In the final quarter of President Obama’s tenure, Republicans’ control of both chambers of Congress will finally put them in a position to detail a vivid contrast between the two political parties. Whether the GOP can successfully navigate a difficult Senate electoral landscape in 2016 or provide wind in the sails of their presidential candidate depends on their effectiveness at governing in the months ahead.
Avoiding several key missteps will help the Republicans achieve Winston Churchill’s famous exhortation to “deserve victory” in the upcoming election cycle.
The number one stumbling block preventing Congressional behavior worthy of acclaim is the fact that too many have forgotten that legislating is a team sport, not an individual contest. Legislators are elected to legislate, not simply grandstand and protest. That requires working together.
Harry Reid is no longer an excuse, though the 60-vote hurdle in the Senate remains.
Yes, Obama’s post-election actions reflect someone who is attempting to cement his progressive legacy by standing strong in defense of it through executive actions with transient impact rather than reaching out a hand to work with Congress to achieve lasting reform.
Despite this, the ultimate test for a unified Republican Congress will be whether they can work together to put bills on the president’s desk (even if he vetoes them), and if they can conduct investigations in a manner that highlights the party’s agenda, not just the person asking the question.
This requires coordination. This requires teamwork. Republicans will rise or fall together, not individually.
Advancing legislation to the White House requires the more conservative members in the House to consider the views of the more moderate senators whose votes will be required for passage in the other chamber. Almost any legislation that overcomes this hurdle will have broad appeal. The result will either be a presidential signature resulting in constructive action or a veto that highlights a defining piece of the Republican agenda and creates a vivid contrast with the Democratic Party. The destiny of Congressional Republicans is in their own hands.
The historically high majority in the House allows Speaker Boehner to lose 28 Republican votes on any issue. If more than that choose to go their own way, the House leadership team needs to find Democratic votes to take their place. The end result will inevitably be legislation that is more liberal. Members who criticize the end result as “not conservative enough” need to look up the word irony in the dictionary. Their own belligerence and inability to work within their party caused the result they are decrying.
I tip my hat to those members who oppose such legislation because of their foundational beliefs. I can even understand those who bent to populist pressures in their district knowing that the bill would die in a Senate controlled by Harry Reid.
But today, the credibility of the Republican Party hangs in the balance based on whether its members in both chambers prioritize the best possible legislation over pandering to populist pressures. Those that define their principles based on outside voices rather than what they know deep inside deserve neither victory nor the title their election conferred.
The need to collaborate is also vitally important on investigatory committees. While one of the members of Congress that was not a lawyer, during my tenure even I knew that truly effective investigations require one questioner building upon the next. Ideally, those digging deep into an issue would coordinate their questioning to come from different angles in a manner that would expose inconsistencies in testimony and pry open the truth.
Too often it appears as if members decide individually what questions they will ask, with little to no cooperation with other committee members. They have their press release mostly written before the hearing begins. This behavior perhaps passes when you don’t control Congress, yet should be viewed as amateurish at best for Republicans today.
The only words on the great seal of the United States are e pluribus unum, meaning out of many one. Our founding fathers designed our government to force competing sides to reconcile their differences in order to achieve action. This includes reaching out to those in opposition with whom you can work. But as with charity, working together begins at home. Whether Republicans deserve the victory they just achieved will depend on whether their members in the House and Senate can find enough common ground to put the “legislate” back in their legislature.
Hon. Mark R. Kennedy (@HonMarkKennedy) leads George Washington University’s Graduate School of Political Management and is Chairman of the Economic Club of Minnesota. He previously served three terms in the U.S. House of Representatives.