Opinion | 100 Days of Big, Bold, Partisan Change – The New York Times

I am not suggesting that partisan governance will never lead to the repeal of valuable legislation. But theres little in recent history to support the view that political parties will undo everything their predecessors did. Sharp swings are likelier to happen when congressional gridlock pushes policymaking into executive orders which is true now. After legislation to protect Dreamers fell to a filibuster in the Senate, President Barack Obama turned to an executive order. President Donald Trump then reversed that order, and then President Biden reversed Trumps reversal. If the Dream Act which passed the House and got 55 Senate votes had been made law in 2010, I think it would have had a better shot at surviving the Trump era intact.

If anything, past legislation in America is too stable. More old policy should be revisited, and if its not working, uprooted or overhauled. Theres nothing wrong with one party passing a bill that the next party repeals. That gives voters information they can use to decide who to vote for in the future. If a party repeals a popular bill, it will pay an electoral price. If it repeals an unpopular bill, or replace it with something better, itll prosper. Thats the way the system should work.

We are a divided country, but one way we could become less divided is for the consequences of elections to be clearer. When legislation is so hard to pass, politics becomes a battle over identity rather than a battle over policy. Dont get me wrong: Fights over policy can be angry, even vicious. But they can also lead to changed minds as in the winning coalition Democrats built atop the successes of the New Deal or changed parties, as savvy politicians learn to accept the successes of the other side. There is a reason Republicans no longer try to repeal Medicare and Democrats shrink from raising taxes on the middle class.

This is what Manchin gets wrong: A world of partisan governance is a world in which Republicans and Democrats both get to pass their best ideas into law, and the public judges them on the results. That is far better than what we have now, where neither party can routinely pass its best ideas into law, and the public is left frustrated that so much political tumult changes so little.

This whole debate is peculiarly American. In parliamentary systems, the job of the majority party, or majority coalition, is to govern, and the job of the opposition party is to oppose. Cooperation can and does occur, but theres nothing unusual or regrettable when it doesnt, and government does not grind to a halt in its absence. Not so in America, where the president can be from one party and Congress can be controlled by another. In raising bipartisanship to a high political ideal, we have made a virtue out of a necessity, but thats left us little recourse, either philosophically or legislatively, when polarization turns bipartisanship into a rarity. Thats where we are now.

The legislation Senate Democrats have passed and considered in their first 100 days is unusually promising precisely because it has been unusually partisan. They are considering ideas they actually think are right for the country and popular with voters as opposed to the narrow set of ideas Republicans might support. The question they will face in the coming months is whether they want to embrace partisan legislating, repeatedly using budget reconciliation and even ridding the Senate of the filibuster, or abandon their agenda and leave the rest of the countrys problems unsolved.

I can tell you this, I am going to do everything I can to get the biggest, boldest change we can, because I think the people I represent depend on it, Schumer told me. My party depends on it. But most of all, the future of my country depends on it.

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Opinion | 100 Days of Big, Bold, Partisan Change - The New York Times