DENVER (AP) – Colorado’s U.S. senators have joined across party lines to try to derail government shutdowns.
Democrat Michael Bennet and Republican Cory Gardner introduced their “Shutdown Accountability Resolution” Thursday calling for votes to be held regularly during any shutdown until a bill reopening government is signed. If lawmakers don’t show up for votes, the sergeant at arms could drag them to the Senate floor.
Bennet and Gardner met in Bennet’s Washington office a day earlier to describe their effort, which so far has no other sponsors.
Parts of government halted in 2013 over Republican opposition to Democratic President Barack Obama’s health law. This year, Congress sent Obama Homeland Security funding legislation, dropping demands for immigration concessions Republicans had been making for months and averting a partial agency shutdown.
