Opinion | Blattner: Keeping Bennet in the Senate benefits Colorado
Valley Voices
Special to the Daily
If Michael Bennet is elected governor, Colorado would lose the benefit of his 17 years of Senate seniority — and quite possibly the chairmanship of a very powerful Senate committee, the Senate Agriculture Committee.
That committee has broad jurisdiction over vitally important legislation affecting Colorado, including farm and livestock policy, food and nutrition assistance, our national forests, and the Forest Service, including its smokejumpers and their crucial wildfire response. The committee also considers presidential nominations to senior positions making and executing policies in these critical areas.
I worked in the U.S. Senate for 8½ years, serving as chief judiciary committee counsel to Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, whom President Obama eulogized as “the greatest legislator of our time.” I have seen up close the power of a Senate committee chair. A chair can decline to advance a bad nomination to the full Senate, and he or she can schedule hearings and committee consideration to advance good legislation or to trash a bad bill.
Senate Democrats generally elect committee chairs based on senators’ seniority, both within the Senate and on their particular committees. As the Senate’s website puts it, “the majority party member with the greatest seniority on a particular committee traditionally serves as chair.”
The current Democratic ranking member of the Agriculture Committee is widely expected to resign from the Senate after the November election. Michael Bennet is next in committee seniority.
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Democrats are currently rated as slight favorites to win a Senate majority in November. If so, Sen. Bennet would be in line to chair the Agriculture Committee.
If he stays in the Senate, Bennet could, if he so chose, be a powerful protector for Colorado’s farmers, our national forests and firefighters, and all those who need food assistance, by stopping bad legislation and unqualified nominees that would harm Colorado, and by promoting policies that would help our state.
If you’re a peach farmer in Palisades, a Forest Service firefighter in Grand Junction, a rancher in Baca County, or a single-parent family in Denver or Aurora in need of food assistance, wouldn’t you want the chair of the Senate Agriculture Committee to be from Colorado? Even if you’re none of those — even if you have no direct stake in farm or forest policy — a powerful committee chair from Colorado still matters, because other senators who need the chair’s help on matters the committee controls have every incentive to return the favor. And Bennet’s seniority on other Senate committees, particularly the Finance Committee, only adds to his ability to assist our State.
Losing Michael Bennet’s Senate seniority would come at a high cost to Colorado. A replacement senator, who would be 99th or 100th in Senate seniority, would not have anywhere near the power in the Senate.
Voters should keep that in mind when they vote in the June 30 election.
Jeff Blattner served as chief counsel to Sen. Edward M. Kennedy on the Senate Judiciary Committee. He has taught legislative process at the Georgetown University Law Center and at American University Washington College of Law. He is currently a volunteer special assistant attorney general with the Colorado Department of Justice, and a senior fellow at the Silicon Flatirons Center for Law, Technology and Entrepreneurship and at the USC Center on Communication Leadership and Policy. He lives in Edwards.
