Bipolarization

By Brian Friel, National Journal
© National Journal Group Inc.
Friday, Nov. 30, 2007

The nation's political class has a devil on one shoulder and an angel on the other. On one shoulder is an inner voice of bipartisanship, pleading for compromise and moderation. In his November farewell speech from the House floor, Rep. Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., who is retiring, channeled that voice. "We each have a responsibility to be passionate about our beliefs," the former House speaker said. "That is healthy government. But we also have a responsibility to be civil, to be open-minded, and to be fair, to listen to one another, to work in good faith to find solutions to the challenges facing this nation." On the other shoulder is partisanship, demanding unvarnished stands and their vigorous defense. Hastert's former deputy, Rep. Tom DeLay, R-Texas, channeled that voice in his June 2006 farewell speech. "For all its faults, it is partisanship, based on core principles, that clarifies our debates, that prevents one party from straying too far from the mainstream, and that constantly refreshes our politics with new ideas and new leaders," said DeLay, who resigned eight months after a Texas grand jury indicted him in a campaign finance probe. "All we can say is that partisanship is the worst means of settling fundamental political differences -- except for all the others."

Bipartisan compromise. Partisan principle. Which is the devil? Which is the angel?



At least when polled, lawmakers and political operatives usually attach the horns to polarization and the halo to centrism. When National Journal surveyed more than 200 of our Congressional and Political Insiders for this special issue, both Democrats and Republicans overwhelmingly said that bipartisan legislation is better. "Compromise in its best form is taking the best ideas from both sides and advancing a policy of moderation built on pragmatism, not ideology," a Republican Congressional Insider declared. Majorities on both sides of the aisle also said they would prefer redistricting that created House districts that were not so overwhelmingly skewed toward one party or the other. "It's a big problem for our country," a Democratic Political Insider warned, "that our Congress is more polarized than the voters."

But by their actions, America's politicians hand the harp to partisanship and the pitchfork to bipartisanship. Members of Congress tend to vote along party lines. Their leaders hold votes on bills and amendments designed to draw distinctions between the majority and the minority -- and often refuse to allow votes on compromise legislation. Members of Congress and other political players lambaste the opposite side of the aisle in speeches, press releases, floor statements, television ads, fundraising fliers, and op-eds. And with rare exception, they support only their own partisans in election battles. "One thing you have to start with is a healthy degree of skepticism" when quizzing pols about partisanship, said Marc Hetherington, a political science associate professor at Vanderbilt University. "It is not socially desirable for people to tell you that they think bipartisanship is a bad thing."

The morning of the 21st century may not be the most polarized time in American history, but the Republicans and Democrats who govern the country in 2007 are nonetheless mired in disagreements on nearly all major (and many minor) issues facing the nation, from the Iraq war to the Iranian threat, from health care to Social Security, from a trillion-dollar tax proposal to a million-dollar museum earmark. "There's still this horrible tendency in this place to define success by the failure of the other side," says Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., a newcomer to Washington. "When your success is the other side's failing, then that is not a productive work environment."

National Journal's seven-question survey of Democratic and Republican Insiders -- members of Congress and party stalwarts -- found considerable fear and self-loathing among the nation's partisans. We asked them questions that gauged whether they think that bipartisanship and moderation are good or bad for the nation and whether partisanship rules today. We also asked them to assess the outlook for bipartisan cooperation following the already high-gear 2008 election cycle.

In the articles that follow, we'll examine how the tension between partisanship and bipartisanship has played itself out in recent years, and we'll explore what Insiders expect when they look beyond next November.

If you believe that now is the time for partisanship, for the parties to offer clear choices to the electorate, albeit at the price of little legislative accomplishment in the next year, then you'll probably roll your eyes at the "good government" impulses that the Insiders claim to possess in the coming pages. If you think that the time has come for bipartisanship -- as most of the Insiders profess -- then you will see a portrait of pessimism. But you'll also see a glimmer of hope that the country's leaders will emerge in January 2009 from a polarized dark age to finally seek common ground on the issues of the day.

Legislative Stagnation
By dint of its rules and traditions, the majority in the House can, and often does, ram through legislation over the minority's objections. But the majority in the Senate, unless it controls 60 of 100 votes -- which it rarely has in recent years -- can do little without the consent of the minority. So legislation with majority-only support in the House will most likely die in the Senate. "Bipartisanship results in legislation," said Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah. By that rule, then, partisanship results in dead bills.

Congressional Insiders are naturally well aware of this fact of life. More than 80 percent of congressional respondents from each party said that legislation is better when it results from bipartisan compromise. "If the alternative is nothing, then bipartisan cooperation is better," a congressional Democrat remarked. Of course, both parties' lawmakers routinely refer to legislation as "bipartisan" even if only one or two outlier members of the other party favor it. "Most legislation can be improved with true bipartisan compromise, 'true' meaning more than a few nontypical members of the opposite party," a Republican lawmaker said. But that lawmaker and many others put a caveat on their support for bipartisanship on issues involving substantive ideological differences. "On those issues, there should be a clear divide so that the general public has an unambiguous choice," the lawmaker said.

Sen. Robert Bennett, R-Utah, recounted a conversation that Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss., had with a Democrat. "[Lott] said, 'To you, bipartisanship means we do what you want,' " Bennett recalled. Bennett said that too much legislation is now designed to draw partisan lines rather than to solve problems. "There's nothing wrong with vigorous partisanship, standing up for what you believe in. But what I object to is the posturing -- when you're not trying to pass anything; you're just trying to make a headline to embarrass the other side."

Proponents of bipartisan legislative compromises regularly point to big-ticket bills like the Social Security and tax packages of the early 1980s, welfare reform in the 1990s, and the Medicare prescription drug benefit in this decade as testimony to the power of setting party differences aside. This year has been a bust as far as such major legislation, and partisanship is widely blamed. "You'd have a hard case to make that the Congress is doing its job properly," says former Rep. Lee Hamilton, D-Ind., who since leaving Congress has been vice chairman of the 9/11 commission and co-chairman of the Iraq Study Group. "It's not dealing with the problems that are most on the minds of the American people."

Among Political Insiders (who are not members of Congress), support for bipartisan legislation is a bit weaker than among Congressional Insiders. About one-quarter of Democratic Political Insiders and a third of Republican Political Insiders see more value in partisan policy-making than in bipartisanship. Some point out that the comprehensive immigration proposal that tanked in the Senate this year was a result of bipartisan compromise. Others note the same of the No Child Left Behind law, which is being trashed by Democratic presidential candidates and conservative thinkers, alike. "Voters think they like bipartisanship and when we 'work together,' " a Democratic Political Insider said. "But policy is always wimpy when you do that."

Drawing the Lines
In the 1950s, the American Political Science Association lamented the lack of distinctions between the two parties. The association pushed for creation of party platforms that offered voters clear choices on policy issues. The public would then find it easier to hold their representatives accountable each Election Day, because they would know who was responsible for which policies, the argument went. Partisanship, to the association, was good. Bipartisanship was bad.

Today's Political and Congressional Insiders generally say the opposite. For example, they largely support the idea of redistricting congressional seats so that they are less reliably Democratic or less reliably Republican. An increase in the number of truly competitive districts would arguably send more moderate lawmakers to Capitol Hill, ostensibly increasing the likelihood of bipartisan policy-making. Current district lines instead guarantee that the only voters who matter are those in the district's majority party, reformers say. And Hamilton says that the parties have taken partisan gerrymandering to new heights. "These computers today are so sophisticated that if you had a house with a husband and wife of different parties, they would split the house," he jokes.

"What that means is, the elected representatives are more beholden to the extremes, liberal in the Democratic Party, conservative in the Republican Party. That certainly increases the polarization."

Proponents of redistricting changes argue that the American electorate is by and large more moderate than are the representatives whom the current district maps send to Congress. "What the public carries around in their mind is that there are a set of commonsense solutions that any group of reasonable people can get together and pass," Hetherington said. "They don't believe in hyperpartisanship."

Nearly 80 percent of Democratic Insiders and more than 70 percent of Republican Insiders support making redistricting less partisan. (Congressional Insiders are more tepid than their Political counterparts in supporting that idea -- a quarter of Democratic lawmakers and 41 percent of Republican lawmakers oppose it.)

Self-interest may, of course, play a significant role in the thinking on both sides of the issue, because more-competitive districts would benefit Democrats in some states, Republicans in others. But many opponents of making House seats less likely to be deep red or deep blue said either that the system isn't broken or that changing it wouldn't matter. Some opponents said that lawmakers are already accountable to voters, pointing to the 1994 Republican takeover of Congress and the 2006 Democratic reversal as proof. Others said that redistricting would exacerbate other sources of polarization, such as interest-group money in campaigns, leaving Congress more or less where it is today. Still others said that candidates should not be encouraged to moderate their positions this year. "We need a clear-choice election like we had in '72," a congressional Republican explained, "individualism versus socialism."

Hetherington noted that even though the Senate is not subject to redistricting or gerrymandering, it has, like the House, become more deeply divided along partisan lines in recent decades. "That means another set of explanations are at root," he said.

Insiders have many theories about other causes of polarization. Lawmakers, for example, spend less time than they used to in Washington, giving them fewer opportunities to socialize with members of the other party. Their workweeks are also filled with partisan events, leaving them fewer chances to get to know the other side.

Indeed, while the results of National Journal's Insiders Poll show that it is still socially acceptable to speak highly of bipartisanship in the abstract, in practice social stigmas attach to interparty cooperation. "If you're a member of the minority and you try to be responsible, which means cooperate with the majority, you run the risk of being attacked by your own folks as a squish," Bennett said. Sen. Joe Lieberman, ID-Conn., nearly lost his seat because of his support for President Bush's policies in Iraq. Lieberman won the 2006 general election as an independent after losing the Democratic primary to Ned Lamont, who continually accused the incumbent of being too close to Bush. Liberal activists frequently replayed a scene from Bush's 2005 State of the Union address in which the president embraced Lieberman and gave him what looked to be a kiss but which Lieberman said was simply words of encouragement. Similarly, many Democratic activists have harshly criticized Lieberman for supporting the re-election of Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, who faces a potentially tough challenge from Democratic Rep. Tom Allen.

Is Lieberman listening to the devil or the angel on his shoulder? The answer probably depends on the tenor of the times. Hetherington notes that partisanship thrived throughout much of American history, pointing to the days of John Adams and Thomas Jefferson and of the Civil War as two obvious examples when polarization was more pronounced than it is today. One of the rare times of bipartisanship began in the late 1940s, amid the postwar economic boom and the broad agreement over the threat posed by the Soviet Union. Although today's political insiders yearn for that supposedly golden era, it's worth remembering that political thinkers at the time pined for partisanship.