Perhaps never in living memory, not even as 1998 ended with a presidential impeachment, has a new Congress readied itself to be sworn in with lower apparent odds for accomplishing anything. Yet the need for action is pronounced.
The House is newly controlled by a party that doesn’t merely disagree with but actively loathes the president, who comes from the other party. The Senate is controlled by a president’s own party that nonetheless struggles just to tolerate him. The congressional parties, meanwhile, enjoy no lingering tradition of bipartisanship, and few “moderates” of either party are left to bridge the gap.
Meanwhile, the stock market is in precipitous decline. The federal deficit is at one of the highest levels ever recorded. The national debt is at a peacetime high, approaching percentage levels that sent smaller nations like Greece into collapse. Private-sector debt is also setting records. A trade war looms. Even the traditional allies of the United States (exception: Israel) seem to detest and are unwilling to partner with our current administration.
Worse, the entitlement crisis we’ve had decades to prepare for is now at our doors, still unaddressed, well beyond the point when mere minor tweaks of funding formulas could stave off collapse. And that’s not to mention the waters being roiled by the Mueller investigation and the specter of another impeachment effort.
Some conservatives, quite rightly, had urged Republicans to make hay while they could by turning this fall’s “lame duck” session of Congress into a “working duck” session, but that’s not happening. The GOP leadership is frittering away any chance to take important legislative action before they lose their bicameral majorities.
Thus, the conventional wisdom dismisses the possibility of any notable legislative action in the next two years, except for confirmation of more federal judges, which doesn’t require the House to participate. Alas, we face a muddy morass, and there’s no obvious way out.
Yet that doesn’t mean there’s no way out.
Bipartisanship can’t work unless it’s tried. Bipartisanship can’t even be tried unless there are proposals around which to act bipartisan. The way out of the morass is for Republicans to offer legislative solutions that attract several dozen House Democrats.
Democratic House leaders have no political incentive, none at all, to push legislation that can make Republicans or the Trump administration look competent or caring, but a few dozen of the Democratic back-benchers, especially from the 40-strong freshman class, may calculate the politics differently.
If they’re smart, they understand that “swing districts” can swing back Republican just as easily as they swung Democratic this year. They understand their voters are sick of stalemate and vitriol. They will especially understand, if the economy does sink into recession, that their constituents will want ameliorative action — not just talk that makes Republicans look bad, but actual legislation that passes.
Much more must be said in future columns about the sorts of substantive proposals which might actually attract swing Democrats. For now, let’s assume such proposals can exist. The question here is, how can reform-minded Republicans use those proposals to get swing Democrats to play ball?
The first step is personal, the second procedural. For the first time in two decades or more, Republicans should make concerted, organized efforts to get to know new Democratic members, especially those who ran as supposed moderates. Find out, in depth, what their principles are, with an eye toward figuring out if any of their policy predilections approach Republican principles in ways worth pursuing. Also, discover what makes them tick emotionally, and what ideas might sell politically in their districts.
Assuming all this due diligence on a personal level is matched by the right policy creativity, the first part of the process would be to push those ideas, in digestible and explainable small bills, through the Senate (where the GOP holds a majority), while making a massive effort to explain and sell them to the American public. Then, with momentum of Senate passage in hand, Republicans should use the “discharge petition” — an official petition signed by a majority of Members — to force bills to a vote on the House floor even against the wishes of the Democratic leaders. Finally, they should praise, quite fulsomely, those Democrats who do aid the effort, as inducement for them to do likewise on future bills.
In short, today’s Republicans should emulate the attitude used by President Ronald Reagan to pass legislation through a Democratic House. They may no longer have a winsome presidential salesman to help, but there’s no reason they can’t find the right messengers within their own ranks to carry the reformist banner.
Meanwhile, just by virtue of so publicly striving to find common ground, they will shore up their own politics for 2020.
