Candidates from three U.S. House districts debated on Tuesday, Oct. 14, 2014, at the Metro North Chamber of Commerce’s forum in Thornton. From right are George Leing, Rep. Jared Polis, Don Ytterberg, Rep. Ed Perlmutter, Rep. Mike Coffman and Andrew Romanoff. (Jon Murray, The Denver Post)
U.S. Rep. Mike Coffman’s suggestion of an alternative to the federal gas tax to help pay for road projects drew criticism from fellow Rep. Jared Polis Tuesday morning during a breakfast debate involving six candidates. They are seeking U.S. House seats in the 2nd, 6th and 7th congressional districts.
An interesting dynamic played out on stage during the Metro North Chamber of Commerce’s debate in Thornton: Coffman, the only Republican incumbent and the only incumbent locked in a tight race, faced what seemed like a Democratic tag-team effort between his opponent, Andrew Romanoff, Polis and Rep. Ed Perlmutter.
The gas tax, which hasn’t been increased since the 1980s, was the focus of the first question by moderator Floyd Ciruli, a political consultant. The gas tax has particular resonance in the north Denver suburbs and northern Colorado because of the need for widening and other fixes along the congested I-25 corridor.
Ciruli asked if Congress should increase the tax to deal with mounting highway needs. Another factor is that vehicles have gotten more fuel-efficient.
Coffman, who represents the 6th District, said he’d prefer to see Congress explore a “more equitable” source of funding for roads, given that drivers of electric cars and alternative-fuel vehicles don’t buy much gas. “I think what we probably need to do is we need to restructure our revenue source, and we need to look at vehicle miles traveled,” he said.
The idea behind such a tax, also called a mileage-based fee, is that motorists would pay based on how many miles they drive rather than how much fuel they consume. The idea is still being tested in the United States. But the biggest hurdle is the need to track mileage information, a challenge acknowledged by Coffman.
“I think we can do things to protect the privacy concerns about that,” he said.
Still, a few minutes later, the idea drew skepticism and criticism from Polis, a Democrat representing the 2nd District.
“The danger on that front is in the privacy realm,” Polis said, “and I will continue to oppose any effort to have a government tracking device in our cars that knows where we go or how far we go.” He said voters want representatives who “will stand up for privacy.”
Polis’ opponent, Republican George Lieng, got Coffman’s back, saying about privacy concerns: “There are ways to manage that,” while making sure any taxing system is run fairly and equitably. He cited tolling transponders as one example of the way technology has evolved in transportation.
A side note: Romanoff, while talking about the need to provide more money for transportation projects of all kinds, including transit, side-stepped Ciruli’s question about increasing the gas tax.
Later, Ciruli asked the candidates about immigration reform, and specifically the Senate-passed . Perlmutter, who represents the 7th District, took the opportunity to push back on Coffman’s assertion that the bill is huge and unwieldy — by instructing the three-term Coffman on how Congress works.
“I disagree with my friend Mike Coffman,” Perlmutter said. “That’s been there for six months. Everybody’s had a chance to read it. Jared Polis is a sponsor of a bill similar to that, and so am I.
“Now, the way it works is, you get a bill from the other body, you amend it — you fix it to the way you think it ought to be — it goes back, you have a conference and you work out the differences between the Senate and the House. That’s not happened. There is gridlock,” he added, in the Republican-run House.
The rest of the discussion included questions by Ciruli on issues surrounding older Americans, the Keystone XL pipeline — on which the Democrats got flak from Republicans for and whether to increase the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour, as has been debated. On the last question, all of the Democrats said yes, and the Republicans said no.
At the beginning of the event, U.S. Rep. Cory Gardner, the Republican candidate for U.S. Senate, spoke briefly. Democratic Sen. Mark Udall did not attend.
