Opportunities for Bipartisanship in Polarized Washington

Happy New Year!  The word “bipolar” seems like a perfect term to use when describing American politics in 2019.  On the one hand, Republicans lost control of the House of Representatives.  On the other hand, Republicans gained two seats in the Senate; an anomaly for the President’s party in the midterm election.  If anything productive gets done in the next two years, it will require the support of members of both parties.

Just about a week into the new Congress, a lot of the legislation put forth by Democrats does not provide much optimism for those hoping for bipartisanship.  Congressman Brad Sherman of California and Congressman Al Green of Texas re-introduced articles of impeachment against President Trump on day one of the 116^th Congress.  At the same time, Congressman Steve Cohen of Tennessee introduced a Constitutional amendment that would abolish the Electoral College. The introduction of these legislative initiatives make it seem like the Democrats remain preoccupied with getting rid of President Trump, rather than actually working with him to improve the lives of Americans on the rapidly shrinking list of areas of bipartisan agreement.    

Unfortunately, liberals’ definition of bipartisanship involves conservatives taking their ideas “off the table” and letting liberals get everything they want. Case and point number one: the 1986 amnesty, also known as the Simpson-Mazzoli Act.  Liberals promised that the amnesty would only apply to a small group of illegal immigrants and that a secure border would accompany the amnesty.  The amnesty went through without a hitch and America still feels the electoral consequences of the amnesty; which has ultimately led to California, Virginia, New Mexico flipping from either red or purple states to solid blue states.  Republicans don’t seem to have learned their lesson from this debacle, since 14 of them voted for a bill known as the “Gang of Eight” that would have given amnesty to millions of illegal immigrants in exchange for the promise of border security.  More than half of the Republican signatories to the “Gang of Eight” bill, which secured the support of every single Democrat in the Senate, no longer remain in office.  One of the fourteen Senators, Jeffrey Chiesa of New Jersey, chose not to run in the special election to replace the deceased Frank Lautenberg; after his appointment to the seat by Republican Governor Chris Christie. Both Republican Senators that lost re-election in 2016 voted for the “Gang of Eight” bill while five additional supporters of the “Gang of Eight” bill left office in 2018.  Senators Jeff Flake, Orrin Hatch, and Bob Corker retired this year while Senator Dean Heller lost re-election and Senator John McCain ended up succumbing to brain cancer.   The number of sitting Senators who voted for the “Gang of Eight” bill will continue to dwindle as Senator Lamar Alexander of Tennessee has announced that he will not seek re-election in 2020. 

 

While certain parts of the southern border have effective barriers in place that have ultimately put a stop to the neverending flow of illegal immigrants coming in from south of the border, much of the border remains open more than three decades after Simpson-Mazzoli. The Secure Fence Act of 2006, which many prominent Democrats who served in the Senate at the time voted for, attempted to rectify the problem but twelve years after its passage, many of the same Democrats who voted for the bill have tried to paint a wall as ineffective despite the fact that the Border Patrol, people who work at the Southern Border everyday, claim otherwise.  

Republicans should definitely approach any immigration “compromise” put forth by the Democrats with a high amount of skepticism, especially if it does not include any funding for the border wall. However, that does not mean that the Republicans and the Democrats cannot find common ground in other areas.   

 

Lowering the cost of prescription drugs: While the Democrats’ pet project of Obamacare attempted to focus on lowering the cost of health insurance, it did little to address the coverage of health care, in other words; what makes health insurance so expensive in the first place.  President Trump has repeatedly spoken out in favor of lowering the cost of prescription drugs.  Believe it or not, lowering the cost of prescription drugs falls perfectly into line with Prseident Trump’s “America First” agenda. A White House fact sheet summarizing an initiative to committed to driving down drug prices mentions that “foreign countries get much lower prices from drug makers, putting the burden on American patients to subsidize these discounts by forcing higher prices on the United States.” The President’s initiative also looks to “fix the perverse incentive that encourages doctors to administer more expensive drugs, raising costs for taxpayers and seniors.” Senate Democrats, including likely 2020 Presidential contenders Bernie Sanders and Cory Booker, have already unveiled legislation of their own committed to lowering prescription drug prices. Like President Trump’s initiative, the Senate Democrats’ proposal would “allow Medicare to negotiate drug prices and strip monopolies from drug companies if their prices were above the average price in other wealthy countries.” President Trump might sign off on that part of the Democratic legislation but he seems unlikely to jump on board with the proposal to allow the importation of cheaper drugs from Canada.  Time will tell if Congress and the President can strike a deal on lowering the cost of prescription drugs.

 

 

Term limits: I had previously advocated for term limits in the blog post I wrote in honor of Constitution Day (and my birthday) last year.  A Gallup poll found that 75 percent of Americans support the idea of term limits.  In order to pass, a Constitutional Amendment imposing term limits would require the support of two-thirds of the members of both Houses of Congress and a subsequent ratification by three-fourths of states.  Currently, fourteen states have some form of term limits for their legislatures.  Strategically speaking, supporters of term limits should try to solidify report among members of Congress elected after 2007.  After all, most term limits proposals put forth in the past have called for two six-year terms for Senators and six two-year terms for members of the House of Representatives.  Under the term limits proposal introduced at the beginning of the 116^th Congress by Senator Ted Cruz and Congressman Francis Rooney, both Republicans, members of the House of Representatives would have a limit of three two-year terms as opposed to the proposal introduced by Congressmen Mike Gallagher and Ro Khanna last Congress, which would have limited members of the House of Representatives to six two-year terms.  Both the Gallagher-Khanna proposal and the Cruz-Rooney proposal would limit Senators to two six-year terms.   Two-thirds of the Senators have served since 2007 or later while two-thirds of the members of the House of Representatives have served since late 2009 or later.  Based on the leadership of both parties, the Average American probably wouldn’t know that.  Looking at the leadership of House Democrats; Speaker Nancy Pelosi and House Majority Whip James Clyburn have served in Congress since 1993, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer has represented his Maryland district since 1981.  While liberals like to stereotype Republicans as the party of the old, the House Republican leadership has actually spent less time in Congress than the House Republican leadership. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy has only served in Congress since 2007 while House Minority Whip Steve Scalise has served in Congress since winning a special election in May 2008.  The leaders of both parties in the Senate have served in Congress for forty years.  Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has served in the Senate since 1984 while Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer has served in the Senate since 1998; he had represented the “lush farmland of Brooklyn” in Congress for eighteen years prior.  Senate Majority Whip John Thune has served in Congress since 1997 with a two-year hiatus from 2003 to 2005 while Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin has served in Congress since 1987.  In other words, the leadership of Congress does not have the “new car smell” that President Obama talked about during his first presidential campaign in 2008. 

Can Americans really blame people for wanting to stay in Congress forever?  After all, working on Capitol Hill has lots of benefits that come with it, including a six-figure salary, an exemption from Obamacare, and a “French work week.”  However, the longer members of Congress remain in Washington, the more disconnected they become from their constitutents.  As Dana Loesch pointed out in her book, Flyover Nation,  Senators who ran for re-election in 2012 and 2014 did not even live in the states they represented in Congress.  According to Loesch, “in 2014 a Kansas senator almost lost his job when his constituents learned he no longer lived in Kansas.  That’s right—Pat Roberts, a creature/caricature of the political establishment, owned no home or apartment in the state he was elected to serve…Senator Roberts admitted that he didn’t occupy his former home in Kansas and preposterously claimed he slept on a friend’s recliner whenever he visisted his (former) state.” Loesch also mentioned former Indiana Senator Richard Lugar, who “used to rent hotel rooms when he went home to visit with his constituents in Indiana, the state that elected him. And he listed an address on his voter registration card where he did not live.” Finally, “Senator Mary Landrieu of Louisiana was labeled ‘the Senator from Washington, DC,’ because she spent so much time working for the rich denizens of the District, where she actually lived in a $2.5 million home, than in the state of Louisiana, where she only pretended to live.”  

   

At the very least, the Democrats should take the Republicans’ lead when it comes to imposing term limits on their leadership. Republicans have self-imposed term limits when it comes to committee chairmanships; limiting chairs to three two-year terms. The term limits partly explain the mass exodus of House Republicans; many Committee Chairmen did not want to remain in office after their terms expired.  According to Roll Call, Pelosi described the idea of term limits for committee chairs on the Democratic side as “a matter before the caucus.”  Republicans also have term limits for the position of Senate Majority Whip.  Texas Senator John Cornyn had to step down from that position at the start of the 116^th Congress due to term limits.  South Dakota Senator John Thune now holds the number two position in the Senate.  


In addition to infrastructure, lowering the cost of prescription drugs and imposing term limits look like the only areas where a coalition of Democrats and Republicans can overcome the polarization in Washington and actually pass legislation. Unfortunately, it looks like House Democrats will spend the rest of their time pushing crackpot legislation such as abolishing the Electoral College; all part of their ultimate goal: abolishing the results of the 2016 Presidential Election.