The Colorado Legislature needs a field trip. To Colorado.

We all fondly recall school field trips. Other than a fun day off-campus, we also remember them as an effective way to provide a direct, in-person experience we couldn’t get by staying in the same four walls of a classroom.

But field trips aren’t just for school students. Adults, particularly those charged with making decisions for a big, diverse state, need field trips too. A proposed piece of legislation that at first sounds like a slam-dunk winner when shared by your favorite liberal activist or progressive policy group can have negative real-world consequences for families you’ve never met in places you’ve never heard of.

That’s what you can learn in a field trip outside the political bubble that covers the Capitol Dome.

Democrats have an (almost) veto-proof majority. What can seem like a gift from the voters tends to make policymaking more myopic. It seems like the whole state agrees with you – just look at how popular we are! This creates a belief it’s time to empty out the progressive policy cupboard (conservatives had this “challenge” back when the GOP had big numbers).

But it’s a big state. It’s not uncommon to hear Democratic legislators from outside the Boulder-Denver corridor talk about how they need to explain what real life is like for their constituents. I’ve heard a number say they would love to get them out of the Dome and into their home districts.

This new majority is comprised of many legislators who are not only new to the Capitol, but new to public office. The big challenge when you’re busting with new energy is to not simply push for the hobby horse ideas popular with local party activists but consider the big picture of what’s best for Colorado. Take the risk of hearing people with different views – and maybe even different values and worldviews – who may make your bill actually workable in the real world.

Why not take a field trip and put Denver in the rear-view mirror for a few days? Though legal experts say the legislature cannot hold a session outside of Denver, there’s no prohibition on committee hearings anyplace. Any Capitol observer will tell you there’s plenty of bandwidth among the annual delays and dilly-dallying for a five-day Colorado Field Trip.

Send committees to communities that will be affected by bills, with the goal of not only giving people a chance to speak to legislators in person, but also letting them see firsthand in this diverse state why people and communities that may have voted Democratic are shaking their heads at some of the ideas cooked up by the Denver-Boulder progressive alliance. 

Here’s what a visit beyond the Denver-Boulder corridor could uncover:

Who can honestly object to sweeping restrictions on air emissions – even if the technology may not exist to make these restrictions a reality? Why not get on the road and see the communities, workers and the manufacturing plants that you think you are helping but in reality, you may be hurting?

Progressives want to enact new gun restrictions, such as allowing local governments to ban shooting on private property or increasing the minimum age for a gun buyer. What seems a no-brainer to some Front Rangers has garnered real-world objections from rural farming and ranching communities, for example. Get yourself on the road to Alamosa or Craig and just ask.

Ready to get rid of those pesky TABOR refunds that deny the government some extra money, and wipe away voters’ right to vote on tax increases? What might be a rounding error in Cherry Hills is real money for families on the eastern plains. Look these men and women in the eye and ask if they believe you in government know better how to spend those funds.

I’ve seen this work. Every year, Gov. Bill Owens would put his Cabinet and senior staff on buses for multi-day trips around the state where we would hear directly from the people we worked for. On rural ranches, farms, at oil and gas operations and in dusty downtowns we got to ,often to the hopes and concerns of hardworking Coloradans. I learned lessons on those trips I have never forgotten, and would never have learned in my fancy first floor Capitol office.

I remember pulling into one eastern plains community and as we emerged from the bus, the mayor said, “folks, welcome to the real world.”

Seeing the real world, and encountering unexpected facts, requires a road trip.

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