Masket: Is bipartisanship worth more than federal spending? Not to voters looking for economic recovery.

Masket: Is bipartisanship worth more than federal spending? Not to voters looking for economic recovery. 

By SETH MASKET | Columnist for The Denver Post

PUBLISHED: February 4, 2021 at 10:22 a.m. | UPDATED: February 4, 2021 at 10:23 a.m.

Alex Wong, Getty Images

President Joe Biden called for unity in his inaugural address. Many politicians and political observers have interpreted this as a commitment to bipartisanship, chastising Biden for starting off his term in a partisan manner. Indeed, on the subject of COVID-relief, Biden has been presented with a choice of pushing ahead with a large $1.9 trillion relief package backed solely by congressional Democrats, or by embracing a much smaller GOP relief package branded as bipartisan that has the chance of bringing some Republicans on board.

All this raises an important question: What exactly is bipartisanship? Does it mean legislation that both parties back? Bills that borrow ideas from both parties regardless of who ends up voting for it? An effort to woo members of both parties regardless of the outcome? If Biden isn’t behaving in a bipartisan manner, what should he be doing?

Whatever bipartisanship is, Biden seems to come by it honestly. He counts senators of both parties as close friends and allies from his first days in the Senate. As Barack Obama’s running mate in 2008, Biden made a point to cite John McCain as a dear friend even while campaigning against him. Perhaps Biden’s roughest moment during the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination campaign was describing his close friendships and working relationships with southern segregationist senators, for which his then-competitor Kamala Harris excoriated him.

But the Congress into which Biden was first elected in 1970 was one of the least polarized in American history; today’s is one of the most polarized. Working with members across party lines was simply a lot easier back then — a moderate Democrat like Biden could find a good many Republicans who were closer to him ideologically than several Democrats. Today that’s no longer the case; the parties are sharply divided into ideological camps. Working with people across party lines involves significant changes in policy, to the point that your own party might punish you for doing it.

These alternatives are particularly stark when it comes to a spending bill like the one on COVID-19 relief. The Democratic bill would be one of the largest spending measures in American history, designed to assist those who have lost income or housing due to the coronavirus, to fund efforts to mitigate the virus, and to stimulate a flagging economy.

As a rule, Americans don’t notice much of what Congress does. But massive spending influxes make a difference. As political science studies demonstrate, voters tend to reward members of Congress (especially Democrats) who bring home federal spending in their districts. Increases in people’s disposable income tend to make the incumbent more popular and help the party in upcoming elections. Even if people don’t directly associate the increased money in their pocket with Biden and Democrats, they just generally become less upset with the government and the majority party.

Just thinking in terms of political gain, this would suggest Biden and his Democratic allies should push for the largest relief package they believe they can pass. But what of the other side? Is there a political payoff for reaching out to Republicans, for coming up with a compromise package somewhere between the $1.9 trillion Democrats have proposed and the $600 billion Republicans have offered?

There are undoubtedly some Beltway pundits who value bipartisanship for its own sake and would applaud such a move. Bipartisan buy-in on a large bill also affords the administration some political cover if things go wrong, such as if the economic recovery fails or if evidence of misappropriated funds crops up. And it’s possible that a gesture toward the Republicans on this bill could engender some goodwill on future pieces of legislation.

Yet it is also distinctly possible that Republicans will insist on this and further concessions, and none of them will end up voting for it. That’s roughly what happened with Barack Obama on the Affordable Care Act. Obama was governing with much larger Democratic majorities than Biden now has, but he made a point of soliciting ideas and buy-in from congressional Republicans. He knew the bill affected a substantial portion of the economy, that it was complex and would affect millions of lives, and he wanted some bipartisan cover for it. Republicans made demands, some of which were accommodated, but ultimately gave it no votes. And it quickly became one of the most polarizing issues of the last decade.

Bipartisanship is sometimes seen as the right way to make legislative change in Washington, based on hazy memories of a more pragmatic time. But if there was more bipartisanship in previous decades, that was because there had to be to pass legislation. The parties were too ideologically diverse to pass important bills on their own.

One of the most important congressional bills of the mid-20th century was the Civil Rights Act of 1964. This was a priority of the then-new President Lyndon Johnson, who was popular and whose fellow Democrats enjoyed a 258-176 majority in the House of Representatives. But Democratic leaders needed Republicans to make the Civil Rights Act a reality, not because they valued bipartisanship for its own sake, but because white southern Democrats were the bill’s fiercest opponents. That Congress was sharply polarized on civil rights, but the division didn’t fall along party lines. Today, as political scientist Hans Noel notes, those kinds of divisions are partisan ones.

All this means that substantial policy changes just aren’t likely to be bipartisan these days. If something is worth doing, it’s worth fighting over, and the parties tend to stake out very different directions. Bipartisanship may have some sentimental value, but it tends not to be a great way to make important changes, and voters care about it far less than they care about their finances and their health.

Seth Masket is a professor of political science and director of the Center on American Politics at the University of Denver. He is the author of Learning from Loss: The Democrats 2016-2020.

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