Can veterans fix our paralyzed Congress?

They understand how to put country over self

Van Taylor and Pat Ryan are both running for Congress and would appear to have nothing in common. Taylor, a Texas Republican, is pro-life and strong on Second Amendment gun rights, and supports the repeal of the Affordable Care Act. Ryan, a New York Democrat, supports Planned Parenthood and universal health care, and believes that President Trump’s proposed exit from the Paris climate accords is “a betrayal of future generations.”

Ideologically, these two seem like they couldn’t be further apart. However, they have found agreement on one issue, which offers a sliver of hope in these deeply divisive times. They have each signed a pledge to “join with colleagues on both sides of the aisle on at least one piece of major legislation each year,” and to “meet with someone from the opposing party one-on-one at least once a month.”

The pledge is sponsored by the new political group we advise, With Honor, and we’re aiming to have about 30 congressional candidates of both parties sign it. Our goal is to create a cross-party congressional caucus capable of surmounting what has become a debilitating partisan divide in our nation.

There is something else that Van Taylor, Pat Ryan and others signing the pledge have in common. They are veterans, most of whom served after 9/11. This isn’t to say veterans running for office possess a unique intelligence or wisdom that non-veterans don’t posses. But through their experiences, veterans often instinctively understand the cost of allowing the common good to be subordinated to our differences.

Veteran representation in Congress is at about 20%, a record low. Compare that with the 1960s and 1970s, when up to 73% in Congress were veterans. That was a time when Congress passed historic bipartisan legislation such as the Civil Rights Act, the Freedom of Information Act and the National Environmental Policy Act.

It seems impossible to imagine the passage of such sweeping laws in our current political climate, in which the media stoke our collective outrage and a certain breed of politician (on the left and the right) divides us through our suspicions of one another as opposed to uniting us through our common aspirations. By enabling this division, we are living in a time of great moral hazard. If two or three dozen politicians are willing to pledge themselves to national interests ahead of party interests, that is a reason to be hopeful.

That this group is made up of veterans is also noteworthy, because the civil-military divide in our country has similarly risen to a place of moral hazard. A healthy democracy cannot be segregated from the military that serves it. We now have the opportunity to elect leaders who have experienced firsthand the implications of U.S. decisions to use force abroad. In years to come, the question will surely arise as to whether America should once again offer up its sons and daughters to war. Those decisions — above all others — should fall to those who can transcend the pernicious calculus of party loyalty.

Fundamental to our national character is an ability to set aside our differences to achieve a higher purpose. We are writing because our experiences — from the ground level of leading Marines in combat in two wars, to the strategic level of leading our military for four years as it prosecuted missions across the globe — have proved to us that this is true. This new cohort of veteran candidates has put country above self before and is committing to do so again. Hopefully, they will set an example for others in politics to follow.

That a commitment to work together is an act of courage speaks to the endemic dysfunction in our politics, which last month led us to a government shutdown and could do so again.

In the face of truly destructive congressional partisanship, voters crave principled leadership. That a Republican from Texas and a Democrat from New York have found something on which they can agree might seem a modest start, but large-scale change often comes from the simplest of acts.