Marilyn Musgrave‘s (R, CO-04) support of fossil fuels (and their support in return) and her lock-step voting according to White House wishes isn’t in dispute. To take just a small example, how did Marilyn vote on clean, alternative energy sources in this most recent session of Congress?
She voted against the repeal of oil subsidies in Jan. 2007. She voted against an amendment that would require utilities to produce at least 15% of electricity from renewable sources by 2020 in Aug. 2007, despite the fact that Coloradans overwhelmingly passed a similar measure just the year before. She voted against amending the IRS code to provide tax incentives for renewable energy and energy conservation in Aug. 2007, Dec. 2007 and then a third time in May of 2008. Those votes came a few years after she voted to give oil and gas corporations billions in tax breaks. Marilyn has one major love: Big Energy.
In 2006, Marilyn got the biggest scare of her political life by narrowly defeating Angie Paccione to maintain her seat in the House. During that political cycle, energy costs to her constituents were going up. They’ve gone up even faster since that election. Has Marilyn changed her voting pattern since then, as her public relations team would have us believe? Of course not. Her love for big donations and Bush’s wrong-headed energy policies is just too strong. It’s those policies that have caused our record energy prices this year. It’s those policies that have helped lead our economy to recession.
That’s it, plain and simple. Marilyn hasn’t voted to help develop our renewable energy resources at all during this Congress.
That’s some of the bad news. Here is the good news: Betsy Markey is running against Marilyn Musgrave. If elected, Betsy would more ably represent the 4th Congressional District of Colorado. Those folks are more impacted by record energy prices (while Exxon and others enjoy record profits) than they are by a Federal Marriage Amendment (to the Constitution!), as Marilyn has introduced every Congress.
As I said before, Marilyn nearly lost her seat in 2006. If national Democratic organizations had helped like they said they would, the story might have been different. But that’s water under the bridge. This year, Betsy Markey is getting help from those organizations. It’s Marilyn that is without assistance, a far cry from 2006 when she had major financial support from national Republican organizations. Democrats have also been hard at work organizing themselves in CO-04 for a number of years. Betsy Markey is going to benefit greatly from the motivated grassroots of eastern Colorado. Here are some resources to help Betsy out:
