendum, told HuffPost. When you give the power to the voters, you end up getting really good policy that helps all of us.

The vote was expected, following polling that showed strong support in the state, and comes at a time when the issue of paid leave is taking on a new urgency during the pandemic. Parents around the country are struggling to work and care for children at home attending virtual school, while others are caring for loved ones who are sick with COVID-19.

Without paid leave, workers particularly women are often forced out of work altogether. In September alone, 865,000 women dropped out of the workforce entirely, some because they had no choice with children at home from school.

Advocates had tried for years to get a paid leave measure passed in the state legislature and were hopeful that with Democratic majorities in both chambers and in the governors office, theyd succeed last year. Gov. Jared Polis had even said that paid family leave was part of his agenda.

But proposed legislation failed after massive pushback from big businesses. Of all the bills before the legislature last year, the paid family leave bill drew the most attention from lobbyists, according to one analysis by The Colorado Sun .

Businesses argue that the policy would be too costly, requiring a whole new infrastructure in the state to implement it, and that it would be hard on small businesses, said Loren Furman, senior vice president of state and federal relations at the Colorado Chamber of Commerce.

We worked hard to try and find a compromise, she said, emphasizing that the chamber does support paid leave.

Lobbyists fought line by line over different details in the bill, such as how long the leave period would be, what the exemption for small businesses would look like, and who would be covered, Winter said.

Every single organization or lobbyist had their own little thing they wanted to change, she said.

Frustrated with the pushback, advocates decided to put the issue to voters. A yes or no ballot initiative was just simpler, Winter said, noting that at least 200 mostly small businesses backed the referendum.