Speaking at a Martin Luther King Jr. memorial breakfast in Boston yesterday, Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA) expressed support for bipartisan seating at the State of the Union. The one-time Tea Party poster boy minimized the importance of political affiliation, saying “people need to forget about the little itty-bitty letter behind my name and other people’s names.”
“I’ll sit wherever they put me. I don’t care,” Brown said, according to The Boston Herald. “That’s the type of attitude we need to have not only in Washington but here in our local political system where people need to forget about the little itty-bitty letter behind my name and other people’s names and just kind of get going and get our jobs going and do what’s best for this state and this country.”
Sen. Mark Udall (D-CO) is leading the push for mixed seating when the President addresses Congress later this month. Several other Republicans, including Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) and Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), have backed the idea. At yesterday’s breakfast, Brown spoke alongside Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley, who he defeated in last January’s special election for Ted Kennedy’s former Senate seat. At the time, Brown was seen as a harbinger of the Tea Party’s growing strength, but his actions since joining Congress have distanced him from the movement.
“What’s happening in the House and in the Senate with people not talking, well I have to tell you that’s changed since I got there. People are forced to talk. Some of my best friends are Democrats. We go out and try to work things through and try to move our country forward,” Brown said. “I think Dr. King would appreciate the bipartisanship that I have shown that others have shown.”
