March 06, 2010 12:59 PM UTC

Bennet: Reforming Washington (new title)

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• by: peacemonger

I rememember the first time I cried after watching a political speech on C-Span. My favorite time of year is May, when C-Span is filled with college commencement speeches made by politicians and pundits. I arm myself with a box of kleenex and a Webster’s dictionary, and settle in for a couple of weeks, at least.

Time is marked by elections and speeches rather than years, for people like us. I felt nostalgic yesterday when I saw that completely-grey-haired Congressman Sander Levin replaced Charles Rangel on the House Ways and Means committee. “Why, I remember the first time he ran for office when I was just a kid…”

On Wednesday, my favorite new Member of Congress made an important speech on the Senate floor. So impressed, I transcribed the whole thing from the You-tube video so I could share it with all of you. Even the most die-hard Romanoffskis might be picking up their pom-poms and cheering, “Go Michael, go Michael”. You can’t NOT love this one. And yes, O’Toole and Sharon, it’s not too late to caucus for Michael Bennet after you read it.

First, here’s a link to the video: Reforming Washington

Disclaimer: I take full responsibility for any errors or ommissions in transcribing the video to text. Paragraph breaks are my own.  

Speech on the Senate Floor – “Reforming Washington”

US Senator Michael Bennet

Wednesday, March 03, 2010

I’d like to take a couple of minutes this morning to talk about something that not only effects the current legislation on the floor, but everything we are currently working on in the Senate.

Before coming to the Senate a little over a year ago, I spent my life in the real world — the world of business, of local government, of public schools, and most important of all, a family.  But since coming to Washington, I’ve discovered that many people learn to live in an entirely different world — an echo chamber shut off from the reality of life in America that defies common sense at every turn and uses anonymous holds to defy the rule of reason. I used to tell my little girls that Alice in Wonderland was just a fairy tale, but now I am not so sure.

If you come from the real world, when you get to Washington — to Wonderland — the logic can seem upside down or inside out or just plain wrong. Here, it turns out that folks attack you when you don’t cut backroom deals at the taxpayers’ expense. Here, a lot of people seem to think that saying they’re for doing something, like extending unemployment job benefits or passing a jobs bill, is exactly the same thing as actually rolling up your sleeves and getting it done. They think that blaming failure on their opponents is the same thing as fighting for real change.

Mr. President, Coloradans and Americans are reading their papers and watching their televisions and what they see drives them nuts… and it should. Because all they find are talking heads yelling at each other on cable news and cynical, reckless partisanship paralyzing their government. This phony political conversation won’t do when we need real change, but Washington can’t seem to get out of its’ own way. And that is why I will introduce legislation to end lobbyist abuses, reform the ways of the Senate, stop the outside influence of special interest, and put Washington to work for the people of Colorado.  

First, we need to hold Congress accountable.  We should freeze the pay and office budgets of every member of Congress until we have four quarters of job growth.  Our salaries and office budgets should not go up when the rest of the country is struggling. And members of Congress should lose their tax-payer funded health insurance until we pass health insurance reform. If Congress can’t get its act together on health care then the American people shouldn’t subsidize health care for Congress. That goes for Democrats and Republicans. It turns out that dysfunction in Washington is just another kind of pre-existing condition that allows the insurance companies to get their way.

Second, we need real lobbying reform that restores power to the voters. We need to ban members of Congress from becoming lobbyists when they leave office. We need to do something about the revolving door between Congress and K Street. We need stronger rules and tighter standards for lobbyist registration and real penalties for those who break the rules. And we need to end the corporate subsidy for Members of Congress who fly on corporate jets. Every member of Congress should pay their fair share and disclose every person who is on the plane with them.

Third, real reform will not be complete without earmark reform. The people of Colorado pay taxes and they deserve a government that works for them. I have no issue with Members of Congress fighting for projects they think are valuable for their state or for their district. I’m proud, for example, of the funding we secured for projects like the Arkansas Valley conduit that languished (languished!) in the Senate since President Kennedy first promised it to the people of Colorado. But this funding should be done in the light of day, completely transparent and accountable, not behind closed doors, hidden from the American people.  

Under my legislation, Members of Congress will be required to post every earmark request they receive, and every request they make for funding. And we shouldn’t wait for the law to change. There is no reason to wait for the law to change. We can start doing this now. Second, every earmark should be listed at earmarks.gov. The website should be easily searchable and user-friendly. Third, members of Congress should be held accountable for their requests. Larger earmark requests should go before the appropriations committee, and we should end air-drops of earmarks in conference committee. Finally, earmark recipients should be held accountable. This means randomly auditing earmarks every year, and publishing the results for our constituents to see.

Next, we need to deal with the challenge of passing real campaign finance reform that reduces the outside influence of special interests.  I intend to support the bill that Senator Schumer and Congressman Van Hollen are putting together and urge my colleagues to do the same.  

Finally, we need to reform the institution of the Senate itself. The filibuster has been used in the Senate for quite some time. It has been used by the minority to slow down debate, to have their voices heard, and in some cases, stall legislation. I’d remind members of my own party that just the threat of a filibuster stopped the privatization of Social Security.

However, during this session of Congress, the right to filibuster has been abused; it has become a normal part of business — a way to stall every piece of legislation and simply slow the Senate to a crawl. Three months ago, Mr. President, we spent weeks debating the extension of unemployment benefits. The bill passed 98-0. The Senate has spent days, weeks and sometimes months, holding up nominees that passed with more than 90 votes. And to add insult to injury, one Senator held up the entire Senate preventing us from extending unemployment benefits and COBRA. The country deserves much better than that.

I will introduce legislation that reforms Senate procedure to encourage the two parties to work together to get things done. It will eliminate anonymous holds. If Senators want to single-handedly stop a nominee from being approved, then they should have the courage to do so publicly. It will introduce a new procedure to allow us to reduce the time of debate so we can move on legislation that has broad bipartisan support. Third, it will eliminate the filibuster on the motion to proceed.  It is one thing to try to block a piece of legislation; it is another thing to prevent it from even being debated in the first place. And finally, my legislation would change the rule of the filibuster to force the two parties to actually talk to each other and not past each other.

The President reminded us during the State of the Union that our job is not to get elected, and I’ve heard the same thing from thousands of Coloradans in hundreds of living rooms and town halls. It is easy to throw our hands up in the air and wait for someone else to make the big changes we need.  But we all know the American people deserve better. I know the people of Colorado expect much more. They know that the United States Senate needs a big dose of Colorado common-sense.

I know this is not easy. I know there are a hundred different reasons, maybe a thousand different reasons some will say, “We can’t get this done”.  But I also know our country needs a government that works for them.  I hope my colleagues from both sides of the aisle will work with me and others to make sure we get it done.