We hear a lot about the gridlock that will be coming to Congress in 2023.
On the surface, that makes sense. After all, the Senate is controlled by the Democrats, and the House is controlled by the Republicans. Since both houses must agree on legislation, the respective parties cancel out each other’s pet proposals.
As the theory goes, without the ability to pass one or the other legislative agendas, the only thing left is investigations. While Democrats are already whining about Republican chaired investigations in the House, they are also revving up their own investigations in the Senate. In view of what they have been doing for the past four years, it is the height of hypocrisy to be complaining if the GOP undertakes a few potentially damaging legislative inquiries.
But there is a very large silver lining in that cloud over Capitol Hill. Since neither party will have the power to jam their pet legislation down the throat of the other party – or down the throats of the American people — they will have to engage in good old fashion legislative horse trading. They will have to work in a bipartisan fashion on matters that can gain bipartisan support.
If you look beyond the daily news reports, you will discover that even as Democrats had control of both houses of Congress – and the White House – a lot of legislation was passed with bipartisan votes. More legislation that was passed with only Democrat support. Among the legislation garnering bipartisan support were the Infrastructure Bill and the Gay Marriage Bill – two pieces of legislation that most Americans support.
I would argue that the bipartisan legislation is probably the best product produced by Congress. It meant that both sides of the sharp political divide enabled the best interests of the public to be served in the bipartisan bills.
Everyone – including President Biden – has sung the praise of bipartisanship and promised to work in that direction. But for the most part, they only engage in it when they do not have absolute powers.
There are a lot of legislative proposals that will not get passed. And for the most part, it is better if they do not. It is better for the nation when partisan legislation is defeated or delayed until a greater consensus can be achieved.
Yes, there will be many investigations. That has been increasing over the years. But a lot of legislation is going to get passed on a bipartisan basis. And that is a good thing.
So, there ‘tis.