Bi-partisanship in the USA

It is often said that the US Congress has entered a period of hyper partisanship whereby members of each political party refuse to accept anything being proposed by the other. Whilst this has been true in the recent past, more recently both houses of Congress have in fact found much common ground to help in the passage of some significant pieces of legislation.

Last week, the House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed a bi-partisan tax bill that would see $78billion provided in child tax credits and business tax benefits. The vote in the House was 357 to 70 with 188 Democrats and 169 Republicans voting in favour. Quite the surprise to see an almost equal level of support from both parties.

During the Biden Presidency there has also been significant bi-partisan legislation in the shape of:

• The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act
• Safer Communities Act – Passed with unanimous consent in the Senate
• The Respect for Marriage Act
• Bi-Partisan Pact Act – which aimed to provide better support for veterans

These measures demonstrated that bi-partisan legislation could be passed. Why the change? A number of factors have been important here, but the most important have been:

1. The Democratic leadership has been effective at ensuring all Democrats vote in favour of the legislation. Particularly, this has been the case in the Senate, where the Democrat leader Chuck Schumer has had to ensure that the more conservative Democrats, most obviously Joe Manchin III, voted with the party.
2. The Republican Party has also shown a renewed determination to get legislation passed. During the Presidency of Barack Obama, the Republican Party opposed everything that was put before them, so this is quite a significant change. Of the major pieces of bi-partisan legislations, only 5 Republican Senators did not vote on any and even the Republican leader in the Senate, Mitch McConnell voted with Democrats on 5 bills.
3. The final factor is Joe Biden. Biden has used his 36 years experience in the Senate, and 8 years Vice President to help smooth the passage of legislation. Biden knows how the legislative system works and has been willing to make deals and to compromise to ensure it gets passed. The Bi-Partisan Tax Bill is a classic example of this. To the Democrats the bill offers an extension of child tax credits, to the Republicans it offers tax relief for business. Both sides can feel that the legislation suits them. It is this sort of compromise that helps to ensure that bills become law.

So whilst Congress may not be passing as much bi-partisan legislation as they may have done in the 1960s and 70s it would be wrong to say we are in an era of hyper partisanship, there are deals to be done to help bills become law.