Days when opposite parties could work together
Former state senator John Bambacus surprised me last week when he contacted me after I had not heard from him for 25 years. Our conversation triggered this column on how radically politics have changed since we served together in the Maryland Senate from 1983 to 1991.
He and I are the same age, both served during the Vietnam War, and were on the same senate committee. Politically, however, we were very different.
John was a Republican and represented the far western part of the state — Garrett and Allegany counties. This was and still is the most conservative part of Maryland, and John reflected that conservatism. He was protective of the coal industry, and he and I were at odds on a good deal of legislation, particularly related to the environment. I was a Democrat, a stalwart conservation advocate branded a tree hugger and led the environmental charge in the General Assembly.
We always had respect for each other, however, and became friends. I had visited John at his home in Frostburg where he was a professor at nearby Frostburg State University. John served as Frostburg Mayor from 1994 to 2002.
He wanted my help in preventing land development along the Youghiogheny River. The Yough is the only designated Scenic and Wild River in Maryland, a protected status, and its waters and adjoining land are truly wild, a rarity in this crowded state. I rafted this whitewater river nearly 40 years ago and was super-impressed with its wildness and lack of development.
Today, John is leading the charge against efforts to despoil the land around the Yough with new bridges and extensive packed trail surfaces that would remove more than 20 acres of wild forests along this pristine river. This is contrary to governing plans to keep the area wild, forested, and preserved. Former Department of Natural Resources secretaries under both Democratic and Republican governors opposed such development plans. See Dan Rodricks’ column, “Leave the Yock, Maryland’s officially ‘wild’ river, alone,” May 24.
As at any reunion, John and I relived some old times in the Senate, and we lamented the lost camaraderie and comity that existed. The Maryland Senate was truly the purest form of democracy we had experienced, where debates were free of polluted political party partisanship. We agreed that lawmaking had descended into internecine warfare between Democrats and Republicans.
While in office from 1978 to 1995, I worked as closely — and sometimes more closely — with Republican lawmakers than I did with some Democrats. I could count on the votes of some Republicans more than some Democrats, as well. I collaborated with Sen. Jack Cade, Senate Republican leader, and developed the Maryland Forest Conservation Law that has preserved tens of thousands of acres of forest from development. Jack was the best legislator I came across.
On one occasion, a Democratic House of Delegates member confronted me over enabling his senator to sponsor a popular conservation measure when the delegate was planning to run against him. I simply replied, “That’s the way we work in the Senate.” When I announced plans in 1994 not to run again, one of the first people to call me to dissuade me from doing so was Republican Sen. Howie Denis.
Unfortunately, over the past 40 years the Maryland legislature has become more akin to the U.S. Congress, where the partisan political divide has forced democracy into a hellish abyss. Doing what is best for the nation and its people becomes secondary to what is best for the party and the next election.
John Bambacus agrees and renounced his Republican registration decades ago, registering as an Independent. He, like me, is sickened by the takeover of his former party by Trump and his lies. We also agree that the denial of the 2020 election results and subsequent Jan. 6 domestic terrorist attack on our nation’s Capitol building present an existential threat to our democracy.
Last fall, John’s beloved Western Maryland saw a secessionist movement from a handful of Republican lawmakers whereby Garrett, Allegany and Washington counties were to secede and join West Virginia. Now, it is some of these same legislators he is fighting to protect the Youghiogheny River. This is all part of the rural-urban and partisan political divides corroding enlightened governance.
Examples of enlightened bipartisanship were major federal environmental legislation including the Clean Water and Clean Acts, Endangered Species Act, Marine Mammal Protection Act, National Environmental Policy Act, and establishment of the Environmental Protection Agency. These occurred under President Nixon while Democrats controlled the U.S. Senate and House. The Chesapeake Bay Program, formalizing bay restoration, was established and funded by President Ronald Reagan in 1984 under a split Congress.
Legislation supported by President Biden is now blocked that would have been worked out between the parties before the partisan chasm cleaved the parities. The recently enacted, pared-back legislation dubbed The Inflation Reduction Act sets the stage to implement common-sense conservation measures to reduce carbon emissions by 40% by 2030. Tax incentives and rebates could provide $28,500 a family to switch to efficient electric home appliances, install rooftop solar, and buy new electric vehicles. Families could save up to $1,800 for gasoline and utility bills as a result of electrification. There will be 1.5 million new jobs by 2030, and up to 3,900 lives would be saved annually by 2030 as a result of cleaner air.
The bill also allows Medicare to negotiate for prescription drug prices and the Affordable Care Act is extended for folks who cannot afford health care keeping millions of Americans under health care insurance.
And, in an unusual move by a giveaway Congress, the law pays for itself by closing tax loopholes for the wealthy, beefing up the severely starved IRS to crackdown on tax cheats by enforcing the tax code, and imposing a 15% Corporate Minimum Tax to raise $313 billion.
Disturbingly, this major legislation passed with only 50 Democratic Senators votes, with the tie broken by the vice president. How could there be such a political divide? Aren’t we all Americans?
Why are 139 elected Republican members of Congress (including 30 senators) refusing to acknowledge scientific evidence of human-caused climate change?
The media adds to this divide, scoring each legislative or court decision as if a football or badminton game, spending much commentary on which party scored most and how the points add up for the next election. This is done at the expense of focusing on what the legislation or court decision does and why there is a divide. The focus becomes how will the new law help or hinder a party or candidate or who scores most on the abortion decision. This adds to the worrisome divisions instead of encouraging a national move to legislative rapprochement.
John Bambacus and I wish we could bring back the old days of collegiality and compromise, the ways we proudly learned and cherished in the Maryland Senate.