WASHINGTON — Long before he joined the U.S. Senate, Michael Bennet shuffled papers as a low-level attorney at the U.S. Department of Justice.
It was a grueling gig — Bennet spent a lot of time on forfeitures — but the Clinton administration job had its perks. It also kept kept him near strivers such as his supervisor, a midcareer lawyer named .
“Thatap where I first got to know Merrick, who was one of the most decent people I’ve ever met,” said Bennet, who still keeps his ID badge from Justice on a shelf by his desk. “We probably said hello on a daily basis.”
Flash forward two decades. Itap April 2016; iPhones have replaced flip phones, and Bennet and Garland are — this time on Capitol Hill to discuss Garland’s nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court.
By almost any measure, the Colorado Democratap support should have been automatic. Not only was Garland the choice of a Democratic president, the two men had a shared history — not a small thing in a town built on relationships.
Yet Bennet couldn’t quite do it.
Sure, Bennet spoke glowingly of his former boss after their meeting. And he argued Senate Republicans were wrong to stall his nomination.
But Bennet still held back from an official endorsement — a reluctance that speaks to his reputation as a Senate institutionalist and lawmaker more comfortable with point-by-point arguments than fiery displays of loyalty.
“Even though I know him — and maybe because I know him — I wanted to reserve judgment until after the hearing was done,” he said in an interview this fall, adding that he now supports Garland’s nomination.
More important than outright backing Garland in April, he said, was pressuring the Senate to follow its own rules and traditions. “I wanted us to go through the process,” he said.
Itap an approach that’s defined his nearly eight-year Senate career. On a number of hot-button issues, Bennet has waited, sometimes for months, to reveal his position: whether itap the Iran nuclear deal, the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade accord, a bill on the Keystone XL pipeline or voting rules for union members.
Homework and heartburn
Opponents call it finger-in-the-wind politicking. Allies say itap a sign Bennet does his homework — and has the patience to extract concessions when colleagues come looking to deal. Activists across the political spectrum said it drives them crazy.
Take the Iran deal. Last year, President Barack Obama needed 34 senators on his side to preserve the accord. Bennet voiced his support two days after Sen. Barbara Mikulski of Maryland .
Bennet has argued the Iran vote — the hardest of his career, he said — was made in spite of the politics, not because of it. His office said he met with a wide range of experts before deciding to support the deal; a move that led to a flurry of political attacks, including one ad that showcased an .
“Iran is an incredibly scary country,” Bennet said. “People’s inclination, naturally, is not to want to do business with a regime like that.” But “if you have the opportunity to be able to prevent them from acquiring nuclear weapons without our going to war, I think thatap a reason to have a negotiation.”
Even advocates were left in the dark. “We had so much heartburn (because) he took counsel from across the spectrum for weeks and weeks,” said Ivor Douglas, who lobbied Bennet to support the Iran deal. “He would not tip his hand.”
Bennet was similarly circumspect early in his Senate career when confronted with a union-backed bill called the Employee Free Choice Act. After months of staying neutral, he during a 2010 debate.
He was a latecomer to one Keystone vote too. In fall 2014, supporters of the Canada-to-Texas pipeline had to rustle up 60 votes to try to send a bill to the White House. When Bennet signaled his support for that specific measure, he was the to publicly back it; the effort ultimately failed to overcome a filibuster by .
In years prior, Bennet had a mixed record on the issue. He voted in 2012, but he became a consistent supporter and afterward because he said the pipeline would have little environmental impact. In spring 2014, he bemoaned the rhetoric on both sides. “It just has become another one of those idiotic Washington political games that bounces back and forth and doesn’t actually accomplish anything,” he told The Wall Street Journal.
To this day, the Keystone vote has hurt Bennetap standing in the environmental community; eco-activist Tom Steyer isn’t helping Bennet this election . Thatap a major departure from 2014 when Steyer’s group, NextGen Climate Action, spent an estimated $7.4 million for Colorado Democrat Mark Udall, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.
Pete Maysmith of Conservation Colorado said Bennet generally has been good on environmental issues — from aiding efforts to protect Colorado lands such as to backing a White House initiative to cut carbon pollution from power plants. “Itap undoubtedly the case that he’s done far more right than not,” Maysmith said.
But he said Bennet was dead-wrong on Keystone — and not just the policy part. There was a symbolic importance that Maysmith said Bennet underestimated.
Frustration from the left
The frustration with Bennet from the left isn’t limited to environmentalists. One of the worst moments for his campaign came in April when supporters of Sen. Bernie Sanders because of his support of rival Hillary Clinton.
In another snub, Bennet was the only congressional Democrat from Colorado this year who from the state AFL-CIO.
The main reason was his support of a measure last year that gave the White House more authority to negotiate trade deals: a step critical to adoption of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a trade deal that unions have flagged for concern.
For more than a year, Bennet has gotten pressure to oppose TPP, a among the U.S. and 11 other Pacific Rim countries. The White House has touted the deal as a way to counter China’s economic influence while bolstering U.S exports. But activists have raised concerns about potential negative effect on workers and the environment.
In a recent interview with The Denver Post, Bennet said he hadn’t made up his mind on TPP and that his support could hinge on what companion legislation is attached to congressional approval of the accord — notably add-ons that could reinforce environmental and labor standards.
“It would be really easy for me to just oppose the deal,” Bennet added. “Politically, that would be the easiest thing in the world to do. Just like voting against the Iran deal would have been the easiest thing in the world to do.”
Days later, in a meeting with the paper’s editorial board, Bennet said he would vote against the deal. “If the vote were tomorrow, and there were no changes to it and there were no side cars … I would have a hard time supporting it.”
One possible explanation for Bennetap trouble with the liberal rank-and-file is the manner in which he first joined the U.S. Senate. Unlike other federal lawmakers — who often spend years slapping backs on the rubber-chicken circuit — Bennet was plucked for the position out of relative nowhere.
Bennet was born in New Delhi, India, while his father was . He served as a when he was young, received his undergraduate degree from Wesleyan University and a law degree from Yale.
Soon after his time at the Justice Department, he , where he took a job with the Anschutz Investment Co. It was a profitable arrangement for both parties — Bennet did well for himself and the company by restructuring corporate debt, notably with Anschutz’s line of Regal movie theater chains.
Bennet didn’t stay long in the private sector, however, and connected with fellow Wesleyan alumnus John Hickenlooper — serving as his chief of staff when Hickenlooper became the mayor of Denver.
From there, Bennet became superintendent of Denver Public Schools and it was from that job that Democratic Gov. Bill Ritter — in a — picked Bennet to fill the Senate seat of Ken Salazar, who joined the Obama administration as Interior Secretary.
A “moral duty”
Bennetap biggest contribution in his early Senate years was being a Democratic vote for the Affordable Care Act, which he defends as a net positive for Colorado, in spite of price increases, particularly in rural parts of the state. “Itap been a partial success but we have a long way to go,” Bennet said. “On the plus side, a half million more people have insurance in the state than had it when we passed the bill.”
Republican opponent Darryl Glenn has hammered Bennet on the issue. Glenn also has taken aim at Bennet’s reluctance to speak out against Clinton, and in a debate Oct. 11 he suggested the incumbent lacked leadership for not taking bolder stances.
Asked by a reporter in 2014 why he wanted to be a senator, Bennet responded — almost immediately — that his goal was to do more to address the inequality between rich and poor school districts. Speaking on the Senate floor in 2015, he said: “We have a moral duty to assure that our less lucky children have educational opportunities that let them make the most of their God-given potential.”
One way Bennet said he tried to tackle that problem was by last year in rewriting a Bush-era education initiative known as No Child Left Behind, which was criticized for being too punitive to states that didn’t meet requirements, as well as contributing to a culture of over-testing.
“I try to spend every day here trying to be as constructive as I can possibly be and the way I think about that is trying to put points on the board for the state of Colorado and for the country by working in a bipartisan way,” he said.
In 2013, Bennet was a member of the so-called “Gang of Eight,” a bipartisan team of senators who co-authored a massive immigration package that passed the upper chamber by a 68-32 vote. The bill aimed to bolster border security while offering a pathway to citizenship for immigrants living in the country illegally.
Former staff and colleagues have described Bennet as a studious type with a penchant for lugging around briefing books. And he isn’t one to make regular appearances on the cable news networks either.
“There’s an old question in Washington: How do you know who the senators are? And the answer is that they are the people who are not carrying anything,” said Udall, the former Colorado Democratic senator. “But with Michael, he’s always carrying stuff. He’s working. He’s not caught up in supposed importance.”
Though he worked against him in 2014, Bennet has made a point of teaming up with Cory Gardner — Udall’s successor — since his election. They co-sponsored a bill that would for leaving town during a government shutdown, and after the Gold King Mine disaster.
“Colorado I think is a pragmatic state and I think those are the kinds of senators you get from Colorado,” Gardner said. “Thatap what the people want. Showhorses don’t make it very far in the state.”
“Even though we may disagree on a particular issue or a particular vote, I don’t question the reason or motivation behind his vote,” he added.
But make no mistake, Bennet is a political animal, too.
His re-election campaign says it’s raised nearly $17 million through Sept. 30. A huge chunk of the money raised since 2011 — at least $3.5 million — came from the white-collar set of investors, lawyers and lobbyists, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan watchdog.
Notable, too, is that Bennet served as chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee during the 2014 election cycle.
Though he took the job under the condition he wouldn’t have to throw rhetorical bombs against Republicans — a vow he largely kept — Bennet still hit the fundraising circuit hard to help Democrats keep control of the Senate, an effort that came up far short given that Republicans gained nine seats that year.
His own re-election this year has been far less perilous. Polls have consistently shown Bennet ahead of Glenn.
Win or lose, one issue Bennet could confront post-Election Day is the nomination of Garland to the Supreme Court. “A lawyer’s lawyer. Smart. Very fair. And very tough I think, too,” he said.
Bennet, however, said he still wants hearings. Just in case.
“If they actually did have hearings and there was something generated that caused concern, I reserve the right to change my mind, obviously,” he said.
About Michael Bennet
Age: 51
Occupation: U.S. senator
Residence: Denver
Political experience: Chief of staff to Denver mayor; superintendent, Denver Public Schools
Education: B.A., Wesleyan University; J.D., Yale Law School
Family: Wife, Susan Daggett; daughters Caroline, Halina and Anne
