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July 19, 2015 11:38 AM UTC

Morgan Carroll Takes Coffman To Task: "It's On His Watch"

  • 15 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols

This morning, 9NEWS aired Kyle Clark’s latest Balance of Power interview with Colorado Sen. Morgan Carroll, who is running for Congress against Rep. Mike Coffman in the swing Sixth District. In today’s must-watch interview, Carroll gave an able preview of the issues in this race, demonstrating a willingness to go directly after Coffman that will cheer longsuffering Democrats looking to finally unseat him. Click here if the video below doesn’t appear:

Sen. Carroll begins by going through a long list of bad votes Coffman has taken over the years on a range of issues. At about the 3:40 mark, Kyle Clark turns the discussion to the drastically overbudget VA medical center project in Aurora, noting attacks Coffman has received from the left over his role as chairman of the oversight committee responsible for the project. Carroll doesn’t let Coffman’s first response to these criticisms, generally consisting of a photo of Coffman in uniform, stop her from calling him out as part of the problem:

CLARK: Let’s jump back to the VA hospital. There are some liberal groups, Progress Now included, that say Congressman Coffman shares some of the blame for the failures with that project. Do you agree with that?

CARROLL: I believe there’s a lot of blame to go around for everybody. The concern I have with this project is that it has been in the making for years. It is a broken promise to veterans. And so, Mike Coffman is on the oversight committee, and the time to ask questions when you’re overseeing public projects for veterans with taxpayer’s money isn’t after it’s already overbudget and behind schedule, it’s beforehand.

CLARK: So you’re saying he does deserve some of the blame for what’s happened.

CARROLL: It’s on his watch. It’s absolutely on his watch. It’s his responsibility, representing his district, and it’s happening on his watch. [Pols emphasis]

It’s one thing for a blog to write about it, or for an opposing political group to send out a press release. Carroll’s willingness to directly confront Coffman on his own responsibility for the Aurora VA hospital project means that for the 2016 campaign for CD-6, Coffman’s supposed “strong point” on veteran’s issues will not be off-limits. Coffman’s recent grandstanding on this project’s failures, downplaying his own role in oversight of the project, isn’t going to go unopposed. We’ve long believed that attacking Coffman where he is strongest, or at least thinks he is, will be absolutely necessary for Democrats looking to defeat him–as long as he draws an opponent who is willing to take his supposedly inviolate record on such issues head on.

Looks like Democrats might finally have one, folks.

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15 thoughts on “Morgan Carroll Takes Coffman To Task: “It’s On His Watch””

  1. Well-spoken and informed on the relevant topics – I like! 🙂

    (Now, if only we someone of Carroll's caliber to run against Scott Tipton. *sigh*)

    1. unfortunately, Tipton is pretty safe. it is a dead girl, live boy situation. without one of those circumstances he will win by 10 points every 2 years

        1. oh, he'll always be opposed. but, much like CD5 it really won't matter. and, what is more distressing is the quality of the candidate will not affect the outcome

          1. Most of the potential quality candidates know that…hence their reluctance to spend the time and energy. The qualifications and experience of Scotts’ opponents hardly affect the total vote,

  3. Woo Hoo indeed! This is great. This is what's been missing in campaigns against Coffman and other Rs. If Dems aren't afraid of going after military background Republicans on their awful records on vet and troop issues they're afraid of going after let them eat cake, cut taxes on the wealthy and austerity for everyone else Republicans for fear of looking like commies attacking the rich. Carroll just passed an important test in my book with flying colors, a test 90% of our Dem candidates continue to fail. I'm officially a fan.

    You go get'em, Morgan Carroll, and we'll support you with enthusiasm regardless of how good or bad we may judge your chances to be. Whatever happens we'll feel it was well with the time, money and effort this time. And who the hell knows? Strength could actually yield a different result than all the weak, tepid, please like me even though I'm not a Republican or all lady parts all the time campaigns of the past.

    PS Andrew who?

  4. As a veteran I have refused to stand with Coffman, except for one unfortunate instance at the State Capitol.  The man has lived on his uniform, give him credit for military experience for many D's and R's have not experienced the pleasure, but, it does not excuse his complete lack of responsibility for caring for us veterans.  He is constantly mouthing stuff and then voting against Colorado and the U.S. (all inhabitants of the Congress are responsible for the U.S. – whether they like it or not).

    Senator Morgan should have many more active duty and veterans supporting her than one who uses the uniform for gain.

    1. That's great to hear. My combat vet, swift boat vet husband feels the same about Coffman specifically and phony Rs in general (that would be all of them) who don't support the troops or vets where it counts but like to use them for photo ops. Hope you have lots of vet friends who feel the same.

  5. I'm fired up and ready to go!

    Dare I say that Morgan Carroll is a candidate that Obama supporters, who may be a bit queasy about Hillary, can devote their energy? 

    1. More like Bernie Sanders supporters. Obama and HRC are actually quite similar, both to each other and to the oft despised on these pages Michael Bennet. Maybe Morgan Carroll can appeal to a wide range of supporters.

  6. I was astonished at Morgan Carroll's naivety on her take of Mike Coffman's "role" in the Aurora VA hospital scandal.  Her assessment reminded me a bit of Diana DeGette declaring that gun magazines could only be used once.

    Apparently, the state legislator thinks that the a subcommittee chairman's two and a half years investigating this is more significant than the POTUS' six and a half years of ignoring this scandal — that was definitely on his watch — even though he had the power to unilaterally act to fix it.

    It is Civics 101, folks.  The VA is part of the executive branch of the federal government, not the legislative branch.  The president is ultimately responsible for the actions, or lack thereof, of federal agencies, not anyone in Congress.  He generally delegates a lot of that authority to Cabinet secretaries, but "the buck still stops with him" when things go so very wrong.  For someone who holds the bully pulpit, Obama has been strangely silent on this public display of stunning incompetence and outright lying to Congress.   

    Coffman was the first member of Congress to call for the resignation of then VA Secretary Eric Shinseki, but the congressman did not have the power to fire him.  Only the president could do that.

    If you happened to attend the subcommittee field hearing, at the State Capitol last summer, you would have heard the VA official testify that the VA hospital was 40% complete, would be built within budget ($640 million), and would be open in April of 2015.  Every veteran there, including me, knew he was lying through his teeth.  He retired, with his pension and $64K in bonuses, when everything blew up last December.

    If Carroll plans on holding Coffman responsible for the VA hospital debacle, then she should be advocating for Congress to take direct control of this particular project.

    If nothing else, she has presented Perry Haney with an opening to question her competence on this particular issue.

    1. OK, Civics, we get it. You're either a Coffman supporter, or pretending to be a Perry Haney supporter. As I wrote earlier, the right wing commentariat loves to talk about Perry Haney, because then they can avoid talking about Morgan Carroll.   Reposting my earlier comments on this issue:

      Fact check: Coffman has in fact been talking about, and attempted to put through several pieces of legislation relating to the VA construction problems since 2011. Before that,  when it was his district, Perlmutter tried, as well, with equal lack of success.

      My take on it is that Coffman prefers very partisan, nuclear options to "fix" the VA – fire the chief,  fire the contractors, turn it over to the Corps of Engineers (the Katrina levees guys), blame it on the Dems, sell the VA's Paris hotel, hold the employee bonuses hostage, "joke" that the VA are like ISIS, blame it on Obama.  Coffman accuses the VA of  corruption and kickbacks, too, claims he was lied to, but that's what an effective overseer should have been investigating long ago.  But now it's finally being investigated.

      So Coffman has  known what was going on, and has been talking about the VA, and this is how he did "oversight". He just hasn't been very effective at it, because he doesn't like and isn't good at compromise or negotiation.

      This needed negotiation, sitting down with all stakeholders, revisiting the design before it was built .  It's too late to start over with a less grandiose architectural vision when the damn thing is 2/3 done on that design. Now,  vets just need the beds and facilities, and nobody cares what the building looks like. Vets needing care are being outsourced to other hospitals that don't know how to take care of them, and often delay in getting their records from the VA. I have a dog in this fight – at least once a year, I fight with the VA about getting my ex-husband hospitalized when he needs it.

      As far as who is responsible, here is the mission statement from the , which Coffman chairs. This Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations 

      " provides oversight on programs and operations of the Department of Veterans Affairs, as well as those of other federal agencies that pertain to veterans. In carrying out its responsibilities, the Subcommittee conducts hearings, site visits, and investigations nationwide."

      What site visits did Coffman initiate? What hearings? What investigations? He called for several of the latter two, but he's such a blowhard he can't play well with others, and in fact conducted only one hearing, on March 19, 2015, by which time the problem had blown up to be well nigh insolvable. Over the four years in which he has had oversight responsibility, he has called innumerable press conferences, made plenty of statements, accused people. He has not done the nuts and bolts work he needed to do.

      And Mike Coffman has served on military oversight committees since 2011, according to Ballotpedia.  He was on the armed services committee, subcommittee on oversight and investigations, in 2011-2012.  He has  been Chairman since 2013.

      So when we talk about Mike Coffman and his responsibility for the VA hospital mess, we shouldn't say that he knew nothing, or did nothing. It's just that he wasn't effective with what he did know and did do.

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