Speaking at UF on Friday night, Sen. Bill Nelson advocated for bipartisanship and spoke about the importance of communication, while simultaneously criticizing President Obama’s White House.
“There is change a-comin’,” the Democratic senator said, referring to the change of power in the House, which Republicans overtook in this year’s election.
Nelson expressed his disappointment with the election, saying that the process is becoming very narrow-minded.
“What we are seeing is an intolerance of ideas — an intolerance of attitudes,” he said. “If you get down to the nitty-gritty of this election, you see there’s a lot of angst in America.”
Florida voters elected Marco Rubio, a conservative Republican, to serve with Nelson in the Senate.
He said, among other reasons, voters are frustrated because of the housing crisis, which has hit Florida harder than most states. He said many plans have been created to fix the economy, but few are working.
He also attacked the White House, saying the president’s staff was only giving a lackluster attempt to execute Obama’s plans.
He specifically addressed the recent Gulf oil spill, and suggested that military-trained officials, who are familiar with executing operations on a minute-by-minute basis, should be in charge of disasters, not politicians and corporations.
UF President Bernie Machen introduced Nelson, who was speaking for the Ernest R. Bartley Memorial Lecture series. The senator, who attended UF but graduated from Yale University, was a student of the professor, whom the series is named after, in the 1960s.
In an interview after the speech, Nelson addressed issues he may be voting on soon.
The senator is a co-sponsor of the DREAM Act, which would create a path to citizenship for children of undocumented immigrants who graduate college or serve in the military.
Nelson said that congress will try to pass the DREAM Act after Thanksgiving, and he’s confident that it will succeed.
However, the senator, who is a member of the Armed Services Committee, said he is less confident Congress will end “Don’t ask, don’t tell,” the military policy that bans gay and lesbian soldiers from serving openly.
“I’m not optimistic that it will pass,” he said, referring to an upcoming repeal attempt.
Nelson also said he was concerned Congress would ban earmark spending, which is funding targeted for specific projects. He said the state could lose funding for Everglades restoration, which amounts to hundreds of millions of dollars from the federal government.
