WASHINGTON — Evoking Colorado’s high mountains as a metaphor for the partisan divide, Democratic Sen. Mark Udall said today that he hopes the simple gesture of Republicans and Democrats sitting together at tonight’s State of the Union will start a new era of civility, where people in both parties routinely get together to tackle the nation’s largest problems.
“I’m an old mountaineer and I think the aisle that divides us has become as high as a mountain,” Udall said at a joint press conference with Democrat and Republican colleagues. “I think we all agree that if we can’t sit together in an important night like this, how are we going to face big challenges?”
Udall’s press conference at the Capitol with Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, and Rep. Paul Gosar, R-Ariz., and Rep. Heath Shuler, D-N.C., comes about 10 hours before President Obama will deliver his annual State of the Union address to joint sessions of Congress.
The idea for Republicans and Democrats to sit together came from a non-partisan group called Third Way, which wrote a letter to senators and House members Jan. 10 — two days after the Arizona shootings — urging them to mix it up as a symbol of comity.
Udall said he was inspired by the idea, in part because of what happened in Arizona and in part because he has his own mixed political family.
Since he wrote an open letter to Congress asking them to participate, 59 Republican and Democrat House and Senate members have signed on and Udall said this morning he expects many more to participate tonight.
Murkowski, who scolded the media for giving too much attention to partisan acrimony, said she was initially hesitant to sign onto the idea until she asked younger, new-to-Washington staffers in her office.
“Instantly the response was ‘yes,'” Murkowski said. “One said, ‘that would be wild,’ and I said, ‘Wild in a good way?’ … Maybe we need to get out of our conventional skins now and again.”
Shuler said he thought it was important to sit in mixed political company tonight because “not only America is watching, but the whole world is watching.”
“It’s an us versus them approach and it’s time that Congress together as one becomes a team in order for our country to move forward,” Shuler said. “The world is watching tonight.”
After tonight’s speech, Udall said he hopes to get the Senate Democrat and Republican caucuses together for lunch to tackle meatier — and admittedly harder-to-solve — problems like how to dig the nation out of its debt and immigration reform.
When asked whether Udall applauded President Obama last year when he excoriated the Supreme Court for its Citizens United decision, which loosened campaign finance laws, Udall said he didn’t know and didn’t remember.
After the speech, Republicans roundly criticized Obama for calling out the Supreme Court as a sharply partisan move.
“That’s a whole other topic, of course, but we’re turning the page, this is a new start … We’re going to reset the way we work,” Udall said. “Partisanship for its own sake as we’ve seen has been detrimental and non-constructive.”
Colorado’s seven House members, four Republicans and three Democrats, and Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet will sit together tonight.
Udall keeps saying to “stay tuned” for who he is planning to sit by and told The Denver Post this morning it was going to be a “notable” Republican.
Allison Sherry: 303-954-1377 or asherry@denverpost.com
