Michael Bennet pushes sweeping plan to remake political system

Sen. Michael Bennet sprang onto the national stage in January, when the usually low-key Colorado Democrat went viral shouting about the 35-day federal government shutdown and Ted Cruz’s “crocodile tears.” Now, Bennet, a 2020 presidential candidate, is out with a plan to fix that system he once ranted about.

Bennet is calling for a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United, a lifetime ban on members of Congress becoming lobbyists, a prohibition on political gerrymandering and a push for ranked choice voting. Bennet is also supporting a laundry list of long-desired Democratic reforms, including automatic voter registration, D.C. statehood and greater transparency around super PAC fundraising and spending.

Many of his proposals are already popular with other Democratic presidential candidates. But Bennet says he’s setting himself apart by putting these plans at the center of his campaign, arguing that reforming the American government is essential because “so much of what we want to get done, from climate to health care to changing the tax code, is going to require us to reform the way this democracy works,” Bennet said in an interview with POLITICO.

“There’s not an alternative mechanism for us to resolve our disputes and move the country ahead,” Bennet said. “If we need to clean it up the way Teddy Roosevelt cleaned it up when he became president, before we can do a lot of this work, that’s something we need to do.”

Bennet joined the 2020 presidential primary in April, after he received a clean bill of health following a cancer diagnosis earlier this year. His late entry put him months behind much of the rest of the field in fundraising, staffing and building a campaign infrastructure in the early states.

But Bennet, unlike Montana Gov. Steve Bullock, who also jumped into the race this spring, did make the stage for the Democratic National Committee’s first debates next week. He will appear with fellow Coloradan John Hickenlooper, the former governor, on the second of two debate nights.

Bennet’s proposal, which he says aims to “put people back into politics,” stemmed from his frustration over the Supreme Court’s decision on Citizens United, after which the cost of elections skyrocketed. Bennet believes that decision, coupled with intensified gerrymandering and the elimination of elements of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, allowed Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and the House Freedom Caucus to play “shutdown politics.”

“We’ve made almost no progress over the last 10 years,” Bennet said, citing his work on the “Gang of 8” immigration bill as a prime example: bipartisan legislation that passed the Senate and promptly died in the GOP-controlled House without coming up for a vote.

“I don’t want to be here 10 years from now, we wasted another decade of the American people’s time, and that’s why I’m running for president,” Bennet continued.

But Bennet isn’t the only Democrat preaching unification to distinguish himself in the crowded Democratic primary. Former Vice President Joe Biden put his bipartisan pragmatism at the heart of his presidential bid, while Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) and Bullock, who both hail from states where Democrats aren’t guaranteed electoral wins, have made similar tell-it-like-it-is pitches.

But in an indirect reference to a well-used Biden line, Bennet said that “this idea, somehow, that Donald Trump is the problem, and if we just get [rid of] Donald Trump, it’ll all go back to the bipartisan work that was done here, some people are saying. That’s clearly incorrect.”

It’s a contrast Bennet and other 2020 candidates have sharpened in recent weeks, as Biden continues to lead national and early-state polling. But this week, Biden came under strong criticism for recalling his work with two segregationist lawmakers, Sens. Herman Talmadge of Georgia and James Eastland of Mississippi, and telling donors “at least there was some civility” at that time.

Bennet said Biden was looking through “rose-colored glasses,” adding that it’s unproductive to focus on “how politicians did their work in Washington 30 years ago or 40 years ago.”

One part of Bennet’s proposal, a lifetime ban on members of Congress becoming lobbyists, puts him on the same side as an old foil: Cruz. The Texas Republican and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) recently agreed over Twitter to work together on a lobbying ban, which Bennet said he was “really happy to see” they both came out in favor of it.

“For a long time, I couldn’t get anyone on that bill,” Bennet said. He has introduced a bill that would ban that practice in several legislative sessions, even running on it in his first campaign ad in 2010.

"I don’t know if they’ve got their own plan, but I hope they look at my plan," he added.

But Bennet isn’t on board with other reforms tossed out by fellow 2020 candidates. He doesn’t support eliminating the Senate filibuster, a move some of his Senate colleagues are open to. On adding judges to the Supreme Court, Bennet shakes his head.

“Nobody has said to the American people, ‘Oh, here’s why we need to pack the Supreme Court,’” Bennet said. “They’re just ignored in the [glare] of the cable television lights and in the competition to try to raise money to satisfy the DNC.”

South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg has suggested expanding the Supreme Court from nine justices to 15, with the bench including five justices affiliated with Democrats, five affiliated with Republicans, and the final five chosen by the first 10. Several of Bennet’s Senate colleagues have also indicated they would be open to considering such a plan, including Cory Booker (D-N.J.) Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Kamala Harris (D-Calif.).

Bennet suggested that Buttigieg’s proposal stems from his inexperience in Washington. “I think if he had seen it up close, he might have a different approach," he said.

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