Bipartisanship

“ I think it's a healthy sign of bipartisanship. I think it's a healthy sign that a Republican President is going to work with and listen to people from across America's political spectrum, not all of whom voted for him. ”

“ What do you think you're going to have to do to get more bipartisanship? Are you going to need a new legislative model, bringing in Republicans from the very beginning, getting more involved in the details yourself from the beginning, or using bipartisan commissions? What has this experience with the stimulus led you to think about when you think about these future challenges?
OBAMA: Well, as I said before, Mara, I think that old habits are hard to break. And we're coming off of an election and I think people want to sort of test the limits of what they can get. ”

“ What's most important is for the power of the President's ideas, the issues on which he ran, to be enacted into law. And what creates bipartisanship in the first instance is those ideas. You can work the phones, you can be as cordial and cooperative as you want to be, and often that is reciprocated by Democrats on the Hill. But if your ideas aren't bipartisan, it's hard to get bipartisan support. The President's ideas are powerful, and that's why they're attracting bipartisan support. Hence, the vote in the House to abolish the death tax ”

“ Who he is, is shaped by a variety of factors, and that's his background as a governor, it's his faith, it's his experience in working with Democrats and Republicans to bring about bipartisanship -- all factors go into one man's approach. You cannot separate a man's background from his approach. But it is a very complicated and nuanced decision, and it's something the President is approaching in a very thoughtful and deliberative fashion. ”

“ Today the President and Kathleen Sebelius both mentioned bipartisanship on the health care -- on health care work. But in the event -- and with the stimulus, both parties had the basic idea that money needed to be spent, taxes needed to be cut to stimulate the economy. On health care, it seems that the parties are fundamentally at odds, that the Republicans are still pressing for a much more market-based approach, not a government-organized health care system. So how do you get bipartisanship on health care? ”

“ It should not be treated or seen as a partisan issue. It should be seen as an issue of how to fill an American government. Q -- to perhaps build bipartisanship with Senator Daschle, and to try to make sure that at least the folks on his side aren't -- MR. FLEISCHER: There's no question this is an opportunity for the Senate to speak in a bipartisan voice. These are nominations made by a Republican President that need to be approved by a Democrat Senate. And it has been the tradition of the Senate that regardless of who is in the White House, a President is entitled to put his people in place. ”

“ It's what he did in Texas and, frankly, if it's a question of should Washington act more like Texas and be bipartisan or should state capitals around the nation be more partisan like Washington, the President will choose the path of bipartisanship every time. Q Particularly in the Senate, in the Senate, especially, does he think the right Democrats at least showed up today? MR. FLEISCHER: He thinks all Democrats are the right Democrats. ”

“ Any solution to avoid default must be bipartisan. It must have the support of both parties that were sent here to represent the American people – not just one faction of one party. There are multiple ways to resolve this problem. Congress must find common ground on a plan that can get support from both parties in the House. ”

“ Madam Speaker, on a day like today, when a mob has stormed the Capitol and some Members are threatening the core of our democracy, it can be hard to tell whether, for American democracy, the sun is rising or setting. But I maintain my faith, that with an overwhelming bipartisan majority in Congress, we will uphold the will of the people and our democracy will live. ”

“ I believe such a proposal could pass both houses with bipartisan majorities as long as those leaders allow it to actually come to a vote. If members of the House or the Senate want to vote no, they can –- but we should let everybody vote. ”

“ I had hoped that it was possible to secure a nonpartisan inquiry by means of a commission into evils the existence of which is known to all, and that out of this might grow legislation from which all thought of partisan advantage should be eliminated and only the higher thought appear of maintaining the freedom and purity of the ballot and the equality of the elector, without the guaranty of which the Government could never have been formed and without the continuance of which it can not continue to exist in peace and prosperity. ”

“ The first solid and effective achievement in the list is the direct gain of the Populists in their representation in the Congress of the United States. This means something. They must have Senators and Representatives if they are ever going to shape the legislation of the country; and until they can legislate, or muster sufficient strength at the Capitol to force legislation agreeable to their ideas of public policy, they have accomplished nothing. Now they turn up with five Senators, as they believe, and with at least ten Representatives, as they have reason to be certain. ”

“ There, although the majority is frequently simply conglomerate, made up of factions not a few, and bearing in its elements every seed of discord, the harmony of party voting seldom, if ever, suffers an interruption. So far as outsiders can see, legislation generally flows placidly on, and the majority easily has its own way, acting with a sort of matter-of-course unanimity, with no suspicion of individual freedom of action. Whatever revolts may be threatened or accomplished in the ranks of the party outside the House at the polls, its power is never broken inside the House. ”

“ And it so happens, that four only of the largest will have a majority of the whole votes in the House of Representatives. Should the Representatives or People, therefore, of the smaller States, oppose at any time a reasonable addition of members, a coalition of a very few States will be sufficient to overrule the opposition; a coalition, which, notwithstanding the rivalship and local prejudices which might prevent it on ordinary occasions, would not fail to take place, when not merely prompted by common interest, but justified by equity and the principles of the Constitution. ”

“ From constable up to President [runs his final clause] there is no office for which the two great parties cannot furnish able, clean, and acceptable men. Whenever the balance of power shall be lodged in a permanent third party, with no candidate of its own and no function but to cast its whole vote for the best man put forward by the Republicans and Democrats, these two parties will select the best man they have in their ranks. Good and clean government will follow, let its party complexion be what it may, and the country will be quite content. ”

“ On one side it is conceded that the States may, under the Constitution, exclude citizens counted by the million from the body politic, and practise the tyranny of taxation without representation, provided, on the other side, there is a corresponding diminution of representative power in the lower House of Congress, without, however, touching the representative power in the Senate. The glaring feature of this compromise is the criminal concession, constituting the sacrifice of brave defenders, and even of a whole race, to whom we owe protection. ”

“ It will furnish an opportunity to the independents and the party men to deal fairly with each other. If you and your friends, as Republicans, want the support of the independents, you ought not to be left in doubt as to the things which will secure and those which would repel that support. I notice here and there statements in the newspapers assuming that a nomination of this or that character would command the whole vote of the independent friends of reform, some of which assumptions I have good reason to think erroneous. ”

“ We are a system that enacts laws on the basis of a majority signed by the President; that will always be our goal. Some issues will lend themselves to 51 percent vote; some issues will lend themselves to votes of a bigger margin. Q Ari, does the President see the Ashcroft vote as his first test of this effort on his part to reach out and create a bipartisan atmosphere? You're going to have almost 40 Democrats voting against a former colleague even amidst all this conspicuous outreach from the White House to be bipartisan. ”

“ It is not at all unusual to have a divided Congress. It is not at all unusual for one or both Houses of Congress to be under the control of a party other than the President’s own political party. Yet it has never been the case and can never be the case if there is somehow an exception to the Constitution, if there is somehow an exception to article I’s provision that all legislative powers granted by the Constitution shall be vested in a Congress consisting of a Senate and of a House of Representatives. ”

“ And there is historic evidence that it is possible to take a number of paths — including through reconciliation, if that’s the path that is pursued — and for the vote to be bipartisan.But it’s important to him that he hears his group out on their concerns, on their ideas. ”

“ Let’s make sure people who bundle campaign contributions for Congress can’t lobby Congress, and vice versa, an idea that has bipartisan support, at least outside of Washington.
Some of what’s broken has to do with the way Congress does its business these days. A simple majority is no longer enough to get anything, even routine business, passed through the Senate. ”

“ I am willing, tonight, in an overwhelming way, to take a small step, in a bipartisan way, to start restoring that trust of our people and, hopefully, the billions of people around the world who believe in that notion of American democracy. ”

“ There ought to be some power given to the Senate to counteract the influence of the people by their biennial representation in the other house, in order to preserve completely the sovereignty of the states. If the people, through the medium of their representatives, possessed a share in making treaties and appointing officers, would there not be a greater balance of power in the House of Representatives than such a government ought to possess? It is true that it would be very improper if the Senate had authority to prevent the House of Representatives from protecting the people. ”

“ Republican and Democratic Senators and Representatives, believing alike on broad measures affecting the whole Republic, find it hard to vote together because of the nominal difference of their party membership. When, sometimes, under resistless conviction, they do vote together, we have this foolish spectacle: legislators calling themselves Republicans and Democrats support the same policy, the Democratic legislators declaring that that policy is Democratic and Republican legislators declaring that it is Republican ”

“ If the principle insisted on be sound, then the Constitution should be so changed that no bill shall become a law unless it is voted for by members representing in each House a majority of the whole people of the United States. We must remodel our whole system, strike down and abolish not only the salutary checks lodged in the executive branch, but must strike out and abolish those lodged in the Senate also, and thus practically invest the whole power of the Government in a majority of a single assembly—a majority uncontrolled and absolute, and which may become despotic. ”

“ In promoting this legislation, it was [Pg 230] argued that, if citizens were assured the right to be enrolled in the party to which they desired to belong and to vote at primaries and freely to exercise their choice for delegates to conventions, they would be stimulated to take part in the primaries, and that this would result in preventing party nominations for office from being controlled by those who made politics their business or used improper or corrupt methods. Hence the primary reform measures introduced by legislation in our state in the nineties. ”

“ The right of a citizen to equal representation and to have his vote weighted equally with those of all other citizens in the election of members of one house of a bicameral state legislature would amount to little if States could effectively submerge the equal population principle in the apportionment of seats in the other house. ”

“ Choosing administrative officials by majority vote, and the election of judges for short terms by the same method, are absurdities of a system fast falling into chaos. The maintenance of a bi-cameral legislative organization, with the choosing of the members of both houses by the same electorate is in the same class, a perfectly irrational anomaly which violates the first principles of logic and leads only to legislative incompetence, and worse. ”

“ For as no act of Congress could become a law without the assent of the chief magistrates representing both sections, each, in the elections, would choose the candidate, who, in addition to being faithful to its interests, would best command the esteem and confidence of the other section. And thus, the presidential election, instead of dividing the Union into hostile geographical parties, the stronger struggling to enlarge its powers, and the weaker to defend its rights — as is now the case — would become the means of restoring harmony and concord to the country and the government. ”

“ It will not be the suspected action of a strictly partisan returning-board alone; it will not be the assumption and exercise of questionable power by the President of the Senate alone,—it will be all these things together by which a party decided a Presidential election in its favor. Imagine such doings to stand as a precedent in our history, and then an unscrupulous set of politicians bound to maintain themselves in power, to find such a precedent, and then to improve upon it—where will be the limit of arbitrary proceedings? What will become of our Presidential elections? ”