Dick Lamm was Colorado’s longest-serving governor, at 12 years in office (a close second goes to Roy Romer). And during those three terms, he slowly drifted to the right.
Not because he became a Republican or even a conservative. He never did.
He simply spent enough time governing to become less impressed with government.
Lamm entered office as a reform-minded Democrat. He sponsored our abortion-up-to-moment-of-birth law years before Roe v. Wade. He led the effort to kick the Winter Olympics out of Colorado.
He championed environmental causes, social liberalization, and all the optimistic good-government ideas fashionable in the 1970s.
Reality bites
Then reality happened.
A funny thing occurs when you’re governor. Every interest group eventually wants something from you. Every program costs more than advertised. Every solution creates two new problems. Every promise runs into arithmetic.
By his third term, Lamm sounded increasingly different from the young governor who first arrived in office. He became obsessed with runaway health care costs, unsustainable spending, population growth and the uncomfortable reality government cannot provide everything to everyone forever.
The left didn’t change. But Lamm did.
Or more accurately, governing changed him.
Which brings me to Jared Polis.
Like Lamm, Polis entered office as a progressive reformer, despite his self-stylized image of a business-friendly libertarian. He embraced unattainable renewable energy mandates, universal preschool, expanded government programs and a host of causes beloved by Colorado’s activist class.
And of course, he oversaw the exponential advance in Medicaid enrollment which is now dooming the state budget.
But now, as his second and final term winds down, I’m seeing something kinda familiar.
He’s starting to act just a little less like an activist and more like a governor.
Evidence piling up
Just this year, Polis vetoed legislation making it easier for unions to organize, despite enormous pressure from organized labor and lefties. It was the second year in a row he rejected the measure.
He vetoed legislation targeting so-called “surveillance pricing,” arguing the proposal was overly broad and could undermine legitimate uses of technology and consumer discounts. Progressives were furious (but then again, enraged is their normal operating speed).
He vetoed legislation imposing new requirements on social media companies and rejected other measures regulating emerging technologies and business practices.
Most tellingly, he has spent the last two years trying to rescue Colorado from its first-in-the-nation AI regulations after warning they could create a complex compliance nightmare and chill innovation.
Sidenote: Polis wouldn’t have had to spend two years trying to fix a horrible AI law if he didn’t sign it into law in the first place.
None of this is conservative. It’s gubernatorial. There’s a difference.
The Lamm lesson
Legislators get rewarded for passing bills.
Governors get blamed for the consequences.
Is it possible the farther a politician gets from campaigning and the closer he gets to governing, the more likely he is to discover every regulation has a cost, every mandate has a victim, and every ideological crusade eventually lands on somebody’s payroll?
Lamm learned that lesson. Polis appears to be learning it too.
Which raises an interesting question: what if Polis could run for a third term?
Colorado’s term limits prevent us from finding out. But it’s a fascinating thought experiment.
A third-term Polis might be less interested in pleasing activists and more interested in protecting his legacy.
A more fun thought experiment would be what eight years of Gov. Polis would look like if Republicans, not the current democratic socialists, controlled the legislature.
He would have lowered the flat income tax, something he campaigned on, and the avalanche of anti-business, anti-gun, anti-free speech bills would have never reached his desk in the first place.
The best symbolism of a maturing Polis was his signature on a public letter (along with business leaders) complaining about the state’s legal and regulatory leviathan is hurting Colorado’s viability.
Now the difference between Lamm and Polis is if Polis were Lamm he’d also admit he caused the problem in the first place.
Polis made Colorado’s economic downfall happen by not standing up to his out-of-control party. Perhaps in years to come he will, like Lamm did after leaving office, publicly admit his poor judgement.
Jared can’t have Dick Lamm’s third term, but he can have his integrity.
Jon Caldara is president of Independence Institute, a free market think tank in Denver.
