Obama’s last chance to keep a promise

Now, 12 years later, Obama still talks about partisanship although now he refers to the Republican intransigence that thwarted it rather than his own determination to see disagreement as mere obstruction and as a pretext for high-handed and undemocratic fiats.

Perhaps it is because his conscience pricks him, therefore, that he now talks more realistically about the extent to which partisanship can be overcome. Last Wednesday in Springfield, Ill., Obama delivered a speech in which, as the New York Times put it, “he reckoned with perhaps his presidency’s greatest failure: his unfulfilled promise to lift American politics above deep partisan divisions.”

With less than a year left in office, and facing a Congress that he’s tried to marginalize and circumvent at every turn, prospects for agreement on anything seem weak. But appearances are deceptive. This year will provide several opportunities for the president and Congress to work together to enact bipartisan reforms, if they have the will to do it.

Some of them were discussed recently when President Obama met privately with Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. They talked over several worthy items, including initiatives to fight cancer and the Zika virus. Other issues are more contentious. We would prefer, for example, they not work together for a possible bailout of Puerto Rico for its $73 billion debt. But it is well worth their while to adopt the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal, which Obama and Ryan support but many members of Congress oppose.

Criminal justice reform has received a lot of attention from the president, on Capitol Hill and on the 2016 campaign trail. There is bipartisan legislation making its way through both houses of Congress to reduce prison sentences for non-violent offenders. And as we have recommended there is a need for civil asset forfeiture reform to limit the circumstances under which local law enforcement agencies can seize property. None of these are partisan issues.

Other urgent reforms address the new heroin epidemic and the country’s outdated mental health system. Legislation on the latter is being considered by the House Energy and Commerce Committee and is held up by disagreements about language on guns.

In his State of the Union address, Obama said he wanted to have a “serious discussion” about ways to combat poverty, which Ryan has long made a priority in his speeches. They should be able to agree to expand the Earned Income Tax Credit. This would be a much better way to attract young people to the workforce than any counterproductive increase to the minimum wage.

Also, as we recommended a month ago, Congress should pass legislation to tighten the gaps in the visa waver program and to recognize that the targeting of Christians and other religious minorities in the Middle East constitutes genocide.

Even though most of these measures enjoy bipartisan support, it will take political skill and commitment to enact them in an election year. Many lawmakers don’t see these measures as must-pass, and some Republicans want to wait until 2017 in the hope that a Republican wins the White House.

But it would be a shame to waste this opportunity for reform. Ryan has shown himself to be a thoughtful conservative lawmaker. He just might be able to work with a president who has a final chance to prove that his promises of bipartisanship weren’t completely false.

In his State of the Union speech, Obama pledged to reach across the aisle to achieve some important things in his final year in office and “surprise the cynics.”

Not just the cynics, but also the skeptics, including much of the public. Many have been surprised over the last seven years at the gulf that exists between Obama’s rhetoric on bipartisanship and his actions. Here’s hoping he can surprise us one last time.