Mobile, Ala. — Even in the state that embraces President Trump’s pugnacity more than any other, a congressman running for the U.S. Senate can hold a town hall meeting without verbal “red meat” or histrionics. Maybe we can all learn something from that.
On Friday morning in his hometown of Mobile, Rep. Bradley Byrne, R-Ala., was hosting another of the more than 100 open meetings he has conducted since taking office barely five years ago. Compared to the wild and angry hordes that greeted Byrne at town halls shortly after Trump was elected and to the many dozens of attendees at most recent meetings, the event at Spring Hill College was sedate and sparsely attended.
Indeed, Byrne’s own staffers combined with working media easily outnumbered the “ordinary citizens,” fewer than 10, who attended in this upscale section of town. But whether before hundreds of constituents or a handful, Byrne’s tones are the same: measured, low-key, expositive rather than incendiary.
On substance, there wasn’t much newsworthy from Byrne’s responses to audience questions — or at least, nothing new for people who pay reasonably close attention to Congress. Perhaps the only thing that qualified was his list of the five issue areas on which he thinks a divided Congress actually will be able to produce meaningful legislation in the next two years, even if most headlines will portray pitched partisan warfare.
Those five were: 1.) a national defense authorization act, 2.) a spending deal without quite so much drama as in prior years, 3.) reforms around the edges of policies related to the pharmaceutical industry, 4.) a small infrastructure bill (although not as comprehensive as Trump has demanded), and 5.) re-authorization of the Higher Education Act (with some mild reforms).
Again, though, what was most striking in this age of harsh rhetoric was the tone. Byrne right now is the leading candidate for the Republican nomination to take on incumbent Democratic Sen. Doug Jones in 2020. Any challenge to Byrne will come from someone either more ostentatiously rightward or who claims Byrne isn’t Trump-y enough. To counteract those attacks in such a Trump-friendly state, one might expect Byrne to ramp up the rhetoric, even in such a low-turnout town meeting, to try to generate headlines showing him eager to smite leftist enemies.
Obviously, he doesn’t think sharp insults or elbows are necessary. He’s enough of a favorite of this White House that he was its chosen vehicle to carry Trump’s major grade-school education plan in the House of Representatives, just as he has been an administration favorite several times in introducing significant deregulatory bills. All his group ratings are solidly conservative. Nonetheless, he seems to think ultradivisive attitudes just aren’t necessary.
Witness one notably friendly member of Friday morning’s audience: Robert Kennedy, who was Byrne’s Democratic opponent in the congressman’s re-election race last year. Kennedy, an African-American, is a digital marketing consultant, a U.S. Naval Academy graduate, and a self-proclaimed moderate. Even as Kennedy ran against Byrne last fall, he was speaking highly of the incumbent, and he continued to do so Friday morning.
As Byrne left the Spring Hill College venue, the two laughed and chatted like old friends. Kennedy said to me warmly that they enjoy “a very professional relationship.”
I can attest directly to Byrne’s ability to run a race without making enemies of other contestants: I ran, finishing fourth out of nine, in the Republican primary for the 2013 special election in which Byrne first was elected to Congress. Throughout the entire campaign, the two of us exchanged not a single cross word and often traded compliments.
Anecdotally, most American voters will say this is the sort of respectful politics they yearn for. It evokes the famous campaign for the first-ever Congress in U.S. history, when James Madison and James Monroe, vying for the same House seat from Virginia, rode in the same coach from town to town for public debates — friendly rivals rather than mortal enemies.
As Madison later wrote about the campaign: “We used to meet in days of considerable excitement, and address the people on our respective sides; but there never was an atom of ill will between us.” During their travels together, Madison changed his mind on the need for a Bill of Rights, “not because of political expediency but because some people who were acting in good faith would never be reconciled to the Constitution without one.”
Once elected, Madison of course became the draftsman and indefatigable sponsor of what became our first 10 constitutional amendments: a salutary result of cordial, as opposed to angry, political competition.
Back to Byrne, though: When necessary, the congressman can get scrappy. The lesson his usual equanimity teaches, though, is that a tough-minded but gracious respectfulness, not divisiveness and demagoguery, can be the default position for successful politics.
