U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet stopped in Fort Morgan Monday during a listening tour through northeast Colorado this week.
He came to discuss the Farm Bill and the immigration reform bill that are currently awaiting a vote by the House of Representatives. Bennet has been closely involved in both pieces of legislation as a member of the Senate Ag Committee that has written the Senate version of the Farm Bill, and as a member of the so-called "Gang of Eight," a bipartisan group of legislators that negotiated the immigration reform bill recently passed by the Senate.
"The quality of the political conversation we've been having in this country is nowhere near where it needs to be," Bennet said. "So whatever is on your mind I'd like to talk about."
He said the Senate has twice passed a bipartisan Farm Bill. The bill includes $24 million of deficit reduction — making the Ag Committee the only Congressional committee to create bipartisan deficit reduction, he said — it also eliminates direct payments, but strengthens crop insurance; it shrinks the number of conservation programs from 23 to 13; strengthens the conservation part of the bills so that farmers and ranchers will be able to count more of the value of their land in easement programs.
"As I said we've passed that bill twice," Bennet said of the Farm Bill. "And it's been endorsed by all the farm groups across Colorado and across the country. We just haven't been able to get it through the House of Representatives. Our farmers and ranchers are now going through the third year of a drought, the worst drought in a generations, and we need to get this bill passed."
He said he's also spent a lot of time over the last several months working on the immigration reform bill — legislation that he believes in important to rural Colorado.
"We have a broken immigration system in this country," Bennet said. "We've had a broken immigration system for a long time, almost a generation."
He was a member of the "Gang of Eight" a term he does not use, he said, because Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who is also a member, does not like being referred to a as a gang member.
"The Group of Eight, four Democrats, four Republicans, who negotiated this bill in a complete, I wouldn't even say bipartisan way, I'd say non-partisan way," he said. "And I gotta tell you, having been there the last four years when all there has been has been partisan bickering in one way or another, it really was a pleasure to be in that room."
He said the Democrats — Bennet, Richard Dubin (D-Ill.), Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) and Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) — who were in that room had an easier time than the Republicans — McCain, Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) — to sit at that table.
"And we passed that bill with 68 votes in the United States Senate," he said. "Nothing passes with 68 votes in the United States Senate."
And now, he said, there was more waiting for the bill to pass through the House of Representatives.
"Just like the Farm Bill, the uncertainty of not having passed this bill, actually affects people's businesses every single day," he said. "The failure to have an immigration system that actually functions is hurting our businesses every single day."
The Congressional Budget Office says this immigration bill would reduce the deficit by $800 billion over the next 20 years, it would bring 11 million people "out of the shadows", and importantly for agriculture, he said, it gets rid of the H2A program and puts in a visa program that is workable and makes sense, moving the program out of the Department of Labor and into the Department of Agriculture.
"This is a bill that I feel very comfortable supporting everywhere I go," he said. "And it is desperately needed. If we don't get it done, it's going to be another generation before we get it done."
Most of the approximately 30 people who came to speak with the senator at Morgan Community College expressed general support for the two pieces of legislation, even while expressing some concerns about specific provisions.
Also during the tour, Bennet made stops including Cooksey's Farm in Roggen, as well as schools throughout the region including Prairie Public School in New Raymer.
"This is truly one of the highlights of my year," Bennet said of his tour through the various parts of the state. "I've spent a lot of July and August in rural parts of the state. People think we should knock off the politics and pass these bills."
Bennet said he is very optimistic about where the state is going.
"And I like the state just the way it is, by the way," he said.
