DENVER – Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper on Saturday led a group of governors at a news conference for the National Governors Association, urging an incoming Republican-controlled Congress to govern.
Hickenlooper and other governors attended a two-day NGA seminar for new governors at a hotel in Westminster, where veteran leaders shared their knowledge to help newly elected governors transition into office. The conference ends today.
Standing before a small group of reporters as a light snow fell outside, Hickenlooper, a Democrat, said he is hopeful that a Republican-controlled Congress can act for the states. Republicans took control of the U.S. Senate and held the U.S. House after the election.
“The Republican Party has a real opportunity here, but they’ve got to negotiate and find some common ground,” Hickenlooper, who is chairman of the NGA, said. “Maybe this will help open the opportunity for a compromise to come out.”
Republican Gov. Gary Herbert of Utah, vice chairman of the NGA, agreed that it is incumbent upon his party to govern.
“The onus is on the Republicans to govern. There are issues out there that need to be addressed” he said. “They will do themselves a very significant disservice and make it more difficult for them to win the White House in 2016 if they don’t, in fact, get some things done.”
Hickenlooper said governors should apply pressure to the federal government when it fails to act on issues that are critical to states.
As an example, he pointed to the recent federal decision to protect a species of sage-grouse. Colorado is working on suing the federal government after the decision by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife service to list the Gunnison sage-grouse as “threatened” under the Endangered Species Act.
“When they announced that they were going to decide that the work that we’ve done on the Gunnison sage-grouse was not sufficient ... I said, ‘Yea, we understand, we’re going to sue you,’” Hickenlooper said.
But he added that it is not always best to rattle the federal government with attacks that result in splashy headlines.
“The old political way of picking a fight, getting on the front page ... if you’re really trying to do what’s best for your state, sometimes you avoid those headlines in the hope that you can get a better resolution,” Hickenlooper said.
The NGA conference featured training for new governors, as well as an opportunity for veteran governors to get to know the new class. The mission of the NGA is to offer a collective voice of the nation’s governors. There were 39 gubernatorial elections this year.
Hickenlooper has been characterized as a governor with national ambitions, perhaps even as a presidential candidate. He laughed off those notions, adding that the national Democratic bench is deep.
“It’s too early to be talking about that. We’re still too bruised and licking our wounds,” Hickenlooper chuckled. “But both benches have a lot of talent.
“Some of the new governors we have would make splendid candidates,” Hickenlooper added to laughs. “I’m just laying that out there.”
pmarcus@durangoherald.com
