U.S. Sen. John Hickenlooper’s absence this week from a key Senate vote highlighted a point we’ve been meaning to make — where the Hell has Hickenlooper been?
The freshman Democrat hasn’t made a single public appearance here in Colorado since he was sworn into office on Jan. 3 in Washington, D.C., according to his social media pages.
Hickenlooper claims he missed the very important Senate confirmation vote on President Biden’s Interior secretary Monday because he haplessly flew into Colorado just before the snowstorm hit and got stuck here.
Which begs the question: If Hickenlooper was in Colorado, why was he here?
He had no events scheduled, and if he did, it was certainly cancelled due to the storm that was forecast days before he flew in for the weekend.
How many other weekends has Hickenlooper flown to Colorado just to visit his dog, perhaps his wife?
And is he flying on the taxpayer’s dime? Because that would be wrong.
Members of Congress are not permitted to charge their personal travel to their Senate office expense account.
They can only fly back to their district or state and expense it to the taxpayer, if they are actually doing the taxpayers’ work holding town halls or other in-person meetings or business that cannot be conducted on Zoom, which is how Hickenlooper appears to be conducting his Colorado meetings this year.
PeakNation™ will recall Hickenlooper has a lot of baggage when it comes to questionable travel.
Like that time he violated rules of ethical behavior, notably the gift ban, for jumping aboard a campaign donor’s private jet, and for that time he traveled to Italy.
Blew off a subpoena to appear before the ethics commission, and later found guilty on two counts.
Perhaps an enterprising reporter will examine how many weekends Hickenlooper flies home to Colorado without conducting official so-called meetings he could not have simply conducted on the phone or via Zoom?
And most importantly, who’s paying for it.
While they’re at it, they might want to check what official business required Bennet to fly back to Colorado on Friday before the snowstorm, where he got stuck and was also unable to fly back on Sunday for Monday’s key Interior secretary vote.
We couldn’t find any public events either senator attended last weekend.