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Posted By Cristina Noriega at 10:36 AM
Yesterday, a friend and co-worker forwarded me an article in the New York Times, written by Indiana senator Evan Bayh, and posed the question "This article is... a reflection of our government today ... or is it?" Challenges of historic import threaten America’s future. Action on the deficit, economy, energy, health care and much more is imperative, yet our legislative institutions fail to act. Congress must be reformed.
There are many causes for the dysfunction: strident partisanship, unyielding ideology, a corrosive system of campaign financing, gerrymandering of House districts, endless filibusters, holds on executive appointees in the Senate, dwindling social interaction between senators of opposing parties and a caucus system that promotes party unity at the expense of bipartisan consensus. It is this lack of social interaction, the refusal to socialize or be friends with members of the opposite party, that Bayh says is the core of the problem. But it didn’t always used to be this way, he explains: When I was a boy, members of Congress from both parties, along with their families, would routinely visit our home for dinner or the holidays. This type of social interaction hardly ever happens today and we are the poorer for it. It is much harder to demonize someone when you know his family or have visited his home. Today, members routinely campaign against each other, raise donations against each other and force votes on trivial amendments written solely to provide fodder for the next negative attack ad. It’s difficult to work with members actively plotting your demise.
I, like many Americans, have been feeling this partisan divide for a while now, and have been sensing that things were slowly getting worse. But to hear to verbalized so eloquently by an active member of the Senate makes it that much more real. Something has got to change, no doubt. But in the midst of enormous challenges comes hope. This morning the Senate voted 70-28 to pass a $15 billion jobs package, giving Senate Democrats their first legislative victory of the year. And guess what? Thirteen Republicans got behind the bill too. According the The Hill, "Final passage of the bill was made possible by the support of Sen. Scott Brown (Mass.) and four other Republicans who voted Monday to cut off a GOP filibuster." Wow.
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