By: Ernest Gurulé
Colorado Democratic Congressman Ed Perlmutter’s career and party allegiance were sealed long before he was born. The eight-term congressman’s grandfather—his mom’s father— was the Chief Justice of the Illinois Supreme Court, also a staunch Republican determined to main- tain the family’s good name and standing in the grand old party. But a family vacation to Colorado ended up having—at least for his grandfather—some very unpleasant and unintended consequences.
The vacation, said Perlmutter, was enough for his mother to “fall in love with Colorado” and she began making plans to move here when she came of age. “You come to Colorado, you’re gonna become a damn Democrat,” was the last travel warning the old man gave. His mother followed through, enrolled at the University of Colorado and just as her father had warned, though not immediately, became a Democrat.
Her political evolution was hastened along by falling in love and later marrying the editor of the “Silver and Gold,” the university student newspaper. “He was a pretty liberal character,” said Perlmutter, and the die was cast for Perlmutter and the whole family. Since then, they’ve lived and voted blue.
A year spent at Colorado College before finishing up his undergraduate degree and law school at CU, set Perlmutter on track for life as a practicing attorney and life in the public arena as an elected official. He won his first election to the state legislature in 1995 where he served until 2003. He won a seat in Congress in 2006 and has been reelected seven more times. And, said Perlmutter, that’s enough. His days in public office end when his current term expires.
“We’ve been building a good bench,” he said in a recent weekend interview with La Voz Bilingüe. “At some point you’ve got to let the bench rise. That was always the deal.” When he leaves office, the plan is to return to Colorado and Jefferson County, a place he’s called home for his entire life.
Announcing his decision ten months early, said Perlmutter, was the best way to ensure his staff, one he calls “the best staff in America,” gets an off-ramp, ‘congresspeak’ for time to catch on with another member of Congress or find something else.
Leaving the political arena and his beloved 7th Congressional District is done with both satisfaction and a degree of melancholy. Politics, like sports, is the proverbial long game. You win some and, at the same time, you know you’re going to lose, and regularly. And in a divided and polarized Congress as is the nation’s reality today, good or bad legislation is at the mercy of immovable party loyalist and ever present special interests.
Ever the optimist, Perlmutter takes a degree of sat- isfaction with even pyrrhic victories, wins or near wins that often come with huge costs and, oftentimes, even bigger blemishes. Even in the 2021 impeachment of former President Trump, Perlmutter finds a ray of light. “Seven (Republican) senators voted to convict,” he said with a ray of hope in his voice. The final vote, 57-43, fell well short of the two-thirds majority required to convict.
While he cheers congressional collegiality, he nonetheless laments the all too automatic knee jerk partisanship. But when the two sides work together good things, he said, can happen. Perlmutter cites the new Veterans Hospital in Aurora as a prime example. “We all worked together,” he said. “I worked with (former Colorado) Senator Allard…we got it moving.” There were snafus, including cost overruns, “but perseverance got it done.” He calls the VA health cen- ter, which serves veterans across a multi-state region, “the best in America.”
A two-year congressional term might make it difficult to deliver big promises, but Perlmutter says it’s still enough time to accomplish big things. Among his proudest accomplishments are maintaining funding for the Orion Project. Orion is the spacecraft that may one day take astronauts to Mars. Additional funding not only saved jobs for Colorado’s Lockheed workers but added to the workforce.
Perlmutter also helped infuse Golden’s Solar Energy Research Institute (SERI) with both a bigger budget and larger workforce. The same for the U.S. Geological Survey located on the School of Mines campus and Jefferson County’s Federal Center. A number of structures at the Federal Center were “dilapidated” and are now set for a rebuild. “I came from a construction family,” he said, “so we love it.”
But being a Congressman means more than giving floor speeches and casting votes. Part of the job is simply answering to the needs of constituents. There, the eight- term Perlmutter is in his element.
A few years ago a group of WWII’s veterans had gone back to mark the Iwo Jima anniversary and one they had fought in. “I get a call on a Friday saying these folks are stranded,” recalled Perlmutter. The group was stuck in Okinawa without a plane and, because the sacred site was open only for a set amount of time, were in danger of missing the event. Perlmutter scrambled, working the phone, calling in favors and finally, got a Marine plane to get the vets to the event. It was a close call, but mission accomplished.
Another instance that remains both sad and satisfying, he said, involved returning the bodies of two Coloradans who had left to fight against ISIS. They were killed and their bodies were left “in no man’s land,” he said. Their families were desperate to bring them home. “We went through all kinds of hurdles,” he said. “It took us a little while, but we did it.” The pair was brought home to family.
Decades in public service, said the kid who grew up in Wheat Ridge and played in the streets “until the lights went on” is something special, said Perlmutter. “The abil- ity to serve is a high calling and honor and my staff has extended my reach.” Perlmutter’s life in the arena ends January 3, 2023. The next day, he once again becomes Citizen Perlmutter.
The ‘Big Lie’ and the free press
Toward the end of the 2016 campaign for president, Donald Trump said that the election was rigged or the election was rigged if he did not win. This view actually turned out to be a projection of his own campaign efforts to “rig” the election with the help of Russian security services that may have interfered enough in the toss-up states to help him win in the electoral college.
Trump went on to say the same thing during the 2020 campaign. This time he lost by millions of votes and a 306 to 232 electoral college score.
He then projected his loss onto his opponent and gave birth to the ‘Big Lie’ that said that the election was stolen from him. Most of the Republican Party bought into his lie and supported it to the point of causing its followers to create a violent insurrection designed to revoke the certifica- tion of Joe Biden as the duly elected President of the United States.
To this day, at least one third of the voters in the country believe the lie and are encouraged to act on it by extreme right wing activists and pundits including the powerful FOX television news network that has, until very recently at least, made it its business to be the unofficial voice of the former President and his followers.
The media in the United States, with the exception of FOX and other outlets that agree with it, stepped in to investigate, find out and report the Big Lie as just that. This give and take on the part of reporters and commentators of every kind together with the courts has served to clarify the truth of the vote.
The process of clarification has gone a long way in defending the democratic institutions that guarantee the foundation of our liberty. What happens however, when the press and its activities are stopped and its voice silenced by government control of the media and publishes only its side of the story?
That is what is being done by the Russian press that accompanies the invasion of Ukraine. It started with President Putin inventing the Big Lie that accuses Ukraine of being led by Nazis that seek to do Russia harm. When you mention Nazis in that part of the world you are playing
on the fears caused by the German invasion of World War II. Putin’s projection of that fear reflects his own desire for an excuse to invade and dominate Ukraine as part of building a new empire.
This time there is no free press to tell the truth to the Russian people. President Putin has made sure that the only media telling the story belongs to the state.
In the case of the United States, the free press has survived Trump’s attempt to denigrate it to the point of allowing him to stay in power. The institution held fast against the criminal behavior that is now the subject of much litigation and many tell-all stories and books.
There are lessons to be learned in looking and compar- ing a tyrant and a tyrant wanna-be in their relations with the press. The best lesson however, has to do with the essential role the press plays in keeping freedom alive.
In the case of America, it also validates the genius of insisting on having the Bill of Rights beginning with the First Amendment to the Constitution. In the case of Russia, Putin’s denial of a free press could lead to World War III.
The views expressed by David Conde are not necessarily the views of la Voz bilingüe. Comments and responses may be directed to news@lavozcolorado.com.