INNOVATIVE IDEA:

Engage Coloradans in non-partisan dialogue to improve state policy.

The PROBLEM:

As our nation’s political climate continues to become more contentious, Coloradans are increasingly divided between competing political ideologies.  Political rhetoric and fear-mongering have replaced intelligent debate in the process of making public policy as political parties focus more on winning the “zero sum” game of elections rather than working for the common good.

In the 1980’s, frustrated with their inability to advance their competing policy agendas in the increasingly dysfunctional legislative arena, political activists began to take their policy ideas directly to voters at the state’s ballot box.  By using fear-based messaging and promising over-simplified solutions, political activists found success in convincing well-intended voters to make uninformed decisions about complex state policy matters.    Over the next 30 years, this led to an avalanche of politically-motivated policy proposals appearing on the ballots of Colorado voters and, because Colorado had the most easily-amended state constitution in the nation, many of those self-serving policy proposals were pushed into the constitution to make it more difficult to ever repeal them.

As Coloradans entered the new millennium, they discovered that they had cluttered their state constitution with decades of conflicting policy proposals which were now working against each other to erode the state’s fiscal infrastructure and the resulting quality of life which that infrastructure sustains.   Out of the reach of their elected representatives to try to fix, these constitutional handcuffs would now require that same uninformed and increasingly detached electorate to correct the problem they had created for themselves.   But this electorate was now more distrustful, more confused, and less willing to engage constructively than ever before.

The BIG IDEA:

In 2015, Synergy Solutions convened a group of respected statewide civic leaders from across the political spectrum to explore a new model for engaging Colorado thought-leaders in a constructive non-partisan dialogue in an effort to find consensus policy solutions to improve Coloradans’ quality of life.  This innovative model was built on three foundational principles:

  1. The statewide conversation would be non-partisan and would not advocate for any predefined outcomes.  The goal was not to achieve an outcome, but simply to engage in constructive conversation to that end.
  2. Rather than hosting public meetings (which oftentimes are more about competing political ideologies and organizational agendas than constructive dialogue), this effort would work with established leaders in each community to identify an audience of community members who were individually respected and constructive and who collectively represented the diverse demographic of their community.
  3. With no predefined outcome established, participants in the community conversations would be genuinely empowered to determine the outcome of the conversation.

Over a period or four months, the “Building a Better Colorado” (BBCO) project hosted 30 community meetings across Colorado in 2015 and 2016, engaging almost 10,000 Coloradans in a statewide conversation through those meetings and a parallel online conversation.   Participants in the conversation were empowered to explore over 60 different policy ideas focused on three state policy areas: 

  • the process for amending Colorado’s state constitution,
  • the ability of Coloradans to participate in elections, and
  • the state’s constitutional revenue limit. 

The RESULT:

BBCO’s first statewide conversation in 2015-16 realized FIVE consensus recommendations for improving state policy.   Within 12 months after BBCO published those recommendations, FOUR of them were ultimately adopted through separate inspired efforts at the ballot box or by the state’s legislature.

  • The process for amending Colorado’s constitution was made to be more inclusive of voters statewide, and Colorado no longer had the most easily-amended state constitution in the nation. 
  • Unaffiliated voters — the state’s largest and fastest-growing block of voters — was finally allowed to vote in political primary elections for the first time without having to affiliate with a political party.
  • For the first time in three decades, Coloradans were now allowed to vote individually in the nation’s Presidential political primary instead of giving up that right to the state’s major political parties.
  • State fiscal policy was amended to avoid previously necessary cuts to programs like higher education.

Through its 2015 statewide conversation, BBCO observed an unprecedented level of agreement among engaged Coloradans and an inspiring degree of enthusiasm for such constructive non-partisan dialogue.   Buoyed by that success, BBCO hosted a second statewide conversation in 2019 in 37 communities to explore opportunities for improving Colorado’s fiscal constitutional policy.   As with the 2015 conversation, BBCO observed similar levels of unprecedented bi-partisan support for several consensus policy recommendations.    Additionally, the positive experience which participants realized through their community’s conversation has resulted in expanded local efforts to continue that dialogue to address local challenges.   

Building a Better Colorado’s statewide conversations have proven that well-intended Coloradans, when engaged in constructive dialogue and viewing a policy challenge through the shared lens of their statewide community — regardless of their political affiliation, ethnicity, age, profession, or zip code — will tend to agree more than they disagree.     Who knew?

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