President Obama and congressional Democrats embarking on their final year working together say that despite years of bitter bickering between their party and the Republicans, they want bipartisanship to become one of the hallmarks of their 2016 agenda.
It was a central theme at the White House on Tuesday when Democratic congressional leaders met privately with the president as his final year in office got underway.
“The president did emphasize what we could do in a bipartisan way,” House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said while at the House Democratic retreat in Baltimore.
It’s a much different stance for Democrats compared to Obama’s first year in office, when, days after his swearing in, he dismissed the objections of GOP leaders in a private White House meeting by telling them, “I won.” Then, Congress was flooded with Democrats, but today, Republicans control the Senate and have several dozen more House members compared to Democrats.
At the Democratic retreat in Baltimore, leaders stressed their agenda would include not only legislation aimed at highlighting party differences, but also measures that will require working with Republicans that can actually pass and become law.
The list is small, but not insignificant. It includes passing a dozen federal spending bills as well as major legislation that would reform the criminal justice system, and a plan to help Puerto Rico deal with its debt crisis.
In the Senate this week, lawmakers are debating a bipartisan energy bill that the president has so far suggested he’s open to considering.
“We can come together on areas of agreement,” House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer, D-Md., said Wednesday at the retreat in Baltimore.
Working across party lines is something the two sides have been increasingly willing to do in recent months, even on major legislation that divided them over the last few years.
Bipartisan accomplishments in Congress last year included major federal education policy reform, a two-year budget agreement and a multi-year highway funding bill, among others.
But now the president seems to be fully embracing bipartisanship for his own legacy, too.
Congress, controlled by Democrats during his first two years in office, is now run by a GOP majority in both chambers, leaving him with few avenues on Capitol Hill to push his own agenda.
So with less than a year left in office, Obama is seeking out ways to advance his priorities where Republicans are already on board, such as criminal justice reform, which has advanced in GOP committees in both chambers.
“The president is determined to use every minute of his presidency to help our nation,” Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., told the Washington Examiner. “He’s encouraging Democrats to stand behind him, even in the minority.”
With the election just months away and the Senate majority and White House up for grabs, Democrats say working with Republicans will appeal to voters by demonstrating they can can get things done, even in an election year.
Polls show voters want Congress and the president to work together, and that the already low popularity of lawmakers has been further damaged by years of gridlock.
Sen. Charles Schumer, of New York, who is poised to become the Democratic leader in 2017, said Wednesday that working with Democrats shows “the commitment to moving the country forward, to avoiding the gridlock, to avoiding the political games that so, so dispirit the American people.”
Bipartisanship is unlikely on the most significant of reforms issues, including immigration and taxes, where differences are significant.
Republicans also have been increasingly angered by Obama’s use of executive authority on immigration and the environment, which the GOP believes are actions that thwart the will of Congress. And with more executive actions promised by Obama, bipartisanship could be fleeting.
“He’s using the authority of the office to do good things for the nation,” Durbin said. “And he’ll continue to do that.”
