State Sen. Ellen Roberts said Tuesday that she will not run against incumbent U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet next year. It was the right call on several levels – not the least of them being that Colorado’s 6th Senate District will benefit from a couple more years of her service.
A Durango Republican, Roberts said last month that she was considering challenging the Democrat Bennet. Instead, she has said she wants to focus on her state legislative agenda and is unwilling to take on the fundraising tasks inherent in a U.S. Senate race. Both points are sensible and in character.
Particularly in the wake of the Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling, U.S. Senate races have become ridiculously expensive. And Bennet has already raised more than $2 million this year. Roberts would likely have gotten national support, but to mount a serious challenge against Bennet she would still have to do constant fundraising from now until November 2016. That sounds neither pleasant nor rewarding.
Neither does campaigning statewide. Roberts got a taste of that lately over questions about her position on women’s reproductive rights. Critics attacked a fetal-homicide bill she supported in this year’s session of the Legislature as a step toward anti-abortion legislation. Then she ran into a buzz saw when she said things on a Denver talk show that put her pro-choice record in doubt. She said later she simply misspoke, which people do, but she certainly cannot be faulted for not wanting to be under that sort of scrutiny for months.
Besides, Roberts does have serious legislative work to do. In addition to serving as the state Senate’s president pro tem, she is chairwoman of the Water Resources Review Committee and the Colorado Health Insurance Oversight Committee. She will also serve as chairwoman of the Senate Judiciary Committee and vice-chair of the Senate Agriculture, Natural Resources & Energy Committee. All of those involve issues of particular concern to Southwest Colorado.
In what her website says is one of her proudest accomplishments, she also worked with 6th District teens to create the Colorado Youth Advisory Council “to bring the youth voice to policymaking at the Denver Capitol.” That worthy effort should continue.
Roberts was re-elected – unopposed – in 2014. So, although now term-limited, she has more than three years left to serve in the state Senate. That she has decided to do that is good news for the 6th District.
The state is the level of government that is most difficult to track and least easy to understand. With that, it is arguable that it is also where the need for competent, honest people is most crucial.
The federal government is immense and powerful. In the West, it also controls much of the land around us. But most of the day-to-day stuff of life – most rules and regulations, much about roads, almost anything to do with education – is the province of the state.
Ellen Roberts would likely have made a good U.S. senator. But in Michael Bennet, we have a good U.S. senator. For now at least, Roberts can do the most good for her constituents by staying in the Colorado Senate. She is wise to have chosen to do just that.
