Quantity beats quality for legislation on Capitol Hill | DUFFY

If politicians pass an ever-growing pile of bills, will Colorado become more prosperous?

Apparently the Liberal-led legislature believes it is being paid by volume, without having to examine the actual results of the record-breaking series of new laws enacted year after year.

The Common Sense Institute just released a very interesting study on the performance of the Colorado legislature compared to past years – and those of the other 49 state legislatures. It will come as no surprise to Capitol insiders that there has been a tsunami of bills in recent years, many of which have produced little or no tangible benefit for a state grappling with many systematic problems.

According to the study, Parliament passed 527 bills last year, a third more than the average from 2011 to 2018. A record number of bills were passed in four of the last six years.

Is Colorado simply part of a national trend of massive increases in the flow of legislative effluent?

No.

The folks at CSI, who deserve a big cup of high-octane holiday eggnog after completing this exhaustive study, looked at the output of all 50 state legislatures and found that since 2012, Colorado’s output increased 69%, the third highest in the country. This contrasts sharply with the average trend, where, over the same period, legislatures passed 6% fewer bills.

Passed bills are also becoming more complex, judging by word count.

Given the significant increase in the size and number of bills passed, and how Colorado’s legislature has outpaced other states in productivity, one might assume that all of this work makes our state a much better place. Four months of Capitol work should surely produce gains in areas where the state is struggling.

Does opening a legislative fire hose result in a better, stronger, more prosperous state?

The enactment of all of these bills means that many of them require state agencies to issue regulations to spell out the details of how these new laws will be implemented. In many cases, compliance brings new burdens for businesses – and many can be costly. But what is the benefit of the additional cost?

Turns out it hurts. A great moment.

The Colorado Chamber of Commerce has done a tremendous service by diving deep into the state of regulation and demonstrating that all this legislative activity is taking a toll on the state’s economy – and on working families.

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Before the state issues a single paycheck to lawmakers, this study should be required reading, and all 100 people should take a quiz on its contents.

The chamber showed that Colorado is the sixth most regulated state and that nearly half of its 200,000 regulations are duplicative. The rush by legislators to “do something” and have bills to put on the fridge to say they have been good boys and girls in producing new laws has real consequences. This excessive haste too often leads to many unintended consequences, coupled with conflicting and confusing requirements. Worse, tens of thousands of new rules and regulations rarely produce the promised policy gains, especially in the areas of a cleaner environment or less expensive health care, for example.

One of the main problems is that the know-it-all ideologues in charge at the Capitol produce bills written by interest groups and then refuse to engage in serious processes with stakeholders that can result in to fundamental problems with the proposals.

So it’s no surprise that the Chamber says that for every 10% increase in state regulations, there is a direct loss of 36,000 jobs and 9,000 businesses.

And that same week comes the annual review of economic growth by the University of Colorado’s Leeds School of Business, which shows the state has moved from sixth to 41st in national growth.

The lesson is that when lawmakers feel the need to introduce yet another bill that scratches their ideological itch, they should sit back until that feeling goes away.

Sean Duffy, former deputy chief of staff to Gov. Bill Owens, is a communications and media relations strategist and ghostwriter based in the Denver area.