October 11, 2018 01:32 PM UTC

Gardner Says U.S. Senate Isn't Broken. "It's Working"

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• by: Jason Salzman

(Cool story, Cory – Promoted by Colorado Pols)

Asked yesterday if he thinks the U.S. Senate is “broken,” U.S. Sen. Cory Gardner (R-CO) replied, “It’s working.”

Gardner’s comments came as leaders of both political parties have said the confirmation of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh was one of the lowest moments for the senate in decades.

“I think what’s broken is the filter that people used to have that would actually restrain them from thinking that violence is okay, and pushing the edge too far on civility,” Gardner told KFKA’s Gail Fallon.

Gardner also told Fallon it would be “devastating” if Democrats win the mid-term elections, saying the Democrats have “already talked about” increasing taxes and undoing “regulatory rollbacks.”

Gardner didn’t say what rollbacks that Democrats want to re-instate. But Democratic leaders have been critical of numerous protections and regulations Trump has rescinded, including environmental rules (limiting climate-change pollution from cars) and immigration regulations (DACA and zero-tolerance immigration policy) and more. With regard to taxes, Democrats have objected to Trump’s new tax law, which increases the national debt while lavishing tax breaks on the wealthy compared to what was given to low-income groups.

Gardner’s belief that the U.S. Senate isn’t broken may stem from his promise when he ran for his seat in 2016 to go to Washington and be a fixer.

“When something is broken, I’ll fix it,” he said in an ad attacking then U.S. Sen. Mark Udall, a Democrat.

Gardner ticked off the “accomplishments” of the senate to show it’s working.

“I think if you look at the accomplishments of the Senate over the past year, we have passed bipartisan major legislation to try to break the abuse and opiates,” said Gardner on air. “We’ve passed significant legislation creating the biggest tax cuts in over three decades. We’ve had over 80 billion dollars worth of regulatory repeals put in place over the last couple of years. We’ve confirmed more judges to the Circuit Court than any time in a president’s early administration — going back over 100 years. [We’ve passed] bipartisan legislation on transportation solutions, education solutions, to repeal some of the onerous regulations on banks that were preventing money from going back into communities and investments in businesses. These are bipartisan successes.”

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) made the same assertion Sunday, saying the U.S. Senate isn’t broken.

Gardner also criticized former Sen. Hillary Clinton for recently saying, “You cannot be civil with a political party that wants to destroy what you stand for, what you care about.”

When he was elected in 2016, Gardner ran TV advertisement saying, “When my party is wrong, I’ll say it.”

Since then, he’s earned a 91 percent pro-Trump voting record.

Other Republicans have shown the same pattern.During the same election, U.S. Rep. Mike Coffman (R-CO) said he’d take on Trump, and he’s since voted with the President 96 percent of the time.

Listen to Garnder on KFKA Oct. 10: