Colorado Senators Team Up On Anti-Shutdown Resolution
DENVER (AP) — Colorado's U.S. senators have joined across party lines to try to derail government shutdowns.
The Shutdown Accountability Resolution that Democrat Michael Bennet and Republican Cory Gardner introduced Thursday would, in the event of one or more government agencies stopping work because lawmakers refused funding, establish rules designed to ensure that senators are at least in the same place. Once they are on the Senate floor, Bennet and Gardner hope they will work together to resolve disputes.
Under their proposal, which so far has no other sponsors, votes would be held regularly during any shutdown until a bill reopening government is signed into law. If lawmakers don't show up for votes, the sergeant at arms could be dispatched to drag them to the Senate floor, but only if lawmakers vote to take that extreme step.
"These changes would at best motivate Congress into avoiding crisis and getting the work done it was elected to do," Bennet said in a statement Thursday. "At worst, they would force senators to stay on or near the Senate floor and actually communicate with one another until they open the government back up."
Gardner added: "I wish we didn't need legislation like this, but I'm happy to support it."
The two made their comments in a joint statement. A day earlier, according to the Denver Post, they met in Bennet's Washington office to talk about their effort. That kind of collegiality stands out in this red-blue era, when it is increasingly rare for states to even have split Senate delegations.
"Colorado prides itself on being a place where people can see across party lines," said Seth Masket, a University of Denver political scientist.
Richard Arenberg, a Brown University political scientist who specializes in Congress and served as an aide to several senators, said the Bennet-Gardner proposal likely had little more than symbolic value.
"There's a tendency to kind of build these Rube Goldberg machines that will somehow keep Congress from doing damage to itself," Arenberg said. "When really what is needed is for the Congress to get back to the fundamentals of trying to address the real issues, the real problems the American people have."
Parts of government halted in 2013 over Republican opposition to Democratic President Barack Obama's health reform law. This year, Congress sent Obama Homeland Security funding legislation, dropping demands for immigration concessions that Republicans had been making for months and averting a partial shutdown of the agency.
By Donna Bryson, AP Writer
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