Colorado US Senate race and the Employee Free Choice Act

Over the past three weeks I surveyed candidates for current Colorado US Senator Michael Bennet’s seat regarding their position on the Employee Free Choice Act. I contacted each candidate twice except for Andrew Romanoff, whose campaign staff responded immediately. Here are the results:

Jane Norton, Republican: Automated campaign acknowledgement of my email request, but Ms. Norton or her campaign office have not responded.

Tom Wiens, Republican: No response

Ken Buck, Republican: No response
Andrew Romanoff, Democrat: (from Melissa Caplan, Romanoff for Colorado)
Andrew has endorsed EFCA and also received the endorsement of The United Food and Commercial Workers, the Colorado Council of Teamsters and the Laborers International in Colorado Springs.
Michael Bennet, Democrat and current Colorado US Senator:
Thank you for contacting me to express your support for the Employee Free Choice Act. I appreciate hearing from you.

Workers in Colorado and across the nation deserve the right to organize and collectively bargain free from intimidation. In my short time in the United States Senate, I have been a strong supporter of workers’ rights. One of my first votes in the Senate was for the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which provides support for workers against discrimination based on gender. I have voted against several proposals, including amendments to the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, that would have seriously undermined the hard-earned rights of working people.

As has been widely reported, the chief sponsor of the Employee Free Choice Act, Senator Tom Harkin, has said there are not enough votes for the original version of the bill to move forward on the floor of the Senate. Senator Harkin is actively involved in negotiations to produce a new version of the bill. I have met with dozens of groups on both sides of this issue, and the concerns I have discussed with those groups over the past five months are the very issues that Senator Harkin and others are attempting to address in the negotiations.

I support these efforts to reach a compromise. The question before us as we move forward is how to preserve the legitimate rights of workers to organize free from intimidation and the legitimate interest of small business to respond nimbly during our economic recovery. I am hopeful that the Senate will consider legislation that achieves both of these important objectives.

Thank you again for contacting me about this important issue. For more information about my priorities as your United States Senator, I invite you to visit my website at http://bennet.senate.gov.

Sincerely,

Michael Bennet
United States Senator

I hope this survey is helpful to the DMA membership selecting a candidate.

Thomas Blomster, Vice-president
DMA