Reconciliation bill is what’s wrong with Congress
Most of us presume that Washington’s dysfunction centers on the toxic dynamic between the two parties. And there’s little doubt that Democrats and Republicans are constantly at each other’s throats.
But the past few months have revealed the degree to which the roots of the problem actually emanate from within the parties themselves. And that highlights an underappreciated challenge. Unless those of us who live and operate outside these two separate political spheres, in other words, ordinary Coloradans, begin to demand change, the vicious cycle of partisan recrimination will never abate.
Consider the story of the massive bipartisan infrastructure package President Joe Biden recently signed into law — the biggest investment ever made in the nation’s roads, bridges, transit, ports and more. Immediately after the inauguration in January, many Democrats hatched a plan to write a Democrats-only infrastructure and social spending bill — one that would have spent money on progressive priorities without taking into account any Republican concerns. But when that single-party effort stalled, a group of Democratic and Republican legislators, including Colorado’s own Sen. John Hickenlooper, negotiated a bipartisan bill focused just on infrastructure that won the support of Biden and Senate Republican Leader Mitch Mcconnell. The bill then passed the Senate with a broad bipartisan majority.
When the bill was sent to the House, the trouble began — first with the Democrats. Members on the far left, most notably New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasiocortez and others in her “Squad,” decided to hold up passage of the bipartisan infrastructure bill in the hopes of establishing enough leverage to force more moderate Democrats to rubber-stamp a one-party social spending and climate bill.
It took several months, but much of the far left finally folded Nov. 5, when all but six Democrats agreed to vote for the infrastructure bill. But given the Democrats’ narrow margins, that wouldn’t have been enough to pass the bill. Fortunately, 13 House Republicans, many of them GOP members of that same bipartisan
House Problem Solvers Caucus, voted for the very same bill the Senate Republican Leader Mcconnell and many of his Republican Senate colleagues had supported over the summer.
In the wake of the vote, and viewed as a “win for President Biden,” many far right Republicans began demanding retribution. Some called for the 13 to face primary challenges before next year’s election — others for them to be stripped of their committee assignments. This is simply not good government in action.
The point, in both cases, is that those who want to work across the aisle often face the biggest challenges not from those in the other party, but among their peers in their own caucuses. If the bands within both parties that would punish bipartisanship get any stronger, our system can’t work.
That, in a single argument, is why the reconciliation bill Democrats are now trying to force through Congress is such an abomination. Even if you support some of the ideas contained within — and I do — the process they’re using to jam it through does little but empower the radicals in both parties and hamper other efforts to build bridges across the partisan divide. Bipartisan bills tend to be considered carefully, vetted thoroughly, negotiated openly and, most importantly, balanced. This bill is being written behind closed doors, without thoughtful debate, absent even the pretense that represents the will of the nation as a whole. That’s not how government should work, either locally or nationally.
For those of us who believe that real wisdom emerges when people with different points of view work in collaboration, this is the best and the worst of times. The bipartisan infrastructure bill showcases what Washington can do when leaders commit to bipartisanship. The reconciliation bill typifies the dysfunction of singleparty legislating. We need to reward those legislators who prove committed to bipartisanship