A Model of Working Together

June 22, 2023

Voters should take heart that approval of the debt ceiling relief bill, as messy as the process was, ended up a model of elected officials actually working together.  Congress will need to use the same approach again if it wants to get anything done.

Before and after the debt measure was passed by the House of Representatives (days later it would also be approved by the Senate), most all media attention was devoted to the ultra-conservatives and the progressives on the opposing end of the political spectrum.

For days beforehand the media focused on whether the House Freedom Caucus would derail the deal negotiated by the White House and House Republicans.  The over-stoked drama being whether Speaker Kevin McCarthy, working with a super-thin majority, could rally enough Republicans to pass the measure.  One headline warned, “Debt bill faces growing revolt within G.O.P.”  After the vote, the hardliners would again take center stage, this time to demonstrate their unhappiness by withholding their votes on the most routine of matters.

This is the world we live in.  The zealots do nothing better than how well they work the media.  The outsized importance given to their every utterance creates the misimpression that we must pick between the extremes.

Fortunately when it came to the debt ceiling, matters were not left to them.  While they blustered away, something far more positive was taking shape in the corridors of Congress.  There were plenty enough votes from the lots of Democrats and lots of Republicans working behind the scenes in support of the measure.

That meant all the attention being paid to the outliers, and all the handwringing that resulted, were badly overblown.  Unlike the usual votes along party lines, the outcome didn’t depend at all on every Republican lining up behind the bill.  Credit to the Washington Post for accurately sensing the tide.  Its headline days before the vote: “A Washington surprise: Centrists push back against fringes in debt deal.”  The final margin turned out to be 314-117, far bigger than we had been led to imagine.

Plenty of plaudits have gone to President Biden and Speaker McCarthy, but the unsung heroes are the rank-and-file lawmakers of both parties who came together to do the right thing.  This was a moment when simple, higher-minded principles that deep-down guide the country, in this case that we will pay our bills, transcended partisan politics.

Rather than the usual dynamic of Republicans on one side, Democrats on the other, the yeas and nays could better be characterized as the pragmatists versus the die-hards.  While the diehards, represented by the Freedom Caucus on the one side and the Congressional Progressive Caucus on the other, get most of the media attention, it was groups occupying more of the political center that carried the day.

Rep. Ann Kuster, D-N.H., chairperson of the House’s New Democrat Coalition, has described her group as “the ‘can-do’ caucus.  We get the job done.”  Across the aisle, Dusty Johnson, R-S.D., chair of the Main Street Caucus, described his group as “pragmatic conservatives who actually care about getting to work.”

Different words but, party affiliations aside, the two descriptions have an air of similarity.  While fully acknowledging the divisions of government, Kuster has declared, “let’s demonstrate to the American people that mature and pragmatic legislators will get the job done.”

Kuster said she believed from the very beginning that the vote on the debt ceiling would be “from the middle out.”  She was right.  The winning coalition included 92 of the 97 New Dems and 63 of the 68 Main Streeters.

The give-and-take that led to agreement is the course strongly preferred by the public.  In extensive polling done over the past three years by Our Common Purpose, the question has been asked in a variety of ways but the answer is always the same.  Voters have indicated time and again they want their elected officials to put aside party politics to get things done.  One striking example comes from the most recent poll taken in January.  When respondents were asked to choose whether legislators should work it out or fight it out, a rather astonishing 93% said they should work it out.

The idea of Republicans and Democrats voting together for the common good was more than some representatives of the far right and hard left could stomach.  They were left to sputter and then, in the case of a few ultraconservatives, to act out their frustration.

Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., took to a podcast to grouch about the Speaker playing footsy with the Democrats.  “We’re going to force him into a monogamous relationship with one or the other.  What we’re not going to do is hang out with him for five months and watch him go jump in the back seat with Hakeem Jeffries.”

Jeffries, D-N.Y., the minority leader of the House, might not have appreciated the metaphor, but Gaetz’s analysis did get right to the crux of the matter.  There is a choice to be made about whether our representatives cross the aisle to get things done.

They did so on debt ceiling relief.  The President appropriately has taken to promoting the result as the Bipartisan Budget Agreement.  With this as a model of working together, the question now is whether it can happen again.  It’s likely the only way this session of Congress will get anything done.

Few actions rise to the immediacy of raising the debt ceiling.  The give-and-take of bargaining produced enough concessions for both sides to declare themselves winners.  The product of their labors had backing from the leadership of both parties.  Taken together, those advantages don’t come along every day.

But other “must-pass” legislation is on the horizon.  A series of appropriations bills must pass for the government to function.  Another deadline looms on Sept. 30, by when the federal budget for next year will need to be enacted.  The Farm Bill, critical to agriculture, also comes up again this year.

If even a limited number of ultraconservatives continue to play hardball, the Speaker will again find himself in a bind.  The question the media should be asking the next time around is whether the requisite votes can again be cobbled together from both sides of the aisle.

The bipartisan action on debt ceiling relief shows that on matters of national importance Congress can find a way to work together.  Republican Johnson of the Main Street Caucus chose not to comment for this article but Democrat Kuster believes there is further business to be done with those she calls “reasonable Republicans” to deliver bipartisan solutions on issues such as the Farm Bill, workforce development, even on controversial reforms in the permitting process for large projects.

There is promise here, even in the divided House of Representatives.  Voters should be clear with their representatives in Washington that they want to see more of the same.

–Richard Gilman