December 27, 2018 11:10 AM UTC

Who's Sick of Cory Gardner Hiding Behind Michael Bennet?

• 8 Comments
• by: Colorado Pols

Deepan Dutta of the Summit Daily News reports on one of the bigger political failures for GOP Sen. Cory Gardner in the month of December, adjournment for the year without reauthorizing funding for the Land and Water Conservation Fund:

[T]he fund expired in September after a three-year extension, and Congress has been unable to make much progress toward a renewal. Colorado Sens. Michael Bennet and Cory Gardner have supported renewing the fund, but have been unable to move the needle on renewal.

“Coloradans deserve a Congress responsive to their priorities, but Washington has failed to pass significant public lands legislation for years,” Bennet said in a press release condemning Congress’ failure to renew the program. “We must find a way to pass a lands package that includes LWCF and a new wilderness and recreation designations in Colorado, including the San Juan Mountains Wilderness Act. Congress’ failure to act on the Land and Water Conservation fund this year is unacceptable, and shows just how broken this place is.”

Losing the program has political consequences. Polling firm Change Research found that 87 percent of Coloradans support Congress renewing the fund. The same poll found that Colorado’s most important voting bloc — independents — are more likely to oppose Sen. Gardner’s 2020 re-election bid by a five-to-one margin if he is unable to steer his fellow Senate Republicans toward passing the fund. [Pols emphasis]

As we discussed before Christmas, funding for the LWCF was stalled by Gardner’s fellow Republican Sen. Mike Lee of Utah. In memorably comedic floor speech, Gardner punched the desk and announced how “pretty doggone upset” he was. Gardner says now that GOP Senate leadership will let the issue come back up in January, but there’s little reason to be optimistic for a better outcome.

Since the failure to renew the LWCF, Gardner has largely been granted a pass on the unwillingness of his fellow Republicans–even one Republican Senator, as is the case here–to go along with a major funding priority for Gardner’s home state. But even though Gardner and Colorado’s senior Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet appear on stage together supporting this program, it’s a natural fact that Sen. Gardner is more responsible for his own majority party’s inability to reauthorize the funding than Sen. Bennet.

After all, who are Gardner’s fellow Republicans more likely to listen to?

At a time when the GOP’s unpopularity across the nation and in Colorado particularly threatens their long-term viability, Gardner is naturally keen to deflect from his party affiliation by hiding behind his Democratic counterpart. When Gardner wasn’t himself coming up for re-election, this was more justifiable activity for Bennet to participate in. But as the Republican Party’s collective failure to accomplish goals that Gardner and Bennet both claim to support continue into Gardner’s re-election cycle, something’s got to give.

Let us gently suggest that what Sen. Bennet needs more than Gardner’s lip service…is a Democratic majority.