Mike Coffman’s Straw Lady: “Bring It, Pelosi!”

Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D).

Politico's Emily Schultheis reports on Rep. Mike Coffman's new adversary on his tough road to re-election in 2014. Hint: it's not his Democratic opponent, former Colorado House Speaker Andrew Romanoff.

SNEAK PEEK—COFFMAN ROBODIALS: ‘BRING IT, PELOSI’: Colorado GOP Rep. Mike Coffman, who represents a key swing district in the Denver suburbs, has already been hit by Democratic ad dollars in his district. He’s fighting back with a new campaign called “Bring It, Pelosi,” arguing that without his district, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi can’t become Speaker of the House again. The campaign is robocalling tens of thousands of households in the district, a Coffman aide said, as well as launching a big social media push to encourage voters in the district to donate and volunteer to the campaign. “Pelosi almost certainly can't become Speaker of the House again unless she beats me… That's why Pelosi's allies have spent a million bucks attacking me,” Coffman says in the robocall. He’s facing former state House Speaker Andrew Romanoff, a Democrat.

Setting aside the growing unpopularity of robocalls, it depends on who this was targeted at. Partisan Republicans have been taught to hate former U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi with a fierce intensity, so holding her up as a reason to protect Coffman's perilously swing district makes sense. Insiders on both sides know that the Colorado CD-6 race is one of the most important congressional races in the nation in 2014.

For many voters, though, Coffman's belligerent proxy rhetoric against Pelosi could backfire. Beyond political insiders, the linkage between Coffman and Pelosi doesn't make as much sense, and could come off as gratuitous bullying. The Republican brand isn't doing real well with women voters (see: Todd Akin, the "War on Women"), and Coffman's new slogan of "Bring It, Nancy"–sorry, "Bring It, Pelosi"–may well reinforce their negative view.

Bottom line: "Pelosi loathing" works for a small target audience, but is a liability if it leaks beyond hard-core Republican partisans. You'd think that Mike Coffman, of all people, would get that.

View the original article here

Kudos to Aurora Sentinel for noticing that Coffman’s vote against Dreamers undermines Coffman’s own legislation

(Promoted by Colorado Pols)

One of the ways Rep. Mike Coffman has been trying to boost his appeal to Hispanic voters is by waving around his legislation offering a path to citizenship for young undocumented immigrants, if they enlist in the U.S. military.

Coffman’s been talking a lot about his bill, which stipulates that, before being accepted by the U.S. military, undocumented immigrants should be screened and possess documents obtained through the President Obama’s “deferred action” program, established through executive order.

Under Obama’s order, law-abiding undocumented immigrants, who were brought to the U.S. illegally by their parents, are issued work permits, and their deportation from the U.S. is officially deferred.

But in June, Coffman voted to defund Obama’s deferred-action program, potentially undermining Coffman’s own bill.

This inconsistency went unnoticed, as far as I can tell, until yesterday, when the Aurora Sentinel’s Aaron Cole pointed out in a news story:

In June 2013, Coffman voted alongside other House Republicans to defund a key program in the Obama administration’s plan for young immigrants. Coffman joined Colorado and House Republicans in voting to lift the executive order for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals status. Coffman’s plan for military service as a path to citizenship for enlisted military members relies first on the applicant to receive DACA status.

“I think that what the president … did exceeded the boundaries of the Constitution,” Coffman said. “These things have no basis in law and the President doesn’t have the ability to legislate.”

As one of the most endangered members of Congress, Coffman has been under scrutiny by local and national reporters. But until yesterday, no journalist, including me, apparently noticed that if Coffman had his way and Obama’s deferred-action program was eliminated, Coffman’s proposed law couldn’t be implemented.

Kudos to the Aurora Sentinel for its scoop on this.

View the original article here

Surprise! Mike Coffman’s Promise Worthless 24 Hours Later

UPDATE: So, um, yes folks, we are talking about the same Denver Post that published this editorial today:

It's not easy in this era of hyperpartisanship in Washington, D.C., for federal lawmakers to reverse course on divisive issues.

But Rep. Mike Coffman, R-Aurora, did just that when he said Tuesday he supports a "clean" spending bill to end the political standoff and reopen government.

We assume a new editorial is forthcoming. Then again, maybe they didn't read down to paragraph 19.

—–

Two days ago, local media was full of stories about GOP Rep. Mike Coffman's "change of heart" on the ongoing government shutdown, following the publication of an op-ed where Coffman vowed to support a "clean" continuing resolution to immediately fund and reopen the federal government. This marked a major shift in position for Colorado's (and maybe America's) most vulnerable member of Congress, who voted with his colleagues to shut down the government, and subsequently defended their action as part of "a negotiation." Polls showing Republicans inflicting massive damage on themselves with each day the government shutdown goes on plainly rattled Coffman, prompting his widely-reported "break" with GOP leadership.

Except today, as the Denver Post's Allison Sherry reports, we learn that Coffman was not being honest. Again.

Rep. Mike Coffman told The Denver Post earlier this week he would support a measure funding the federal government that is not tied to dismantling Obamacare — a change in position from last week.

Coffman said Wednesday, however, he would not sign onto a special petition being pushed by Democrats that would force a floor vote on a "clean" continuing resolution.

This procedure is extremely rare — it hasn't happened since 2002 — and would mean that Coffman would have to buck his own GOP leadership to force the vote.

Coffman said Congress failing to raise the debt ceiling is a "greater threat" than funding the federal government, but he believes the two need to be included in one proposal. [Pols emphasis]

To recap, not only is Rep. Coffman refusing to sign on to the most straightforward plan to accomplish his stated goal of a "clean" continuing resolution, he just announced that he doesn't support a "clean" resolution at all–he now wants some other kind of resolution, linked to the upcoming expiration of the debt limit. The President and Senate Democrats have held firm, saying that Republicans must not hold either of these routine fiduciary duties hostage–and the polls incontrovertibly say the public sides with Democrats on this issue.

Reading their Denver Post yesterday, residents of Coffman's district learned on the front page that he was willing to reopen the government without precondition. Today, in the nineteenth paragraph of a story about another member of Congress that's not on the front page, we discover Coffman was not telling the truth–much like when he paid lip service supporting undocumented students right before voting against them. An earlier version of this story actually noted in the headline that Coffman was ditching his day-old pledge to support a "clean" resolution; for whatever reason, the final story's headline does not.

On the one hand, you might say Coffman is becoming a master of saying one thing while doing another–and we suppose that is one way to respond when redistricting suddenly changes your safe seat into a diverse and competitive battleground. But we don't think he is showing mastery of anything. To us, Coffman looks terrified of his own shadow, hopelessly caught between his constituents' essential interests and the reactionary partisan politics he has always been beholden to. Coffman is a walking recipe for political disaster, awaiting only a strong Democratic challenger to put a swift end to his career in Congress. And he just proved exactly why we say so.

At some point, the press will stop burying the lede.

View the original article here

The hypocrisy question lingers regarding Coffman’s pension

(Promoted by Colorado Pols)

Does Rep. Mike Coffman see hypocrisy in drawing an annual $55,547 pension from the state of Colorado after suggesting in the past that Colorado should consider suspending pensions for people (editor's note: like him) who start a new job [in Congress making $174,000] after retiring from state employment?

In her article today detailing some of this, The Denver Post's Allison Sherry provided this response from Coffman, which deserves a follow-up:

Coffman said Monday through an e-mail that public pensions "at the state and local level, all across our country, are in desperate need of reform."

He added that "the best pension reform for members of Congress is simply to abolish it."

One wonders if Coffman sent the wrong email to Sherry. Perhaps he was answering a question from another reporter on a completely different topic?

Given that The Post headline on Sherry's story reads, "Pension critic Rep. Mike Coffman already gets PERA money," she should ask him directly, "What's up with saying one thing and, when your own bank account is involved, doing another?" If he refuses to answer, we'd like to know.

The National Journal's Shane Goldmacher got more out of Coffman during an interview last month, reporting that Coffman "stumbles in defending his decision to draw both a paycheck and a state pension." 

Coffman: “I fought for reform when I was in state, and I’m fighting to reform the system now,” he says. “At states, they ought to end the defined-benefit portion programs.… I’m certainly a beneficiary of it, but at the state level that’s unsustainable, too, and that’s going to have to change….”

“The part that I oppose is having a defined-benefit retirement plan for members of Congress—and have argued against a defined-benefit program when I was at the state level,” he tells National Journal.

But isn’t he taking part in a defined-benefit program?

“I am,” he replies. “I am.”

Still, though, the question lingers. Does Coffman see any hypocrisy in his own actions?

And the kicker: If so, what does he think he should do about it?

Full story: The hypocrisy question lingers regarding Coffman’s pension

View the original article here