…But that doesn’t mean candidates won’t try it in this, the most unusual of election seasons. This week on Purplish, hosts Andrew Kenney and Bente Birkeland dive into the weird world of virtual campaigning with CPR’s DC correspondent, Caitlyn Kim.

Lawmakers have a lot of decisions to make before they return to work at the end of May. Those are as big as cutting three billion dollars from the budget, and as small as where people will sit to achieve social distancing.

Remember the start of the legislative session, when all talk was about paid family leave, the public option, and how Jared Polis might use his power as governor in the months ahead? Yeah, it feels like a lifetime ago to us too.

What happens to the right to a speedy trial when the court system is shut down during a pandemic? Can testing every last person in a small Western Colorado county yield new insights into the spread of coronavirus? What will life in Colorado look like the day after the "stay home" order lifts? And how much, really, will lawmakers actually try to push through once they're allowed back in the state capitol? Hosts Bente Birkeland and Andrew Kenney tackle those questions and more with CPR's Justice reporter, Allison Sherry.

Times of crisis generally bring people together, but even in the depths of the coronavirus pandemic, politicians can only sing kumbaya for so long.

Our hosts locked themselves in their bedrooms, or hid under blankets in their closets, to record this week's episode, which is all about the politics and practicalities of Gov. Jared Polis' statewide "stay at home" order.

The legislative session is on hiatus, but politics, governing, and Purplish all definitely go on. In fact, policy-making is going on at warp speed, as Gov. Jared Polis tries to lock down the state to slow the spread of the virus and Congress acts to blunt the economic pain from those moves.

Lawmakers aren't getting ready for 100 years of solitude. Just two weeks or so.