Congress divided by party lines
If you want to know why the legislative process in Washington is practically paralyzed, just look at what Rep. Pat Toomey is trying to do here in Pennsylvania. The three-term Republican lawmaker is challenging Sen. Arlen Specter in a primary next week on grounds that the incumbent lacks pure conservative credentials.
“I represent the Republican wing of the Republican Party,” says Toomey, stealing a favorite campaign line from Howard Dean, who boasted that he represented the “Democratic wing” of his party. Specter, adds the challenger, represents the “Ted Kennedy wing” of the GOP.
We’ve known Arlen Specter since he came to the Senate 24 years ago, and he didn’t earn the nickname “Snarlin’ Arlen” by being a warm and fuzzy figure. He can be irascible and egotistical – hardly a drawback for a politician – but he also represents a rare and valuable breed in Washington these days. He actually believes that people in the opposing party sometimes have worthwhile things to say.
This behavior drives Toomey and his supporters nuts, but Specter doesn’t back down. He was right on target when he told the Associated Press, “I learned a long time ago that when you want to get something done in Washington, you have to cross party lines.” He was right again when he added, “It’s very important to the country there be a center of the Republican Party.”
There is nothing wrong with partisanship or principle; they are essential to a healthy two-party system. But too often in today’s Washington, compromise is equated with betrayal. And when political rivalry turns into a jihad – a holy war against unbelievers – the system breaks down.
Newt Gingrich learned this harsh lesson when he was Speaker of the House 10 years ago and tried to work with pragmatic Democrats. He was so undermined by hardliners in his own party that he denounced them as the “perfectionist caucus,” but in the end, purists of Toomey’s stripe won the battle and helped drive Gingrich from office.
Tom DeLay of Texas, the Majority Leader and a devout jihadist, now runs the House of Representatives. As a result, the mood on Capitol Hill is more rancorous and hostile than we’ve ever seen it during 40 years of covering politics.
One symbol of that rancor: Last summer, Rep. Bill Thomas, chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, actually sent a detachment of Capitol police to round-up wayward Democrats who stormed out of a meeting to protest Thomas’ high-handed tactics.
The Congress is coming to resemble a European parliament, with liberal and conservative parties divided along ideological lines and separated by a gulf of bad blood.
As Specter points out, when he came to Congress the centrist wing of the Republican Party included such notable figures as Lowell Weicker of Connecticut, Mark Hatfield of Oregon and John Danforth of Missouri. Moderates on the Democratic side included Sam Nunn of Georgia, Bennett Johnston of Louisiana and David Pryor of Arkansas.
These were the workhorses of Capitol Hill — the legislative craftsmen who understood the art of consensus-building. All have left, and many blame the loss of civility and cooperation for their retirement. The center of the Congress has been hollowed out. The perfectionists are in control. And that’s why the nation’s legislature is in such terrible shape.
(Cokie and Steven Roberts are syndicated columnists.)