Minding our manners - Bipartisan votes show America's new civility
by B. Meredith Burke
10/4/01 (Published 10/3/01 in the L.A. Daily News)
The American people have long regarded partisan politics as an obstruction to day-to-day government operations. Now it seems as if Congressional Republicans and Democrats may finally start working togetherthanks to September 11th's horrific events. Similarly, the Bush administration seems to be making a 180-degree turn in its willingness to work with the international community.
First the new-found bipartisanship achieved immediate passage of legislation responsive to the attacks: a $40 billion emergency spending bill, a resolution on the use of force, and a large bailout for the airline industry. Not to say this was easy. The Democrats wanted the airline bailout to include a measure to extend unemployment benefits and health insurance to the laid-off airline workers. The Republicans were unhappy with a provisions paring the airlines from liability.
House Democratic leader Richard A. Gephardt had to trust Speaker J. Dennis Hastert's promise that Congress would address the worker issue separately. Some of Gephardt's fellow Democrats did not share his trust in a Republican promise. But the bill passed after Mr. Hastert announced from the House floor that he would consider proposals to help the workers.
The need to mend our international fences while we rally other nations to our anti-terrorist agenda yielded other legislative surprises. For more than a decade the United States has been in partial arrears in its United Nations' dues. Indeed, we were the biggest debtor nation at the U.N. Congress sought reforms in how the U.N. managed money, in the U.S.'s share of dues for the U.N.'s administrative budget, and in the U.S.'s assessed share for peacekeeping operations. The U.N. has already agreed to some of these reforms.
Last February the Senate passed a bill to release $582 million in back dues, the bulk of the $819 million in arrears. But the legislation was bogged down in the House by majority whip Tom DeLay of Texas. He wanted assurances that American would be exempt from the jurisdiction of an International Criminal Court, a permanent tribunal now being created at the Hague. Last week Mr. DeLay withdrew his opposition, saying he did not want to hinder the president. On September 24th the House passed by voice vote legislation nearly identical to the Senate bill.
Meanwhile, the Senate had been bogged down in legislation that had already cleared the House. But on September 24th it, too, passed by voice vote legislation that would remove all trade barriers between the U.S. and Jordan. Senator Phil Gramm (R-TX) had blocked the bill for months due to a provision that commits the two nations to upholding workers' rights and environmental standards, a first for any full-scale trade agreement. Like many conservatives Mr. Gramm has long argued that international trade agreements are the wrong vehicles to address issues like pollution, labor, and workplace standards. But Mr. Gramm dropped his opposition after calls from Secretary of State Colin Powell and national security adviser Condoleeza Rice. The need to enlist Jordan as an ally to build Middle East support for military and other ant-terrorist action was persuasive.
Immediate rather than belabored passage of domestic legislation, the payment of U.N. dues, a precedent-setting workers' rights and environmental standards trade agreement: who would have predicted these a month ago? Psychologists have long known that the best way to get antagonists to stop demonizing each other is to put them on teams working towards a common goal. Forced by circumstances to do just that, Congress has tasted for the first time in many years a newfound civility and working relationships across party lines.
Soon Congress will refocus on a host of domestic issues still crying out for attention, including schooling and health care reform. Its members confront a choice: to stall legislation indefinitely over obdurate differences, or to craft workable compromises that will strengthen the social and political fabric that make this a country worth defending.
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The author, a demographer, is Senior Fellow, Californians for Population Stabilization (www.cap-s.org).