One of the phrases you often hear in electoral politics is that elections have consequences. Often, that truism is expressed as a negative, when one’s political opponents enact legislation or take other policy actions that are the opposite of what had been hoped for. Certainly, for Democrats, the idea that election results matter has often been a bitter pill to swallow nationally. While we’ve won the popular vote for president seven out of the last eight elections, we haven’t put our nominee in the White House nearly as often. 

The reasons behind the Electoral College and its built-in ability to subvert the will of the majority were well-intended by the Founders, and there are some good arguments for that system. But in today’s connected world, those arguments are deeply undercut by the political realities of a modern electorate. I have a roughly six-hour lecture I can give on the subject, should anyone want to hear it? (Ed: everyone, please, nobody ask…)

Happily, in our little square state (spoiler: it isn’t really a square) we do have a system of majority rule wherein the person with the most votes wins the office. That is a good thing, and for moderates like me, the results of the last election were pretty darn good, and we are now reaping the benefits of said election.

A recent Colorado Politics story noted that Gov. Polis (full disclosure: I know him a little bit) has been doing a great deal of bill signing now that the legislative session is over. And the range of the types of bills signed shows, at least in my view, that the recent legislative session got a lot of things right.

Now, I am thoroughly and completely a capitalist. I believe a mostly-free economy is by far the best system to improve the lot of most folks. But that “mostly” word is the problem for lots of people. I hope that in 2021 there are not too many Coloradans out there who object to, say, governmental regulations forbidding the employment of 10-year-olds in factories, as was once done. As I learned in an econ class long ago, a major problem with completely free market capitalism is that the market tends to have a big challenge with the “shadow of the future,” as economist say. Simply put, unregulated markets tend to be all about today and the profit that can be made right now. There are few incentives in a completely unregulated market to think much about the impact of today’s decisions on tomorrow. For example, we’ve cut down over 96% of the redwood trees in the U.S. The free-market problem is that loggers could make a big profit right now by cutting down the remaining wonders of nature. There was no real profit to be found in saving trees for future generations. Therefore, the government needed to step in to protect the remaining 4% from complete annihilation.

And while it is true that people of good hearts can disagree, I do believe Polis and the legislature did a nice job of balancing the need for both regulation and governmental support to some parts of our state’s economy, especially as we slowly climb out of the pandemic balloon. For example, Polis just signed House Bill 1265, a bipartisan bill that helps restaurants, bars, caterers and alike by being able to deduct big chunks of their net sales for a few months as they recover. Similarly, Polis also signed Senate Bill 241 that created a small business growth program for companies with fewer than 19 employees, which is a huge portion of such businesses. Senate Bill 230, now signed into law, will help low-income people insulate their homes, which is a win for everyone. 

One area where elections particularly matter is the arts. Now, I’m far from unbiased on the importance of the arts in our culture (cough…hamiltonlives.com…cough), but it seems to me that when Polis signed House Bill 1285, he was doing all of us a favor. That new law will directly infuse $10 million into Colorado’s arts and film industry, with $13 million more in previously unexpended funds also being added to those programs. The GOP has been notoriously anti-arts, as exemplified by my own congressman (and 2008 general election opponent), Doug Lamborn’s long fight to defund PBS. I know we are richer as a state, for example, by having an active Colorado Humanities organization that brings a wide variety of arts and humanities education to our schools and cities (full disclosure: I’ve done a number of Hamilton performances for CH, so again, I’m quite biased here). The arts and humanities are wonderful and vital parts of our culture, and I’m delighted to seem them strengthened, especially in these challenging times.

The results of any given legislative session will never satisfy everyone, and that is kind of the point, from the point of view of our nation’s founders. But it is clear that this pandemic-altered session did get a great deal done, and from my point of view, a great deal of good done. I’m pleased to see Gov. Polis signing these remarkable bills and others that help keep Colorado the remarkable place it truly is. 

Elections have consequences, people.