In Defense of Partisanship

Steve Sheffey — January 7, 2009 – 9:23 pm | Democrats | Election 2008 | Foreign Policy | GOP Hypocrisies | Iran | Israel Comments (0) Add a comment

In Defense of Partisanship

In our district,, we vote the person, not the party.”  So said Rep. Mark Kirk (R-IL) in his successful bid for re-election in a Democratic-leaning district. Kirk attempted to brand himself as an independent moderate above the partisan fray, going so far as to omit his Republican affiliation from yard signs and bumper stickers. Kirk thus convinced Illinois’ Tenth Congressional district voters to elect a Republican at the same time they were voting for Barack Obama and Sen. Richard Durbin (D-IL) by margins of approximately 61% and 68%.

But as Stanley Fish points out, “voting the person rather than the party is about the dumbest thing you can do.  Voting the person, however attractive or impressive he or she may be, could very well get you four years of policies you detest. In other words, policy differences are party differences, and it is hard to see how you could be a responsible voter if you held your nose at a whiff of party politics.”  Calling oneself an independent is a nice feel-good affirmation, but we live in a two-party system where partisan politics is the only politics that matters.  On January  6, 2009, Kirk cast his first and most important vote of the new Congress: to elect John Boehner (R-Ohio) Speaker of the House of Representatives.  Kirk ran as a social moderate, a pro-choice, pro-environment, pro-gun control reformer. Yet he voted for Boehner. Boehner received zero ratings from NARAL Pro-Choice America, Planned Parenthood, the American Civil Liberties Union, and the League of Conservation Voters. The National Education Association gave Boehner an F. The National Right to Life Committee gave Boehner a rating of 100, the Gun Owners of America gave Boehner a rating of 100, and the National Rifle Association gave Boehner a rating of A.  That’s the agenda Kirk voted for when he voted to elect Boehner Speaker of the House.

Either Kirk supports Boehner’s agenda or Kirk didn’t have the guts to break with his party to support what supposedly is his own agenda. Is it unreasonable to expect a Republican Congressman to oppose the Republican running for Speaker of the House? Well, yes. That’s why party labels matter. Voters who ignore party affiliation are as blind as those who vote solely based on party affiliation. The Washington Post compiled the percentage of votes on which lawmakers agreed with the position taken by a majority of his or her party members.  The party voting average for all members of the House of Representatives in the 110th Congress was 89.4%.  Only five members of Congress voted with their party less than eight out of ten times (Kirk was not among that five), and the most “independent” member of Congress, Rep. Wayne Gilchrest (R-MD), still voted with his party 74.7% of the time. In the 110th Congress, with the Democrats in control, 18 of the 20 most independent members were Republicans, but in the 109th Congress, with the Republicans in control, 15 of the 20 most independent members were Democrats.  The most party-line members of Congress were primarily Republicans when Republicans controlled the House, and Democrats when Democrats controlled the House. When party discipline matters, the party will enforce it, and party discipline generally matters more to the party in power. (Our friend Mr. Kirk, who bragged about being the eighth most independent member of Congress in the 110th Congress, when he “only” voted with his party slightly more than eight out of every 10 times, was number 62 in the Republican-controlled 109th Congress, voting with his party nearly nine out of every 10 times.)

Can anyone seriously argue that there is little difference between the agendas of John Boehner and Nancy Pelosi? If not, it is equally facetious to argue that party labels don’t matter or that party affiliation should not be considered when voting. Too many ideological organizations, who claim to want friends on both sides of the aisle, don’t get it either. There are some issues—support for Israel is one example—where there is little difference between the parties, and where it therefore does make sense for single-issue pro-Israel organizations to support candidates in both parties. But on many issues, including reproductive choice and the environment, the parties strongly differ. Yet in a misguided attempt to appear non-partisan, certain groups go out of their way to find supportive Republicans, ignoring the reality that every Republican will vote to elect Boehner Speaker of the House and vote with their fellow Republicans the vast majority of the time, a result that could not be more harmful to the causes these groups support.

There is nothing wrong with uniting behind the one party that supports your beliefs. By supporting “good” Republicans, these groups hurt their own cause by empowering a political party whose agenda is not theirs. A more effective and intellectually honest approach would oppose candidates who join parties that are ideologically opposed to the positions taken by the advocacy group. If you care about stem cell research, reproductive choice, separation of church and state, the environment, it does not make sense to support candidates whose election will empower the Republican party.

Israel is one of the few issues on which both parties agree. Ironically (or cynically, or hypocritically—take your pick), Republican Jews have attempted to turn Israel into a partisan issue precisely because it is the only issue with which Republicans can hope to appeal to the vast majority of Jews. They warned of dire consequences for Israel should the Democrats gain control of Congress, yet the Democrats did regain control of Congress in 2006, and the result was a very pro-Israel Congress. 

There are major differences between the parties, but Israel is not one of them.  That’s why Republicans continue to fare poorly among Jews. Democrats and Republicans tend to agree on Israel, but much of the rest of the Republican agenda is anathema to most Jews. That’s not to say the Republican record is as strong as the Democratic record even on Israel.  Foreign aid to Israel is the centerpiece of the pro-Israel agenda, yet in June 2007, 80% of House Republicans not only voted against the foreign aid bill—without  making an exception for Israel—but 80% also voted to slash foreign aid by 10%, again without exception for Israel.  The pro-Israel community has historically opposed arms sales to countries hostile to Israel, yet former President Bush (finally, FORMER President Bush) pushed the sale of sophisticated arms to Saudi Arabia, an anti-Semitic medieval theocracy whose stability and legitimacy are on par with Sylvania and Freedonia. 

Bush gave Hamas a legitimacy it could have never earned on its own by pressuring Israel to allow Hamas to participate in Gaza elections, ignoring warnings from both Israel and the Palestinian Authority that Hamas would win. Iran is the single biggest threat to Israel, yet in eight years, Bush took no military action against Iran, he failed to rally the international community to impose tough sanctions on Iran, he destroyed Iran’s natural enemy (Iraq), and he refused to talk to Iran. Consequently, Iran is now on the verge of acquiring nuclear weapons. Imagine what those urging Jews to vote Republican would have done had the Democrats recently opposed foreign aid to Israel, advocated arms sales to Saudi Arabia, put Hamas in power, and failed to halt Iran’s nuclear arms program.

Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz is right: “I would stack up the Democratic caucus’s position on the support for Israel against the Republican caucus’s any day of the week and be much more confident — and the Jewish community should be much more confident — in the Democrats’ stewardship of Israel than the Republicans, especially if you compare the underlying reasons for both groups’ support for Israel. The very far right group of Republicans’ interest in Israel is not because they are so supportive of there being a Jewish state and making sure that Jews have a place that we can call home. It has references to Armageddon and biblical references that are more their interest. So I would encourage members of the Jewish community to put their faith in Democrats, because our support for Israel is generally for the right reasons.”

Groucho Marx said that he would not join any club that would have him as a member, but I’m not sure the Republicans even want us. Would you join a club whose steadily dwindling membership had 178 members, none of whom was African-American and only one of whom was Jewish? If you would, then the House Republican Caucus is for you. But I’m proud to be a Democrat, and I see no reason to vote against myself by looking for reasons to support Republicans.  But make no mistake: Republican leadership is generally supportive of Israel.

Some people who voted for Obama voted for Mark Kirk because they were concerned about one-party rule. But if you agree with Obama, why would you want to block progress by empowering a party diametrically opposed to what Obama stands for? James Madison explained in Federalist No. 51 that checks and balances refer to the institutional differences between the House and the Senate, as well as the division of power between the three branches of government: Executive. Legislative, and Judicial. The idea is that competing interests will check and balance each other, not that voters will deliberately vote against their own interests to create gridlock.

This does not mean that I’ll vote for any Democrat over any Republican—I voted for the aforementioned Mark Kirk in 2004 when I found his Democratic opponent unpalatable. But in 2004, I voted against the Democrat because, in my view, the Democrat was not true to the values of the Democratic party, as he was not sufficiently strong on Israel. In effect, Mark Kirk was truer to Democratic values than his Democratic opponent in that election. But to support a Republican over a Democrat who is a real Democrat is madness if you believe in the values of the Democratic party.

I am not advocating mindlessly supporting one party’s positions over the other, or condoning behavior from one party that you would note excuse in the other party. Neither party is correct on every issue. There are some people who would vote to have the garbage picked up on Tuesday solely because they knew the Republicans supported Monday pick up, and would switch positions if the party’s switched positions. That kind of stupidity is what gives genuine partisanship a bad name.

The kind of partisanship I’m advocating means standing up not only for your beliefs, but for those who share your beliefs. Rather than apologizing for supporting one party over another, we should point out that “independence” too often means independence from rational thought and an understanding of one’s own interests. There are major differences between the parties. Party labels matter, and a candidate’s party affiliation is itself a position that intelligent voters should consider. Voters should hold their elected representatives accountable for the party those representatives have chosen to affiliate with, and if that’s what you mean by partisanship, I’m all for it.

Comments

There are no comments for this entry