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June 25, 2010 01:22 AM UTC

Will the real Andrew Romanoff please stand up?

  • 49 Comments
  • by: Julie

Several advocates and organizers remember very clearly what went down in 2006 with the so-called “Special Session.”  Because we are disturbed between Romanoff’s dissonant 2006 vs 2010 rhetoric, we sat down and penned an op/ed, that I’m including below:

Will the real Andrew Romanoff please stand up?

By Jessie Ulibarri, Julie Gonzales, Fidel “Butch” Montoya, and Ricardo Martinez

New draconian immigration laws in Arizona have opened old wounds in Colorado that have festered since the Colorado State Legislature crammed through some of the most anti-immigrant and short-sighted laws our state has ever known. We saw first hand that when immigrants are unfairly targeted by misguided laws, the constitutional rights of citizens and taxpayers quickly disappear.

After the passage of legislation that so many of us in the Latino community fought against, then State House Speaker Andrew Romanoff bragged about its implementation, boasting, “Colorado passed more bills to curb illegal immigration than any other non-border state in the nation. We did more to solve the problem of illegal immigration than Congress has done in a decade.”

Furthermore, he spent tens of thousands of dollars in special interest contributions to defend his law that denied basic government services to individuals who couldn’t immediately prove they were legal residents. Never mind that it was so poorly written that the following year, it was amended because the most vulnerable citizens in Colorado – the elderly, the homeless, the poor – were being denied services that they were eligible to receive.

Now, as a U.S. Senate candidate, Speaker Romanoff condemns Arizona for passing nearly identical laws to the ones he supported here in Colorado. It leaves many of us wondering: who is the real Andrew Romanoff?

Leading U.S. Senate Democrats recently announced that they would pursue comprehensive immigration reform, which comes not a moment too soon. Among the issues that will be discussed during this important debate will be a path to citizenship for the eleven million immigrants who are eager to do what is necessary to become full citizens, pay taxes, and call America home both in their hearts and in our laws.

This is the solution to the broken immigration system, not more misguided state law. Indeed, as immigration reform advocates, we are concerned that a patchwork of harsh, politically convenient immigration laws will start to appear throughout the United States, if Congress fails to act. In fact, Colorado and Arizona could be just the beginning of a flood of politically expedient anti-immigrant and anti-Latino legislation to sweep across the country.

With important matters like these under consideration in the Senate, it is incredibly important that we know the records and positions of our candidates seeking office.

Senate Candidate Romanoff often says on the campaign trail, “You don’t get power just to have power. You use power to do good.” Yet as longtime observers who have seen Speaker Romanoff throw the Latino community under the bus in the legislature, and now watch candidate Romanoff court us for our vote by speaking Spanish – we have a hard time believing that what he tells us now is what he’ll do, if elected to the Senate.

Simply put: Actions speak louder than words.

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49 thoughts on “Will the real Andrew Romanoff please stand up?”

  1. You say:

    Furthermore, he spent tens of thousands of dollars in special interest contributions to defend his law that denied basic government services to individuals who couldn’t immediately prove they were legal residents.

    What do you mean by this?  What money did he spend, when he spend it, and how did he spend it?  I seriously don’t understand what you mean.

    You also say:

    Now, as a U.S. Senate candidate, Speaker Romanoff condemns Arizona for passing nearly identical laws to the ones he supported here in Colorado.

    In what ways are the CO laws passed during AR’s tenure “nearly identical” to the new AZ laws?

    Thanks

    1. The people with this kind of hate talk can’t back it up. I would love to answer you but I cannot because I don’t think the law passed here IS identical to Arizona.  

  2. OK Julie, Jessie & Butch, we’ve heard the talking points and spin. We’ve also heard the facts about what was going on in 2006 – a ballot measure that actually was as nasty as what happened in Arizona was polling at 70%+ and the Governor said “Pass a bill or that kind of measure goes back on the ballot.” So the legislature worked with people like Federico Pena & Polly Baca to pass a law that basically said exactly what was already in federal law.

    Now I realize this is the issue Bennet and his smear-master Kincaid are pushing and telling everybody to use as a wedge as he gets more desperate, but you do your organization a disservice by misrepresenting what happened or smearing a man who you may want to be able to reach out to in a few months if he wins. Between you constantly posting this, Bennet’s campaign distributing outright lies in handouts that call Romanoff anti-immigrant, Kincaid berating Mario for not pushing the disinformation and your own guy’s actions (or lack of), you are only hurting the real cause – the need for federal immigration reform and to elect a Democrat.

    By the way, a few questions for you about your guy:

    1) Why is he avoiding meeting with immigration rights groups until after the primary?

    2) Given his alleged clout, leadership and willingness to fight, why hasn’t he insisted that Comprehensive Immigration Reform happen now, not later and demanded it be brought to the floor for a vote? And no, writing another letter saying he really, really wants something and he’ll be super duper upset if it doesn’t happen doesn’t count.

    3) Where is that public option he promised he’d reintroduce this year after breaking his promise to demand it during reconciliation?

    4) What exactly did Michael Bennet do in 2006 as superintendent of one of the most heavily Latino school districts to help guide, shape or engage on the debate? Surely if Tom Boasberg can dispatch DPS lobbyists to fight against an amendment a few weeks ago that would have required transparency in Bennet/ Boasberg’s financing activities, somebody could have been sent to testify or work with the legislature but yet not one witness from DPS ever testified and not one representative from DPS got involved.

      1. The mis-characterizations and smear are a complete obfuscation of the facts. Do you dispute any of the facts? Do you have any answers to my questions? Or to the questions Earnest asked above mine?  

        1. in a difficult political environment, it’s OK — laudable, in fact — to pass the best legislation you can, even if it’s less than perfect and doesn’t make anyone particularly happy?

          2. I’m also wondering..if Romanoff has always been this super duper Progressive, where was his universal healthcare bill for Colorado? It’s been done in other states but as far as I know he didn’t introduce one. He didn’t even mention one for Colorado. Not even a letter to see if there was support for one!

          3. is it’s ok to do it if you are Andrew Romanoff, Speaker of the CO House and have a very safe D seat.

            It is absolutely NOT ok to do  that when you are Senator Bennet incumbent in a purple seat, in an anti-incumbent year. Then you should stand up and lead. Or something.

    2. 1 a : having lost hope (a desperate spirit crying for relief) b  : giving no ground for hope (the outlook was desperate)

      Interesting use of the word considering news from earlier this week:

      Democratic incumbent Michael Bennet has a sizable lead over former Speaker of the House Andrew Romanoff, according to a Denver Post/9News poll conducted in conjunction with The Tribune.

      The poll shows Bennet leading Romanoff 53 percent to 36 percent.

  4. Blah blah blah, whine whine whine.

    It seems to me that the Bennetistas are angry at is someone being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

    Let me pose this question to you know, as no one has been able to answer me yet.

    What else should Romanoff have done? He was in a very bad situation and made the best of it. It wasn’t good, I will never argue that it was, but what else could he have done to make it better?

    It seems to me he was in the wrong place at the wrong time and did the best anyone could have done.

    So answer me this, what else was he supposed to do? If you were him, what would you have done?

    Actually, one person did answer me. Noboa said this, “There was nothing he could have done short of refusing to call the house that would have satisfied me.” Even though Noboa knows that refusing to call the house would have resulted in The Speaker being replaced with someone who would have done much worse due in large part to the replacement not giving a shit about latinos. Though his answer was ridiculous, at least he answered me.

    Most Bennitistas refuse to answer that question. Because they know there wasn’t anything else to be done, and they can’t answer. They are pleased with beating this dead horse in order to vilify a good man.  

      1. Because if this sounds the same to you, I assure you, you are going deaf.

        Having valid concerns about someones past is fine, their behavior in the past can be a good indicator of their behavior in the future.

        The Bennitistas are too busy attacking Romanoff for situations that have already been deemed ridiculous that perhaps they don’t have time to register their own candidates history.

        Romanoff making the best of a bad situation is to me, a good thing. Bennet working for Anschutz, being weak on the public option until a primary happened, practically demolishing the teachers union while at DPS, using WH connections to knock opponents out of the race, closing down primarily minority schools, working against democrats in DPS, only getting the appointment in the first place because of WH connections, being one of the top recipients in DC of Special interest money and making horrendously bad financial decisions while superintendent are all bad things to me.

        I have no idea about the Romanoff campaign strategy, I don’t work for the guy. But from where I see it, the majority of you come off like a horde of pissed off brats, whining that someone had the audacity to challenge your beloved “Senator Aw-Shucks.”  

      1. Can the Speaker even call Special Session?

        Only the Governor or consent of 2/3 of the lawmakers may call it. Or am I wrong on that?

          1. It seems to me that they should have pre-empted it, then they could have set the agenda. So either way, we agree the Speaker himself cannot call it, but 2/3 of the legislature can?

            So the dems (led by Romanoff) tried to pre-emptively call it, but leadership, (aka, Romanoff) could not secure the votes to call in time, which let the Governor call it and set the agenda?

            Yup, sounds exactly how I remember it.  

    3. Sounds like one of those “false choice” deals to me.

      He made the best of a bad situation.  I call it pragmatic.

      He called it a “false choice.”

      So which is it:

      a) when the votes aren’t there to make great or even good law, you make the best law possible and live to fight another day?

      or

      b) reach even further and somehow get the better law anyway- otherwise you are weak and ineffective?

        1. I often get jolted awake deep at night laughing in my sleep at your comment that Andrew Romanoff is an opportunist.  If you can ever scratch up a work history of Bennet’s that shows a deep record of public service, from the time he was in college, then we’ll talk.

          Until then, I’m going back to my sweet dreams about Andrew in the Senate.  Whoo hoo!

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