01/26/11: Hands across the aisle

This op-ed appeared in The Virginian-Pilot on the date shown.

“POLITICS MAKES strange bedfellows,” the writer Charles Dudley Warner once noted. We’ve witnessed a bit of that behavior recently.

Last week, a press conference was held by Virginia Del. Bob Marshall, a Republican from Prince William, and Sen. Donald McEachin, a Democrat from Henrico. The two men couldn’t be more different: one is a strong conservative, the other a strong progressive. Yet they and others stood in solidarity on legislation to ease the burden of foreclosures.

Another issue that brings together legislators from both sides of the aisle is payday lending. Implemented in Virginia in 2002, its opponents include Del. Glenn Oder, a Newport News Republican, and Sen. Mamie Locke, a Hampton Democrat. Both introduced legislation this session that would limit the interest charged on these loans to double digits, rather than the triple-digit rates they currently carry.

U.S. Sens. Mark Warner, a Virginia Democrat, and Saxby Chambliss, a Georgia Republican, intend to introduce legislation to reduce the deficit. The proposal puts everything on the table, including Social Security and Medicare, defense spending and tax increases. The center-left Warner and center-right Chambliss agreed to sit together last night at the State of the Union address.

With these and numerous other instances of legislators working together, what we are witnessing is governing. Our elected representatives are trying to work together to make the best decisions possible for all of us. It is, after all, what we elected them to do.

Unlike politics, which is about attaining and maintaining power, governance is about getting things done. Governance requires a different set of skills, foremost among them leadership.

When elected representatives set aside politics, they are demonstrating leadership. “Leadership,” broadcast pioneer Donald H. McGannon said, “is action, not position.” Not all elected representatives are leaders, but few would argue that Marshall, McEachin, Oder, Locke, Warner and Chambliss are not leaders.

With elections every year in Virginia, it can be difficult to separate politics from governing. In fact, I think our election cycle is a barrier to good governance, both for the elected and the citizens.

While the budget and redistricting are top issues for the General Assembly this year, the docket is chock-full of “brochure bills,” legislation that has no chance of passing but with which the candidates for this fall’s elections can rightfully claim they introduced. Those bills go through the same process as the others, wasting valuable time in a short 45-day legislative session.

Citizens, an important element in the governing process, get the short stick. Trying to wade through the numerous bills that are filed is difficult and time-consuming. Going back to verify a claim on a piece of campaign literature that an opponent voted a certain way on a given bill is generally asking too much. Much easier is simply taking the shortcut of relying on the word of others, which is often guided by politics.

It seems, though, that some citizens are looking beyond politics and actually taking governance seriously. There is an e-mail making the rounds that I’ve received from a number of people. Titled “Congressional Reform Act of 2011,” it proposes term limits of 12 years, that congressmen receive no pensions, that they participate in Social Security, receive pay raises of the lower of the Consumer Price Index or 3 percent, that they participate in the same health care system as the American people and that they abide by all the laws imposed on the rest of us. That I’ve received the e-mail from both Republican and Democratic senders is not lost on me.

Perhaps Charles Dudley Warner was wrong. It is not politics that makes strange bedfellows. Instead, it is governance that gives us that impression. And, truthfully, doing the people’s business — which is what we elected them to do — isn’t strange at all.