Reports of the death of bipartisanship are greatly exaggerated — at least, as far as Congress is concerned.
While the Senate in recent months has whiffed on a number of high profile bills — including President Joe Biden’s Build Back Better bill, after West Virginia Democrat Sen. Joe Manchin said he could not support the legislation, and a major voting rights push, thanks to a Republican filibuster — lawmakers have put together a string of bipartisan victories on a number of consequential, albeit lower profile, issues.
The Senate on Thursday unanimously voted to support a bill banning forced arbitration in sexual misconduct cases, days after the House passed it in a widely bipartisan fashion.
Earlier this week, Democrats and Republicans debuted a compromise on renewing the Violence Against Women Act after years of stalled negotiations. The same day, the chairs of the House and Senate appropriations committees announced a bipartisan agreement on a framework for a full-year omnibus spending bill after a series of short-term extensions of previous funding levels.
“In any successful negotiation, both sides have to compromise, and this agreement is no different,” said Vermont Sen. Patrick Leahy, the chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee.
“I believe we reached a strong, bipartisan agreement that will allow us to make significant investments in the American people and our communities,” Leahy said.
The Senate will also next week take up a bill aimed at reforming the beleaguered U.S. Postal Service, which passed the House in a 342-92 vote earlier this week.
Republicans and Democrats are also working together on reforming the Electoral Count Act, legislation restricting or banning lawmakers from trading stocks and reconciling the House and Senate versions of a bill aimed at improving competition with China and boosting domestic semiconductor production.
Getting things done
What’s the secret behind this blossoming bipartisanship?
“Success breeds success,” Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy, one of the Republican negotiators on the $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill, told Axios.
“In a 50-50 Senate, the only way you’re going to be able to produce any accomplishments that matter to the American people is to work across the aisle,” Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, told NBC News.
“We’re lawmakers, not law-suggesters, and to the extent that people wanted to put Democrats in charge so they can achieve some sense of normalcy in their government, they’re seeing a functional legislative branch,” Hawaii Sen. Brian Schatz, a Democrat, told NBC News. “I think that’s positive.”
While the legislative filibuster — the 60-vote threshold to pass bills in the Senate — has held up some key Democratic priorities, including police reform and gun control, and some Democrats are opposed to changing or weakening the rule, the 50-50 Senate has turned to compromise in order to get things done.
“People realize we’re not going to get rid of the filibuster,” said Sen. Manchin, one of the moderate Democrats who opposes filibuster reform. “If you want to get something done, you’ve got to work together.”
For example, the agreement on the Violence Against Women Act came after a provision to close the so-called “boyfriend loophole,” which allows people convicted of domestic abuse to buy or own guns, was dropped.
“Our bill is a compromise,” Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin, the No. 2 Senate Democrat, said this week. “It doesn’t include everything Sen. Feinstein and I wanted, or everything Sen. Ernst and Murkowski wanted. And there are provisions that all four of us very much wanted to include, such as an end to the loophole that allows abusers who harm dating partners to continue to have access to guns.”
“[The bill] needs 60 votes and in order to get anywhere near 60 votes that provision became controversial and we had to measure the remainder of the bill against that provision,” he said. “It’s a tough choice. We made a choice we thought was right.”
“This isn’t a perfect bill, and I regret that the boyfriend loophole is not addressed,” California Sen. Dianne Feinstein said, adding: “Many of us have tried very hard to get there, but it’s a good bill and we need to finally get a Violence Against Women Act re-authorization to the President’s desk.”
While not vociferously backed by President Biden — unlike his push to pass voting rights legislation, which drew backlash from Republicans — these bills carry the backing and blessing of his administration, important for a president who ran for office on a message of bipartisanship.
Politics makes strange bedfellows
The oft-used idiom “adversity makes strange bedfellows” rings true in the Senate, with a number of unusual bipartisan alliances forming in the name of progress.
Republican Sen. Ted Cruz and Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock teamed up on an amendment designating an I-14 corridor running through five states, between Texas and Georgia.
“It runs through communities that are red and others that are blue,” Warnock told Axios. “Past churches, temples and mosques.”
Sen. Cassidy and Georgia Democrat Sen. Jon Ossoff teamed up this week to introduce the DELETE Act, a bill that would create a system where Americans can request that data brokers and companies collect their data for commercial use delete that information and not collect it again in the future.
“People expect privacy and their personal information to be protected,” Cassidy said. “This bill gives Americans a solution to ensure their personal data is not tracked, collected, bought or sold by data brokers.”
“Data brokers are buying, collecting, and reselling vast amounts of personal information about all of us without our consent,” Ossoff added. “This bipartisan bill is about returning control of our personal data to us, the American people.’
Ossoff has also led the charge on Capitol Hill to ban lawmakers, with efforts picking up steam in recent weeks thanks to the support of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., as well as lawmakers on both sides of the aisle.
“A month ago when I started leading this charge in the Senate to ban stock trading by members of Congress, folks told me that it was a fool’s errand,” Ossoff told Bloomberg on Thursday. “And now it’s at the top of the legislative agenda.”
“We have bipartisan support in the House and the Senate, we’re hearing from House and Senate leadership, their support and engagement in this process,” Ossoff said, adding: “Seventy-five percent of the American public agrees, it’s a bipartisan issue, and we need to get this done.”
“Isn’t that the way the Senate is supposed to work?”
The recent string of wins will likely be a boon for Democrats looking to protect, and possibly expand, their Congressional majorities in the 2022 midterm elections.
“Our bipartisan advances are supremely important for the American people to have faith in their government,” Connecticut Sen. Richard Blumenthal said. “Put aside the politics. What I hear again and again is they want us to get stuff done.”
“I think [Build Back Better] being off the front burner has allowed us to look at the issues that Americans care about and focus on them,” Utah Sen. Mitt Romney told NBC News, suggesting that the recent string of bipartisan victories means “the Senate does work.”
But Democrats are still refusing to give up on Biden’s Build Back Better bill, which they say would provide crucial funding to combat climate change, lower the cost of prescription drugs and help combat inflation and the deficit.
“We can rebuild our infrastructure,” Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly, who is up for re-election in 2022, told NBC News. “We can help the post office get in a fiscal situation that makes sense. “But we still have a lot of other very important things to focus on, whether it’s the price of prescription drugs … or the cost of gasoline.”
Kelly introduced a bill last week with fellow Democrat Sen. Maggie Hassan, D-N.H., also up for re-election this fall, that would suspend the $18.4 cents per gallon federal gas tax for the rest of the year to help ease the burden of Americans struggling with rising consumer prices.
But as Cassidy told Axios, “success breeds success,” and lawmakers inspired by the string of victories are continuing to try and tackle issues on a bipartisan basis — even on thornier issues, like immigration.
Sen. Collins told Axios that she approached Sen. Durbin on a potential immigration reform bill, which would provide a pathway to citizenship for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipients and bolster border security, according to the outlet.
“Isn’t that the way the Senate is supposed to work?” Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley recently said to reporters.
