The legislative deadlock over construction defect liability has revealed an ugly truth: our state government can’t solve pressing urban problems. Our governor and mayors look on from the sidelines, while two interest groups negotiate over the critical housing issue facing our cities. Political leadership is in short supply.
Colorado is growing incredibly fast, and we have an opportunity to build communities and get it right. Most Front Range cities love high-density development — especially around mass transit stations. In Denver, transit-oriented development is a firmly held religion, while in Boulder it approaches a fetish. Environmentalists, liberal politicians, and city planners all see it as the solution to everything that ails us: from affordable housing to carbon emissions to obesity.
Conservatives agree that condos are a good way to give people options to buy a home.
But Colorado’s urban planners face a problem. Builders won’t build condominiums. Instead, we see new, high-end rentals. Why? Condominium builders tend to get sued for every problem, real or imagined.
No solution is on the horizon, and we’ve seen only stalemate for four years. To be sure, Democratic leadership just allowed a House committee to hear a bill that would require a majority of condominium owners to agree to a lawsuit, rather than a vote by a homeowner association. Just reading that sentence fills one with enthusiasm. With all of the hype about “critical” progress, you’d think that the Versailles peace treaty had been announced. It’s more like the negotiators had finally agreed to use a rectangular table, rather than a round one.
One would think that city-based legislators would lead the charge to change our construction-defect laws.
Not at all. Last year’s speaker of the House came from Boulder, but she consistently blocked construction-defect reform.
And Gov. John Hickenlooper used to be Denver’s Mayor Hickenlooper, but he has skillfully and deftly disappeared. He has done such a good job of keeping things off of his desk that the media has “normalized” his behavior. Today, we simply expect that our state’s chief executive will be far away from the critical issues facing our state.
Meanwhile, our current Denver mayor, along with the leadership in other cities, wants to see reform. But he’s basically watching from the sidelines. He cheers progress. He applauds compromises. But he isn’t in the middle of the action.
So who is? Who does the negotiating and compromising? First and foremost, this battle rages between the homebuilders and the trial lawyers. For now, the trial lawyers are on the defensive. But they can hold their own, and they have locked up the Democratic caucus to frustrate any change. In their dreams and rhetoric, Democratic legislators may love high-density development, but in the legislature they march to the trial lawyers’ drumbeat.
How did we get to a place where liberal, Democratic legislators routinely ignore mayors, city leadership and environmentalists, while our governor runs far away from a really important issue?
Campaign finance is probably the biggest offender, by magnifying the strength of special-interest groups and stifling others, such as other elected officials or party leadership. The Democratic caucus just won’t go against trial lawyer wishes, because trial lawyers heavily fund their campaigns. (A similar dynamic often plays out on the Republican side).
Another offender is legislative gerrymandering. The reapportionment commission no longer draws districts to reflect communities. Rather, partisan make-up dominates everything, and every 10 years the game is who can jam through a 6-5 vote on the statewide legislative reapportionment commission.
Finally, much of our political class has taken on a “broker” mentality. They view their sole job as finding a way to mediate between competing interest groups. And those are the most dedicated public servants working in a highly flawed system. Others hide. Our governor’s disappearing act may be a work of art, but it does nothing for the state.
The fact remains we really want a good supply of affordable housing in our cities. When people buy a home, they buy into a community. And we should all want stable communities. But yet again, state leadership can’t fix the problem, so we will have to wait around until the trial lawyers and the homebuilders negotiate a deal.
Scott Gessler is a former Colorado secretary of state and a Denver attorney.
To send a letter to the editor about this article, submit online or check out our guidelines for how to submit by email or mail.
