Reaching across the aisle goes out of style

Whatever else is coming to state and national politics following the 2020 election, a golden age of bipartisanship is not looking likely. At the state level, Democrats don’t need to reach out. At the federal level, Republicans don’t want to.

Democrats won big in Connecticut, and with a Democratic governor and supermajorities in the Legislature, they don’t need to pay much attention to the other party. The first priority, announced shortly after the votes had been tallied, was to bring back a proposal for a public health insurance option, which would allow anyone to buy into the state employee plan.

This makes sense. The opportunity to do big things is usually limited, and the party should act quickly before everyone gets consumed with the 2022 elections. Health care is consistently named one of voters’ top concerns and providing a better insurance option should be a priority.

Last time around, it was Gov. Ned Lamont, apparently at the behest of insurance companies, who put an end to public option talks. With the theoretical ability to override his veto (though that would be no guarantee on controversial proposals), the Democratic majority can think bigger.

Republicans are trying to show they’re still relevant. Sen. Kevin Kelly, new leader of his party’s reduced caucus, released a statement saying that while everyone shares the same goals of better health care, there are other ways to get there. “The Democrat proposal of a public option I fear will not accomplish our shared goal of reducing costs and increasing accessibility,” he said, which is pretty boilerplate except that, as he might have learned by now, “Democrat” is a noun and “Democratic” is an adjective, and mixing up the two is a petty slight his party has been employing for years in some sort of schoolyard show of dominance.

Count me in on the discussion, Kelly is saying, but in the meantime, I can’t be bothered to learn the actual name of your party. That’s one way to strive for relevance.

If there’s one-party dominance at the state level, it’s divided government as far as the eye can see in Washington. Barring a miracle in the January runoffs in Georgia, Republicans will control the Senate while Democrats have the White House and House of Representatives. That could, in a different world, be an indication that we’re in for an era of compromise, where no one gets everything they want but all parties give a little to move the country forward.

That is not likely to happen. The plan, which is already playing out with a delayed presidential transition, is to make the situation as ugly as possible for the incoming president and then hope voters take it out on the incumbent party in 2022 and ’24. There’s no reason to think it won’t work. Republicans are likely looking at gains in the midterms under any circumstances, but all the more if the economic recovery is slow. It makes for perverse political incentives, but it’s worked in the past.

Any hope of major legislation is dead, but it could go much further than that. The Republican establishment has shown it cares about two things — tax cuts for rich people, and judges. If it can’t get the first without the White House, it can maintain its hold on the second. It’s an open question whether Joe Biden would get any judges, at any level, confirmed by a Republican Senate.

That would be a radical departure from tradition, but it’s the natural progression of the Republican Party’s longrunning trajectory. And it’s not an issue likely to rile large numbers of voters, so there may not be a political price for it. Though majority Republican senators represent millions fewer voters than the other party, they could put a halt to basic governance if they decide it’s in their interests.

Unified government isn’t always so bad.