As Colorado approaches its 150th birthday, we should remember its first 100 years were characterized by repeated boom-and-bust economic cycles. Dependence on mineral extraction and agricultural commodity prices was subject to the volatility of these markets. In 1972, as I arrived in Denver with Ma Bell, 40,000 metro households were waiting for dial tone since arrivals were outstripping Mountain Bell’s switching capacity. Denver’s initial fleet of downtown skyscrapers was allegedly financed by Canadian petroleum moguls, while a nasty brown cloud of air pollutants often limited visibility to just a few blocks.

Following a real-estate collapse in the late 1980s, Colorado’s economy acquired a better balance as tourism, high-tech manufacturing, cable distribution, regional banking and warehousing, together with migrating corporate headquarters, captured ever larger slices of the workforce. The turn of the century’s “dot.com” bust as well as the 2008 “great recession” proved mere bumps on the road to an expanding prosperity. Therefore, a recent contraction of the state’s economy, evidenced by a handful of companies abandoning the Queen City of the Plains, has agitated business community anxieties. When coupled with the challenge of day-to-day affordability, especially for housing where the Front Range has captured the nation’s highest costs, lamentations have grown into a chorus. In polarized times, Republicans have been quick to point their fingers at the regulatory zeal of legislative Democrats. Their thesis appears to be that onerous regulatory burdens are causing Colorado employers to flee the state.

Embarrassingly, Colorado boasts the longest Constitution among the states, having loaded it with provisions which don’t belong there. Nowhere else is there such a penchant for crafting ballot-box tax policies. We also generate volumes of regulations reaching into the minutiae of commercial and personal life to an indefensible extent, although we are still surpassed by the full-time legislatures in many larger states. It is worthwhile to recognize regulation comes in several flavors. Democrats, when in the majority, tend to focus their zeal on protecting consumers and ensuring public health and safety. Republicans, in contrast, often restrict market entry and stifle competition. These initiatives are usually debated in the legislature, but it is not the sole source for regulation. The bureaucracy also plays a significant role in promulgating requirements when implementing legislation. Then there is the miasma of local government control over zoning, permitting and policing.

All this came to mind as I watched a retrospective documentary examining the career of the Australian rock group, the Bee Gees. They broke through with the English invasion in the late 1960s, rivaling both the Beales and the Rolling Stones with what was something of an alternative rock sound. Though briefly successful, their popularity rapidly faded until the mid-1970s disco rage featured in John Travolta’s “Saturday Night Fever.” Asked to write songs for the movie, their soundtrack became what remains the largest selling movie score of all time and the film the box-office bonanza of the year I will link this to regulation shortly). The song “Stayin’ Alive” became something of a 1970s anthem.

In 1980, Republican Freda Poundstone was the most powerful lobbyist at the state Capitol. She could be either a formidable foe or a powerful ally. She had more or less single-handedly passed the Poundstone Amendment to the state Constitution that effectively halted Denver’s voracious annexation of its adjoining suburbs. This expansion pulled neighborhood schools into Denver’s system, which was operating under a mandatory busing order, the very reason families moved to the suburbs in the first place. She also managed to get herself elected mayor of Greenwood Village, becoming a multi-talented political operative, whose municipal annexations prompted the defensive creation of Centennial.

Among her numerous clients were movie-house owners. On their behalf, she introduced a bill that would outlaw “blind bidding” in Colorado. This is a process that Hollywood distributors resort to when they feel they have a moneymaking film (or a turkey), requiring operators to bid for its projection rights, usually with a reduced house share of ticket revenue, sight unseen.

Freda hoped to recruit me as a co-sponsor and supporter of her proposal. She seemed to believe my “liberal proclivities” would make me sympathetic with her beleaguered theater owners and, therefore, persuasive with my fellow Democrats. I was unpersuaded. I pointed out it was usually Republicans who wanted government to keep its nose out of business transactions. “If your clients don’t want to bid blindly on a movie, there’s a simple solution. Don’t bid on it,” I argued. Despite stellar casting, more than one movie has proved to be a bomb at the box office. What I discovered from one of the studio distributors was “Saturday Night Fever” had been previewed for theater operators, so uncertain were its producers regarding the appeal of the movie. Not a single Colorado theater bid on it for an exclusive showing. In the months following its opening, owners were scrambling to obtain copies of the film. If they couldn’t recognize a smash hit, what are the chances they would identify a turkey?

To be fair, the real-estate division at the Department of Regulatory Agencies approached the legislature with a request to fund five investigators to travel and analyze land deals advertised in weekly periodicals like TV Guide. Their goal was not to certify any Colorado hustles, of which there were several at the time, peddling ranchettes without water rights. No, they intended to travel to Florida and Hawaii to alert Colorado purchasers against similar frauds. My reaction was to contend, “There’s only so much government can do to protect people from their own stupidity. If they are willing to buy a property, again sight unseen, I can’t understand why my tax dollars should be spent to prevent them. There’s only so much government can or should do.” Both Freda’s bill and the regulatory agency legislation failed — a pair of those tough decisions legislators have to make for you.

The legislature’s sunset process examines the effectiveness of state programs, but likely not as thoroughly as they deserve. Well-intentioned provisions, like certificates-of-need approval for new medical facilities and “site-of-service” procedure pricing, have driven up health care costs rather than restrained them. Thirty percent of the cost of new housing units should not be consumed meeting compliance requirements. Bipartisan guilt is in order for such blunders. Nor should our state Constitution, which ostensibly ought to concern itself with matters of relative permanence, be writing fiscal rules for an economy that perpetually evolves. Today’s regulations should address today’s policy challenges only as truly needed.

Miller Hudson is a public affairs consultant and a former Colorado legislator.