If politicians pass an ever-expanding pile of bills, does 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-setting reams of new laws enacted year after year. 

The Common Sense Institute just released a very interesting study of the output of the Colorado legislature compared to years past — and to the other 49 state legislatures. It won’t surprise Capitol insiders there has been a tsunami of bills in recent years, many of which have produced little if any tangible benefit for a state struggling with numerous systematic problems. 

According to the study, the legislature passed 527 bills last year, which is one-third above the average for 2011 to 2018. There has been a record number of bills passed in four of the past six years. 

Is Colorado just part of a national trend of a massive increase in the flow of legislative effluent? 

Nope. 

The folks at CSI, who deserve a big mug of high-octane holiday egg nog after completing this exhaustive study, looked at the output of all 50 state legislatures and found since 2012 Colorado’s output has risen 69%, the third highest in the nation. This is a massive contrast to the average trend, where, over the same period, legislatures passed 6% fewer bills. 

The bills being passed are also becoming more complex, as measured by word count. 

Given the significant increase in size and amount of bills passed, and how the Colorado legislature has surged ahead of other states in productivity, one would assume all this work is making our state a far better place. Four months of Capitol craftsmanship should surely produce gains in areas where the state is experiencing challenges.  

Does turning on a legislative firehose result in a better, stronger and more prosperous state? 

Enacting all these bills means many of them require state agencies to promulgate regulations to fill in the details for how these new laws will be implemented. In many cases, compliance means new burdens on businesses — and many can be expensive. But what is the benefit for the additional cost? 

Turns out, it hurts. Big time. 

The Colorado Chamber of Commerce did a huge service by diving deep into the regulatory state and showing the millstone that all this legislative activity is hanging around the state’s economy — and working families.

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Before the state issues one paycheck to legislators, this study should be required reading, and all 100 should have to pass a pop quiz about its contents. 

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

One key problem is know-it-all ideologues in charge at the Capitol produce bills written by interest groups and then decline to engage in serious stakeholder processes that can turn up substantive problems with proposals.   

It’s no shocker, then, when the chamber asserts for every 10% increase in state regulations, there is a direct loss of 36,000 jobs and 9,000 businesses. 

And the same week, along comes the annual examination of economic growth by the University of Colorado Leeds School of Business showed the state has plummeted to 41st in growth nationally from sixth.   

The lesson is when legislators feel an urge to introduce yet another bill that scratches their ideological itch, they should sit down until the feeling passes. 

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.