Column | Lewis: The winding road

I hate bans. I don’t like government telling me I can’t buy something, build something or do something simply because someone has decided it would be better for me — or society — if I didn’t.

There is something I dislike almost as much: bans on bans.

Welcome to the modern ballot, where increasingly we are asked to choose between two answers to a question that probably shouldn’t have been yes or no in the first place.

Natural gas is a perfect example. Denver has been steadily restricting (banning) natural gas equipment in certain new buildings as part of its effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. I understand the objective. Natural gas produces carbon emissions, and electrification will undoubtedly play an important role in reducing them. But banning something is a pretty blunt instrument, particularly when electricity itself isn’t carbon-free (Denver gets roughly 26% of its electricity from coal), the economics don’t always work and the technology continues to change.

So naturally, what’s the response? Put a constitutional amendment on the ballot creating a constitutional right to purchase and sell natural gas.

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And there we go. We’ve driven from the ditch on one side of the road to the other. Apparently, my choices are now: Government should be able to prohibit natural gas, or we should amend the state constitution to make sure government can’t prohibit natural gas. I’m not particularly fond of either.

Why couldn’t we encourage electric heat pumps where they make sense? Provide incentives. Let economics and technology improve. Make electricity cleaner. Reduce emissions. Meanwhile, allow natural gas where it remains the most practical solution. That answer isn’t that satisfying if you’re an activist. Nobody gets to declare victory. There are no signs to wave. But it would likely be the optimal solution.

I’ve noticed the same phenomenon with crime. I think there are crimes for which we’re too lenient. Repeat violent offenders and people dealing deadly drugs deserve serious punishment. Colorado voters this year are again being asked to increase penalties for fentanyl crimes. Tougher sentences may be entirely appropriate, but I get nervous when we remove discretion and pretend legislators — or voters — can anticipate every circumstance of every crime committed by every person in the future.

Why can’t we impose tougher sentencing guidelines while still allowing a judge some discretion in an extraordinary case? We can be tougher on crime without requiring every defendant and every circumstance to fit neatly into the same box.

We’re doing something similar with hunting. Colorado voters will consider adding a constitutional right to hunt and fish. Again, the argument isn’t crazy. In 2024, voters were asked to prohibit hunting mountain lions, bobcats and lynx. Now, two years later, we’re being asked to put hunting protections in the constitution.

It’s political ping-pong. One side tries to prohibit something, so the other side tries to constitutionally protect it. Increasingly, our solution to the possibility that somebody might make a decision we don’t like in the future is to make sure nobody is allowed to make that decision in the future.

We’re not governing. We’re booby-trapping the government for what comes next.

I think part of the problem is that our political system rewards the people most passionate about an issue. There aren’t many raging moderates gathering signatures in supermarket parking lots. The people willing to spend months getting something onto the ballot generally want something changed, stopped or protected forever. They’re motivated — the 1 %. Most of us are just trying to get into City Market.

So we end up being asked yes-or-no questions about problems that don’t have yes-or-no answers.

And I don’t think the solution is necessarily “the middle.” I don’t particularly like that expression either. Sometimes the right answer isn’t halfway between two positions. If one person says the speed limit should be 45 and another says it should be 85, that doesn’t magically make 65 correct.

The objective should be to find the best solution, not the midpoint.

I think of it more like driving down a winding mountain road. The objective isn’t to keep the steering wheel perfectly centered. The road turns. Sometimes you steer left. Sometimes right. Occasionally you have to turn pretty sharply.

The objective is to stay on the road.

Somewhere along the way, we started confusing extremism with decisiveness. Yanking the steering wheel hard to the right certainly is decisive. So is yanking it hard to the left. Neither is particularly impressive when you’re lying upside down in a ditch.

Good government should be constantly steering: incentives when incentives work, regulations when they’re necessary, prohibitions when there really is no reasonable alternative, and enough discretion to change course when circumstances change. That isn’t weakness. It isn’t indecision. And it isn’t necessarily compromise. It’s problem-solving.

Natural gas should likely gradually lose market share as renewable electric alternatives become cleaner and cheaper. Maybe some criminals should spend considerably longer in prison while judges retain discretion for exceptional cases. Maybe hunting deserves strong protection without pretending we know what Colorado will need 50 years from now.

Those answers aren’t easily reduced to slogans. Unfortunately, slogans fit nicely on ballots.

The world is complicated. Technology changes. Economics change. Circumstances change. Good policy needs room to change with them. The road ahead isn’t straight. Maybe we should stop fighting over which ditch to drive into and concentrate on keeping the car on the road.

Mark Lewis, a Colorado native, had a long career in technology, including serving as the CEO of several tech companies. He’s now retired and writes thriller novels. Mark and his wife, Lisa, and their two Australian shepherds, Kismet and Cowboy, reside in Edwards.