Colorado Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet, who has taken on the unpopularity of Congress as something of a pet cause, said this morning on MSNBC's "Daily Rundown" that "for the last year or so this town has effectively come the land of flickering lights, where the standard for success is somehow you kept the lights on for the month where the rest of the world isn't waiting for us to figure out how we're going to meaningfully participate in the 21st century economy."
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Pretty scathing stuff earlier this week from Colorado's junior Senator:
Those who have criticized Colorado Sen. Michael Bennet for being bland or quiet should take note of his fiery speech Wednesday morning on the floor of the U.S. Senate.
Speaking without notes, Bennet lashed out at Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul for stalling the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, the legislation Bennet has helped mold that will re-write the Bush era education law, "No Child Left Behind"...
...Only four amendments were considered during Wednesday's two-hour mark-up session, which ended when Paul blocked a motion to continue the meeting. Senate rules limit committee meetings to two hours while the Senate is in session, a rule that's often broken when senators agree. But the objection from any one senator is enough to enforce the two-hour rule.
Bennet, a former Denver Public Schools superintendent, took to the Senate floor and with maybe a half dozen senators, including Paul, in the chamber, lashed out.
"Sen. [Paul] speaks of the tragedy of this process," Bennet said. "I'll tell you what a tragedy is: the tragedy is that only nine of 100 children living in poverty in this country in 2011 can expect to get a college degree. That's a tragedy.
"It's a tragedy that there are people working in our schools right now doing the best they can to serve our kids and we think a two-hour meeting is too long. That's a tragedy."
Poll after poll after poll shows that Americans are angry at Congress, which they perceive to be a body that generally doesn't do much. And time after time recently, Republicans have done their very best to reinforce that negative image. Something's gotta give here eventually.
Republican Rep. Mike Coffman is putting forth legislation to repeal a section of the 1973 Voting Rights Act that allows districts with high percentages of non-English speakers to print ballots in different languages. From Talking Points Memo:
Coffman said Wednesday that his legislation would repeal Section 203 of the Voting Rights Act, which requires states or districts to provide bilingual voting materials if more than 10,000 or more than 5% of voters "are members of a single language minority and are limited-English proficient," or if the illiteracy of members of the language minority is higher than the national average.
"Among other factors," Section 203 says, "the denial of the right to vote of such minority group citizens is ordinarily directly related to the unequal educational opportunities afforded them resulting in high illiteracy and low voting participation."
As Polster VanDammerpoints out, Coffman has signed on to most major "anti immigrant" bills offered in Congress in the last year. While this would make sense for a conservative, Tea Party-loving Congressman, it doesn't make a lot of sense for someone with statewide aspirations.
Coffman has made no secret of the fact that he wants to run against Sen. Mark Udall in 2014, but he's going to have a hard time winning a statewide race by going out of his way to antagonize Hispanic voters, which he is doing with bills like repealing part of the Voting Rights Act. There's a reason why Texas Governor, and now Presidential candidate Rick Perry has been supportive of issues like in-state tuition for undocumented immigrants -- he knew he needed support from Hispanic voters in Texas.
In the 2010 Senate race in Colorado, 81% of Hispanic voters selected Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet over Republican Ken Buck; if Buck had received just 30 percent of the Hispanic vote, he would be in the Senate today. Take a look at what Mike Melanson, Gov. John Hickenlooper's campaign manager, had to say about the Hispanic vote last November. From Colorado Independent:
He said the Hickenlooper campaign saw an uptick in early voting among Hispanics this year - the first time he had seen that in a non-presidential year. He said Hispanic voters are a very strong element in Colorado and that it was a mistake by Republicans to focus on immigration in a negative way.
Either Mike Coffman wasn't paying attention in 2010, or he just doesn't really want to win a statewide race. But if he continues down this path of casting himself as a hardliner on immigration, there's no way he's going to defeat Udall in 2014. Hispanics accounted for 12% of all Colorado voters in 2010, and that number is only going to increase in the next four years. The numbers don't lie -- you just cannot win an election if you immediately lose the support of 10-15 percent of the electorate.
Colorado Senators Mark Udall and Michael Bennet voted in favor of a failed measure last night that would have repealed taxpayer subsidies to oil and gas companies. As Politico reports:
Democrats said the bill on the floor Tuesday was needed to reduce unnecessary spending and help lower the debt, pointing to about $36 billion in profits over three months recently reported by Big Oil. "The administration believes that, at a time when it is working with the Congress on proposals to reduce federal deficits, the nation cannot afford to maintain these wasteful subsidies," according to a statement of administration policy.
Tuesday's outcome was never in doubt. Democratic leaders knew the measure would fail to get the necessary 60 votes to advance, but it gave them a chance to give talking points to some of their vulnerable colleagues this election cycle.
While this particular vote may have failed, Republicans are keenly aware that this issue is not good for them, and Democrats have promised to bring it up again. Polling shows that more than 80 percent of Americans blame oil companies for rising gas prices, and 74% favor cutting oil and gas subsidies.
More from Sen. Udall's office in a press release after the jump.
UPDATE: Sen. Michael Bennet yesterday tore into his colleagues over a potential government shutdown. Bennet says people in Colorado are saying, "We hired you to do a job -- work it out!"
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CNN reports on the latest in the Congressional budget negotiations:
Key Democrats rejected a Republican proposal Tuesday to keep the government running for one more week at the cost of an additional $12 billion in cuts. Republicans, meanwhile, dismissed Democrats' insistence that there had been an agreement to cut $33 billion for the rest of the fiscal year, which expires on September 30.
If there is no deal by midnight Friday, when the current spending authorization measure expires, parts of the government will close down.
The infamous 1995 government shutdown was a political death blow to then-House Speaker Newt Gingrich and his Republican caucus that hurt them at the polls for years. But who would get the blame if the government shuts down on Friday?
Cast your vote after the jump. As always with our polls, we want to know what you think will happen, not your opinion. If there is a government shutdown, which Party do you think will take most of the blame?
Senator Michael Bennet's Chief of Staff, Guy Cecil, is leaving Bennet's office to become Executive Director of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) for the 2012 cycle. No word yet on Cecil's replacement in Bennet's office.
Senator Michael Bennet was a guest on "The Last Word" with Lawrence O'Donnell last night on MSNBC to discuss Arizona Sen. Jon Kyl's complaints that the Senate might have to work too close to Christmas in order to vote on the START Treaty:
"We should do our work and should stop complaining about it," said Bennet.
All along Democratic sources said it was unlikely that Bennet would take the job. He just barely won a brutal battle to keep his Senate seat, and he has three young children.
A senior Senate Democratic source told POLITICO this afternoon that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has asked Colorado Freshman Michael Bennet to head the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.
Bennet, who won an uphill battle for election to his appointed seat, "didn't say yes, and he didn't say no" in the Tuesday conversation with Reid, the source said. Bennet has been on a "thank you" tour of his state in the wake of his bruising campaign, but will need to decide soon on the committee post...
This would be a big job for freshman Michael Bennet, but deserved recognition of the powerful fundraising ability he demonstrated this past election. It's also a big validator for the efforts of Bennet's senior campaign staff, some of whom you might reasonably expect to move over to the DSCC with him. There are reasons why Bennet might turn the job down, of course, like Colorado's other Sen. Mark Udall has said he would--the time required beyond his duties as Senator. But Democrats could only benefit by repeating what happened here as many times as possible...
The Denver newspaper called the race moments ago on a margin of just under 7,000 votes.
UPDATE: 9NEWS' Adam SchragerTweets the word from Ken Buck's campaign: "We will have further comment later today."
UPDATE #2: The Associated Press now calling the race for Bennet, still awaiting word from Buck.
UPDATE 3:35PM: Schrager Tweets that Buck has called Bennet to concede. Statement:
Buck Congratulates Senator Bennet
DENVER - Ken Buck said he called Senator Michael Bennet this afternoon to congratulate him on winning the U. S. Senate race.
Buck said that while the final margin in the race is very small, Colorado voters have spoken and he wishes Senator Bennet well.
Buck said, "my Senate campaign has been the experience of a lifetime. I will be forever grateful to the thousands of Coloradans who helped make this grassroots journey possible."
UPDATE (11:25): The big Denver paper and many of the other big TV stations have some major problems with their reporting. The Denver Post, for example, had Buck ahead of Bennet 48-46, on the strength of a 52-45 advantage in Boulder. A quick check of the Boulder Clerk and Recorder's website has Bennet leading Buck 67-29. There are a lot of somebodies who should have caught this immediately -- there's no way Boulder County would go solid red for any Republican.
We recommend sticking with the results from Fox 31, which not only has a page that seems to actually load correctly, but isn't making any obvious errors that we can see.
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UPDATE (11:16): It looks like we may be headed for at least one state legislative recount. In HD-29, Democratic Rep. Debbie Benefield trails Republican Robert Ramirez by 148 votes (50.34% to 49.66%).
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UPDATE (11:12): That didn't last long. With 56% of ballots counted, Bennet and Buck are now tied at 47-47.
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UPDATE (11:00): Buck has pulled ahead of Bennet for the first time tonight, leading 49-46 with 49% of precincts reporting.
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UPDATE (9:50): It's looking like the race that will have the biggest impact from an ACP candidate will not be the one anybody expected. The Secretary of State race is neck-and-neck, but the ACP candidate is already pulling 6% of the vote. Buescher may well win this seat by virtue of the American Constitution Party.
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UPDATE (9:44): The percentage of precincts reporting continues to rise, and Michael Bennet continues to hold a 50-45 lead over Ken Buck. This is not good news for Buck, because early returns should have favored him (Republicans voted in higher numbers than Democrats in early and absentee voting). Given Buck's numerous gaffes in the last two weeks of the campaign, it's not likely that late voters are going to choose him over Bennet, so it's hard to see how Buck is going to make up 5 points with 27% of the vote already tallied.
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UPDATE (9:08): It's always fun to see those really early returns that show absurd numbers. In HD-22, Democrat Christine Radeff is pummeling Republican incumbent Ken Summers 7,875 to 12. Yes, 12. For a few more minutes, anyway.
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UPDATE (9:05): Republican Cory Gardner is being declared the winner in CD-4.
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UPDATE (9:03): The Secretary of State race is coming down to the wire, and may be decided by the number of votes pulled in by the American Constitution Party candidate. Meanwhile, the race for Attorney General seems to be widening in favor of incumbent John Suthers.
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UPDATE (9:00): Democratic Rep. Ed Perlmutter has been declared the winner in CD-7.
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