Seven Campaign Promises from 2008

Jared Polis
1. While Rep. Jared Polis never really ran on a platform of gay-rights issues, he did vow to fight for gay marriage and anti-discrimination laws.

In September, Polis co-sponsored legislation that would repeal the Defense of Marriage Act, which denies recognition of gay marriage and allows states to ignore same-sex marriages legally attained in other states.

2. In his race against Republican Scott Starin, Polis made his way onto handfuls of commercials. In one particular commercial, Polis vowed to stand up to oil and gas companies.

It’s a pretty vague statement (we weren’t really expecting him to challenge Exxon Mobile to a duel or anything), but still, we wanted to see where Polis was in his fight against big oil. Thus far, Polis, along with Rep. Diana DeGette, has co-introduced a bill known as the FRAC ACT, which would close a loophole in the Safe Drinking Water Act that exempts oil and gas companies from disclosing the potentially toxic chemicals used during fracking, a process used in most oil and gas wells to increase flow.

Barak Obama
3. In a speech in September of 2008, then-Sen. Barack Obama made a “firm pledge” that any family making less than $250,000 a year will not see any form of tax increase.

According to politifact.org, the one tax increase for these families has come in the form of a cigarette tax increase, which technically could mean a tax increase for anyone who smokes but it would not hit every family that bring in less than $250,000. Put that in your pipe and smoke it.

4. The Obama campaign released a statement saying, “Barack Obama will end the use of torture without exception. He also will eliminate the practice of extreme rendition, where we outsource our torture to other countries.”

So far, President Obama has made progress with this promise. While there are still gray areas to make black or white, by signing an executive order in early 2009, Obama made clear that prisoners under U.S. control will be treated “humanely and shall not be subjected to violence to life and person…nor to outrages upon personal dignity.” It also created a task force to study the Army Field Manual and extreme rendition.

5. Obama’s pledge to give businesses a $3,000 tax credit for each full-time employee hired.

Seeing that Yellow Scene has grown in the past year, we were really betting on this one. But the tax credits never made their way into the stimulus package, and the idea has not been resurrected.

Betsy Markey
6. Last year, Betsy Markey, who was challenging Rep. Marilyn Musgrave, told this publication that if elected she would address the foreclosure epidemics by helping homeowners get fixed-rate mortgages.

Rep. Markey disappointed us when she joined a crew of Blue Dogs and voted against the Helping Families Save Their Homes Act of 2009; she was the only Colorado Democrat to do so. The bill works to prevent mortgage foreclosures and allows federal bankruptcy judges to potentially change the terms of mortgages.

Mark Udall
7. In a commercial during his campaign, then-Congressman Mark Udall told us that he would “fight with everything I’ve got” to pursue tax cuts for middle-class families and small business.

So, one might not call his efforts thus far “fighting with everything he’s got”—those are pretty strong words—but Colorado’s junior senator, Mark Udall, along with all other Colorado Democrats, did vote for the final version of the stimulus package, which did include a few temporary tax cuts and tax credits. Other than that, we haven’t seen Udall’s fighting spirit when it comes to giving us some cash back.