In the past couple of years, Sens. Mark Udall and Michael Bennet of Colorado have touted their intent and ability to “work across the aisle to get things done”. Instead of standing firm on Democratic principles and working overtime to secure the policies their base wants enacted, they have yielded time and again to the more disciplined but less principled Republican Teabaggers who are under no such illusions to work with the other side. I’ve met and talked with with the staff of Sen. Udall many times since he was elected, trying to convince him to fight for what Colorado majorities and not corporate majorities want. Each and every time, I was told by his staff that Sen. Udall values my opinion but feels it is important to represent everybody. I have never received a sufficient explanation why it is more important to pay attention to what a minority of Coloradans want than what the majority wants. A similar story emerged with Sen. Bennet. So I have changed the way I evaluate the Senators’ performance. If they want to be judged based on their ability to work with the other side, I’m happy to do that.
The issue of whether or not to continue or let expire the 2001 and 2003 Bush Regime tax cuts has been in the news recently. Yesterday, Senators worked a rare Saturday session into their schedule to vote on those cuts. Faced with the opportunity to extend tax cuts for earners of less than $250,000 permanently but allow tax cuts to expire on those making more than that, Sens. Udall and Bennet had the chance to demonstrate their acumen in bringing bipartisanship to the table. If you look at this issue from the vantage point that Democrats hold the majority and a majority of Americans wanted the first $250,000 of every Americans’ income subject to continued tax breaks, Sens. Udall and Bennet failed. Only 51 other Senators voted with them.
Well, we know most of this year’s election results. Some of those results are good and some aren’t so good. Here are some initial thoughts I have this morning.
Governor
John Hickenlooper is our next Governor, despite running a fairly lackluster campaign and never really developing an image. My hope is Hick doesn’t take his base for granted in the same way that, unfortunately, Gov. Ritter did. But just as was the case for President Obama, one of the most overlooked aspects of executives is who they put into power around them. I don’t think enough of Obama’s economic advisers have average Americans’ best interests in mind. I don’t have any idea of who Hickenlooper will put into place around him, but those personnel choices will be critical in the kind of governing he will do. I’ll talk more about him as I bring up other races below.
Blue Dogs
Rep. John Salazar was beat by his last opponent, Scott Tipton. Salazar was an alright Dem based on his overall voting pattern, but he did vote against key legislative items (global warming bill being the largest in my mind). More importantly, he chose to publicly rebuke his party. Overall, I’m not going to miss him very much.
Rep. Betsy Markey lost by a wide margin last night. This is a Dem Rep. I will miss, association with the Blue Dog caucus notwithstanding. Contrary to Salazar, she actually voted to do something about global warming and more importantly, she decided to show some real courage by defending her vote. She took the time to explain to her CO-04 constituents why that vote, and others she took, were important to them. The right-wing Denver Post editorial board took her to task for being “too liberal for her district”. I won’t hold my breath waiting for them to take Cory Gardner to task for being “too conservative for his district”. This seat was high on the Republican Teabagger hit list and could be characterized as a lost cause in a right-wing wave election. Hopefully a Democratic wave election hits again soon.
CO-07
Rep. Perlmutter won re-election, which I find interesting. The 7th is a district that is up for grabs and the fact that he held his seat in a wave election speaks volumes about his campaign effort.
TABOR Measures
Thankfully, 60, 61, and 101 lost big time – between 2:1 and 3:1. In context of the other races, this means a lot of Unaffiliateds and Republicans voted against the measures along with Democrats. These measures would have destroyed Colorado’s economy. We at least have a chance to still save most of it, if we’re willing to have honest discussions about the importance of investing in ourselves and our state. Continue Reading →
How will Democratic Senators who care more about self-imposed rules and traditions handle somebody like Sen.Chancellor Jim DeMint (R.Teabagger-S.C.) who held up every piece of legislation in the Senate until he personally cleared its progress? Until very recently, the public wasn’t even aware that such an abuse of Senate procedure was occurring. Sen. Chancellor DeMint shouldn’t have the power to be the single person who prevents the Senate from doing what it is supposed to do: deliberate and pass legislation.
Instead, we get nonsense like this:
“It is my understanding Jim DeMint has had a standing hold on everything throughout this two year process,” Senator Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) told the Huffington Post on Tuesday. “When I have had amendments on a couple of occasions, I have been told: ‘Absolutely, we in the Republican leadership are fine but you are going to have to clear it with Jim DeMint because he has a standing hold on everything.’ So I’m not sure this is a real change from what he has been doing.”
If Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid loses his race to Republican Teabagger Angle, as it looks like he might, will he think back on his lack of drawing attention to this cancer in the Senate? If Sen. Michael Bennet loses his race to Republican Teabagger Ken Buck, will he think back on his ham-handed attempts at pursuing bipartisanship at all costs?
The Senate is a broken institution. I don’t want to listen to empty platitudes or promises from anybody on either side of the aisle until the Senate fixes its own problems. The past 10 years are proof that Republican Teabaggers will do anything and everything in order to pass their legislation and completely halt Democrats from passing their legislation. Serious people would address this issue.
I saw some op-eds weighing in on candidates for Colorado’s junior Senate seat.
Steve from Ft. Collins represents your typical hypocritical Republican Teabagger – deficits only matter when Democrats are in power:
How well have his [Sen. Bennet's] votes represented your children and grandchildren, who will be saddled with a lifelong debt due to the reckless spending of this runaway government?
Anyone want to bet that Steve sent in an op-ed when the Bush Regime blew the deficit up from $5 Trillion to $12 Trillion in 8 short years? How about when Reagen blew up the deficit? No, as usual, Steve is trying to use a topic to cover his true concern: a corporatist Democrat who isn’t 100% white is in the White House. If Steve took the deficit seriously, he would fully support both the health insurance legislation that passed this year and push to reduce the bloated war budget. Don’t take Steve seriously.
Scott from Loveland has a good point regarding health care solutions:
These bandages [high-deductible plans and open health savings accounts, espoused by Republican Teabagger Ken Buck] have been available for years and do not address the issue of those citizens who can afford neither.
That’s true. It’s like the Republican Teabagger complaint about tax cuts: would one of you please tell the rest of us where the millions of jobs created by the Bush tax cuts are hiding? The fewest jobs of any president post-WWII were created under Republican Teabagger economic policies. The rest of us are still trying to fix your damn mess. Your solution is ridiculous and has been proven to not work the way you think it works.
Martha from Denver speaks for a lot of progressives about Sen. Bennet:
He has finally come clean and admitted that he will be voting to continue the Bush tax cuts and against the Employee Free Choice Act. [...] He may earn a few Republican votes with his tactics, but when combined with the loss of thousands of votes from registered Democrats, he will lose this election. Be clear, he will lose because he stepped right of center.
Martha argues along the same lines that I have for years – Democrats need to stand for Democratic principles. Not bipartisan principles or Republican principles; Democratic principles. The number of issues which Sen. Bennet not only voted against his base’s wishes but cynically used micro-issues to raise cash and visibility from that base prior to those votes are long indeed. It surprises me that so many Democrats are still willing to support somebody who on too many occasions hasn’t supported them. Oh, when you vote for the lesser of two evils, you’re still voting for an evil. Don’t expect a ton of good to come from that.
Baxter from Silverthorne addresses my top issue:
If Ken Buck is like every other Republican in the U.S. Senate, he will fight all attempts to curb greenhouse gas emissions with a comprehensive energy and climate bill.
While true, some additional context should be made clear. Sen. Bennet early in 2009 voted to require that climate legislation be subjected to the 60-vote super-majority instead of the 50-vote majority requirement that wins most other contests. What followed was a lot of hand-wringing and lamenting that with the largest majority in the Senate in years, 60 votes just couldn’t be found, gosh darn it. No, it’s not as though Sen. Bennet found global warming to be a leading issue of the day. Let’s not kid ourselves and blindly think Sen. Bennet is a global warming champion. If anything, he found Senate procedure to be more important than any legislative topic. Sure, he started talking about “filibuster reform” after all Senate work had ground to a near-complete halt by mid-2010. It wasn’t like Republicans abused the rule throughout all of 2009 or anything. Heck, it wasn’t even like Republicans told Democrats they would do just that when the session started, right? And after being told this, Democratic Senators still continued to try to bring one, just one, Republican over on bill after bill after bill.
Leading up to voting this year, you should ask yourself this important question: will Sen. Bennet vote to change Senate rules on the first day of business in January, when rule changes only require 50 votes instead of 67 afterward? If Sen. Bennet wins this election and Democrats retain control of the Senate, will the filibuster rules be changed back to what they were historically, or will they continue to ask the Republican Teabaggers to steamroll over them, yet come back to the voters in 2012 and ask for more money, more volunteering, and more votes from us?
One of the few U.S. Senators standing up for average Americans is Sen. Bernie Sanders, the Independent from Vermont. He introduced a resolution in the Senate “Expressing the sense of the Senate in opposition to privatizing Social Security, raising the retirement age, or other similar cuts to benefits under title II of the Social Security Act.”
The resolution has 11 co-sponsors. Neither of Colorado’s supposedly “Democratic” Senators have signed onto this resolution. Why haven’t they done this?
I think Colorado’s Senators are mis-characterized as “liberal” – by folks from across the political spectrum. Now, I don’t give a hoot what the psychos in the Republican Tea Party think about Sen. Udall or Sen. Bennet; they’re never going to give them the credit they deserve for pushing policies Cons used to love. I’m a little more concerned what Democrats think about them. I’ve listened to and read too many instances of Democrats cheering on Udall and Bennet because they advocate a “bipartisan” governing approach. I’ve heard far too many instances of, “Well, we <i>have</i> to support Udall and Bennet, because…” and which is followed by any number of variations of the same argument. We can’t let perfect get in the way of good. We can’t let Teabaggers get elected even though our Democratic politicians don’t do all kinds of things we want. They’re the lesser of two evils, blah, blah, blah.
Just like deniers’ inability to answer simple questions regarding global warming, the blind partisans in the Democratic Party are too willing to let their politicians get away with passing crappy policy because they’re unwilling to challenge them. Health insurance companies are making out like bandits (still) because of people like Sens. Udall and Bennet. Wall St. companies are making out like super-bandits (still) because of people like Sens. Udall and Bennet. Global warming legislation got kicked to the gutter because of people like Sens. Udall and Bennet, who continue to show they are more interested in compromise than pushing for critical legislation. All of this lack of progress is somehow a good thing to Democratic partisans, because at least their politicians, and not the other kind, are in power.
And that attitude is fine, I suppose. At some point, however, I think Democrats need to evaluate at which point they will no longer accept the status quo. Health care reform? Nope, not there. Financial industry gambling reform? Nope, not there either. Global warming action? Nope, not there. Immigration reform? Nope, no action there either. Well, how about Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare then? Sens. Udall and Bennet haven’t had much to say about Republican Tea Party attempts to destroy the safety nets that have kept millions of Americans out of deep poverty and healthier than they would have been. If the mis-named Deficit Commission recommends changes to Social Security and other programs, and Sens. Udall and Bennet vote for those changes, how will Democrats react? Will they accept another incrementalist approach that didn’t get Democrats some of what they wanted? Will they applaud the Senators for getting Teabaggers to vote with them to weaken our social programs? Because after all, the Teabaggers won’t be able to do it by themselves. They’re going to need “Democrats” to join them in their crusade to take America back to the 1750s.
Although, it seems a little more than “unfortunate“, as Joan puts it, even if the amendment itself was defeated.
Coming from the man who promised progressive Democrats that he would introduce and fight for a public option amendment to the health insurance giveaway bill and then failed to do so, voting for the Johanns amendment provides a clearer picture for who this man really is:
Sen. Bennet (Corp-CO) voted for an amendment that would repeal tax law strengthening language. He never introduced that public option amendment. Just how committed to actual health care reform is Sen. Bennet, anyway? To top off the irony, Democrats in Colorado are being told to suck it up and vote for this guy, because Ken Buck would be soooooo much worse. Really? At what point does Sen. Bennet reach unacceptable? He’s already done it for me, although it was his vote to allow a filibuster on any climate legislation that did it.
Hope you get a cushy lobbyist job, Sen. Bennet. Or maybe you can go back to work for Anschutz.
And here’s why: Americans are frustrated with the D.C. culture of doing as little as possible. Americans voted for Obama in record numbers in 2008 mostly because they wanted to see progress made on a suite of issues that had been left to languish or purposefully decimated in the previous 8 years of the Bush Regime. Instead of getting things done, as was promised in the 2008 campaigns across America, the White House chose instead to waste months of time in order to get one or two Republicans to vote for bills that were being continually watered down.
The nation’s biggest banks got taxpayer dollars which they used to buy smaller banks and reduce competition. They’re not lending much of those billions of dollars to small businesses or the people who would spend it and finally get this economy back on track.
Healthcare legislation became a health industry giveaway. The system remains broken, as Americans will continue to affirm for themselves over the next few years.
No climate legislation will be passed any time soon – and I mean any time in the next few years. Or at least until climate-related disasters affect more Americans personally.
Guantanamo remains open; we’re still occupying Iraq; we’re still occupying Afghanistan.
Unemployment officially remains near 10%, though the more realistic number hovers nearer 18%.
Real take-home income still hasn’t increased measurably since 1974.
Despite all of the things that weren’t done at all , or were done partway, Obama’s machine has decided to back every incumbent Democrat this year, whether they worked to pass any part of his agenda or not. A number of those candidates have already failed to win their primaries or are behind enough in the polls that Republican wins are all but guaranteed in 3 short months.
That machine wouldn’t be necessary if the President’s team had decided that America’s agenda needed some attention in 2009 and earlier this year.
I’m not at all sure what Obama expects will get done in 2011-2012 with fewer Democrats in the House, which did a monumental job getting good legislation passed, or the Senate, which is broken. But if he feels better about himself because his machine helped get a couple incumbents through their primaries, more power to him.
Oil corporations bought conditional senior water rights to 7.2 million acre-feet of water earlier this week. Why? So they can potentially use the water in the future to drill for oil in shale in Western Colorado. Some things come to mind: diverting water from the Front Range to drill for oil in shale won’t go over well if it ever happens; diverting water from downriver states won’t go over well either (read: tons of litigation); oil shale development won’t be viable for decades – by that time, I don’t think we’ll need the oil.
A foundational health care bill passed out of a Colorado House committee Wednesday. Somehow, the Cons think double-digit insurance rate increases year after year should be totally loved by everybody. The reality is far from that. People are justifiably upset with for-profit insurance that doesn’t deliver care. The bill still has to pass the House Appropriations Committee before going to the full House.
Colorado’s newest Senators might be deciding to go the pro-corporatist, non-progressive route in Congress. Sens. Udall and Bennet have joined a gang in Washington (just like the Senator Bennet replaced, Ken Salazar) that tries to sell itself as ‘centrist’. I’m going to be very clear about this: the difference between most Senate Democrats and the Senate Cons isn’t a lovely place called centrism. If they want to join the Cons in their assault on the American worker and our economy, they’re free to do so. Colorado voters are similarly free to examine their efforts and decide if Udall and Bennet are who they want in the Senate. Joining a gang isn’t the worst thing that can happen. But if Udall or Bennet decide to vote like Salazar did – if they develop a clear pattern of voting against Colorado citizens’ best interests, I won’t hesitate to call them on it or work to get somebody else elected in the next election. I was reasonably sure Udall would do this – it remains to be seen how he votes.
Yesterday’s paper version of the Denver Post had a full-page, color ad that lied to readers. It claimed new energy taxes were going to be passed soon by Congress. They provided a website that is full of pro-industy spin and very short on facts. The fossil fuel industry has enjoyed years’ worth of tax loopholes – they’ve cheated the U.S. out of billions of tax dollars. Now that real public anger has bubbled to the surface over fuel costs; now that the public is demanding fossil fuel corporations finally pay their fair share; after years of not developing refining infrastructure but buying up 60 million acres of land that isn’t being drilled, how does the industry respond? With full page ads and websites, part of a multi-million dollar marketing campaign. Remember that when fuel prices shoot back up this summer. And remember this too: fuel corporations were making tens of billions of dollars of profit every three months last year while telling everyone that they couldn’t produce anymore product. The fact is, they refuse to produce more. They’ve refused to do it for a long, long time. Americans are ready to move to a post-fossil fuel era. And that scares the hell out of the industry.
